such places as Jokkmokk and Arjepluog, but even Gefle, Upsala
or Stockholm. About the beginning of May he is back at his
njalla, but as soon as the weather grows warm he pushes up to
the mountains, and there throughout the summer pastures
his herds and prepares his store of cheese. By autumn or
October he is busy at his njalla killing the surplus reindeer
bulls and curing meat for the winter. From the mountain
Lapp the forest (or, as he used to be called, the spruce-fir) Lapp
is mainly distinguished by the narrower limits within which
he pursues his nomadic life. He never wanders outside of a
certain district, in which he possesses hereditary rights, and
maintains a series of camping-grounds which he visits in regular
rotation. In May or April he lets his reindeer loose, to wander
as they please; but immediately after midsummer, when the
mosquitoes become troublesome, he goes to collect them.
Catching a single deer and belling it, he drives it through the
wood; the other deer, whose instinct leads them to gather
into herds for mutual protection against the mosquitoes, are
attracted by the sound. Should the summer be very cool and
the mosquitoes few, the Lapp finds it next to impossible to bring
the creatures together. About the end of August they are
again let loose, but they are once more collected in October,
the forest Lapp during winter pursuing the same course of life
as the mountain Lapp.
In Norway there are three classes—the sea Lapps, the river Lapps and the mountain Lapps, the first two settled, the third nomadic. The mountain Lapps have a rather ruder and harder life than the same class in Sweden. About Christmas those of Kautokeino and Karasjok are usually settled in the neighbourhood of the churches; in summer they visit the coast, and in autumn they return inland. Previous to 1852, when they were forbidden by imperial decree, they were wont in winter to move south across the Russian frontiers. It is seldom possible for them to remain more than three or four days in one spot. Flesh is their favourite, in winter almost their only food, though they also use reindeer milk, cheese and rye or barley cakes. The sea Lapps are in some respects hardly to be distinguished from the other coast dwellers of Finmark. Their food consists mainly of cooked fish. The river Lapps, many of whom, however, are descendants of Finns proper, breed cattle, attempt a little tillage and entrust their reindeer to the care of mountain Lapps.
In Finland there are comparatively few Laplanders, and the great bulk of them belong to the fisher class. Many are settled in the neighbourhood of the Enare Lake. In the spring they go down to the Norwegian coast and take part in the sea fisheries, returning to the lake about midsummer. Formerly they found the capture of wild reindeer a profitable occupation, using for this purpose a palisaded avenue gradually narrowing towards a pitfall.
The Russian Lapps are also for the most part fishers, as is natural in a district with such an extent of coast and such a number of lakes, not to mention the advantage which the fisher has over the reindeer keeper in connexion with the many fasts of the Greek Church. They maintain a half nomadic life, very few having become settlers in the Russian villages. It is usual to distinguish them according to the district of the coast which they frequent, as Murman (Murmanski) and Terian (Terski) Lapps. A separate tribe, the Filmans, i.e. Finnmans, wander about the Pazyets, Motov and Pechenga tundras, and retain the peculiar dialect and the Lutheran creed which they owe to a former connexion with Sweden. They were formerly known as the “twice and thrice tributary” Lapps, because they paid to two or even three states—Russia, Denmark and Sweden.
The Lapps within the historical period have considerably recruited themselves from neighbouring races. Shortness of stature[1] is their most obvious characteristic, though in regard to this much exaggeration has prevailed. Düben found an average of 4.9 ft. for males and a little less for females; Mantegazza, who made a number of anthropological observations in Norway in 1879, gives 5 ft. and 4.75 ft., respectively (Archivio per l’antrop., 1880). Individuals much above or much below the average are rare. The body is usually of fair proportions, but the legs are rather short, and in many cases somewhat bandy. Dark, swarthy, yellow, copper-coloured are all adjectives employed to describe their complexion—the truth being that their habits of life do not conduce either to the preservation or display of the natural colour of their skin, and that some of them are really fair, and others, perhaps the majority, really dark. The colour of the hair ranges from blonde and reddish to a bluish or greyish black; the eyes are black, hazel, blue or grey. The shape of the skull is the most striking peculiarity of the Lapp. He is the most brachycephalous type of man in Europe, perhaps in the world.[2] According to Virchow, the women in width of face are more Mongolian in type than the men, but neither in men nor women does the opening of the eye show any true obliquity. In children the eye is large, open and round. The nose is always low and broad, more markedly retroussé among the females than the males. Wrinkled and puckered by exposure to the weather, the faces even of the younger Lapps assume an appearance of old age. The muscular system is usually well developed, but there is deficiency of fatty tissue, which affects the features (particularly by giving relative prominence to the eyes) and the general character of the skin. The thinness of the skin, indeed, can but rarely be paralleled among other Europeans. Among the Lapps, as among other lower races, the index is shorter than the ring finger.
The Lapps are a quiet, inoffensive people. Crimes of violence are almost unknown, and the only common breach of law is the killing of tame reindeer belonging to other owners. In Russia, however, they have a bad reputation for lying and general untrustworthiness, and drunkenness is well-nigh a universal vice. In Scandinavia laws have been directed against the importation of intoxicating liquors into the Lapp country since 1723.
Superficially at least the great bulk of the Lapps have been Christianized—those of the Scandinavian countries being Protestants, those of Russia members of the Greek Church. Although the first attempt to convert the Lapps to Christianity seems to have been made in the 11th century, the worship of heathen idols was carried on openly in Swedish Lappmark as late as 1687, and secretly in Norway down to the first quarter of the 18th century, while the practices of heathen rites survived into the 19th century, if indeed they are extinct even yet. Lapp graves, prepared in the heathen manner, have been discovered in upper Namdal (Norway), belonging to the years 1820 and 1826. In education the Scandinavian Lapps are far ahead of their Russian brethren, to whom reading and writing are arts as unfamiliar as they were to their pagan ancestors. The general manner of life is patriarchal. The father of the family has complete authority over all its affairs; and on his death this authority passes to the eldest son. Parents are free to disinherit their children; and, if a son separates from the family without his father’s permission, he receives no share of the property except a gun and his wife’s dowry.[3]
The Lapps are of necessity conservative in most of their habits, many of which can hardly have altered since the first taming of the reindeer. But the strong current of mercantile enterprise has carried a few important products of southern civilization into their huts. The lines in which James Thomson describes their simple life—
The reindeer form their riches: these their tents, |
are still applicable in the main to the mountain Lapps; but even they have learned to use coffee as an ordinary beverage and to wear stout Norwegian cloth (vadmal).
Linguistically the Lapps belong to the Finno-Ugrian group (q.v.); the similarity of their speech to Finnish is evident though
- ↑ Hence they have been supposed by many to be the originals of the “little folk” of Scandinavian legend.
- ↑ Bertillon found in one instance a cephalic index of 94. The average obtained by Pruner Bey was 84.7, by Virchow 82.5.
- ↑ A valuable paper by Ephimenko, on “The Legal Customs of the Lapps, especially in Russian Lapland,” appeared in vol. viii. of the Mem. of Russ. Geog. Soc., Ethnog. Section, 1878.
