"Nauruksi oli parasta asia muuttaa" - huumorin ja nauramisen merkitys kulttuurien välisissä kohtaamisissa Suomen Lapissa 1900-luvun alkupuolella.

This article examines the role of laughter and humour in transcultural encounters in Finnish Lapland during the early 20th century. The period was marked by political and cultural tensions that escalated, for example, into two world wars. In Lapland, the Sámi had to face racial prejudice, for example during the 1920s and 1930s. The sources used for the article are the Lapland memoirs of a Finnish teacher Hilja Vartiainen and a district nurse Saimi Lindroth and other such egodocuments dealing with the writers' experiences of cultural encounters. By studying laughter and humour it is also possible to study serious features of different societies. Humour and laughter have been forms of using power. It was possible for the Sámi to intervene in the course of events, for example in district court sessions, by laughing at the right place. Sometimes laughter was offensive and wounding from the Sámi point of view, for example in situations where Finnish visitors did not know the Sámi culture well enough. However, based on the source material, smiling and laughing have often managed to strengthen cohesion in transcultural encounters, especially in situations where visitors who tried to become acquainted with the Sámi culture dared to laugh at themselves. Laughing and humour eased many tensions of transcultural encounters in Finnish Lapland during the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, it increased people's well-being, as laughing itself was considered healthy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]