the phonetics are different and more complicated. It is broken up into very distinct and even mutually unintelligible dialects, the origin of several of which is, however, easily found in the political and social dismemberment of the people. Düben distinguishes four leading dialects; but a much greater number are recognizable. In Russian Lapland alone there are three, due to the influence of Norwegian, Karelian and Russian (Lönnrot, Acta Soc. Sci. Fennicae, vol. iv.). “The Lapps,” says Castren, “have had the misfortune to come into close contact with foreign races while their language was yet in its tenderest infancy, and consequently it has not only adopted an endless number of foreign words, but in many grammatical aspects fashioned itself after foreign models.” That it began at a very early period to enrich itself with Scandinavian words is shown by the use it still makes of forms belonging to a linguistic stage older even than that of Icelandic. Düben Language.has subjected the vocabulary to a very interesting analysis for the purpose of discovering what stage of culture the people had reached before their contact with the Norse. Agricultural terms, the names of the metals and the word for smith are all of Scandinavian origin, and the words for “taming” and “milk” would suggest that the southern strangers taught the Lapps how to turn the reindeer to full account. The important place, however, which this creature must always have held in their estimation is evident from the existence of more than three hundred native words in connexion with reindeer.
The Lapp tongue was long ago reduced to writing by the missionaries; but very little has been printed in it except school-books and religious works. A number of popular tales and songs, indeed, have been taken down from the lips of the people. The songs are similar to those of the Finns, and a process of mutual borrowing seems to have gone on. In one of the saga-like pieces—Pishan-Peshan’s son—there seems to be a mention of the Baikal Lake, and possibly also of the Altai Mountains. The story of Njavvisena, daughter of the Sun, is full of quaint folk-lore about the taming of the reindeer. Giants, as well as a blind or one-eyed monster, are frequently introduced, and the Aesopic fable is not without its representatives. Many of the Lapps are able to speak one or even two of the neighbouring tongues.
The reputation of the Laplanders for skill in magic and divination is of very early date, and in Finland is not yet extinct. When Erik Blood-axe, son of Harold Haarfager, visited Bjarmaland in 922, he found Gunhild, daughter of Asur Tote, living among the Lapps, to whom she had been sent by her father for the purpose of being trained in witchcraft; and Ivan the Terrible of Russia sent for magicians from Lapland to explain the cause of the appearance of a comet. One of the powers with which they were formerly credited was that of raising winds. “They tye three knottes,” says old Richard Eden, “on a strynge hangyng at a whyp. When they lose one of these they rayse tollerable wynds. When they lose an other the wynde is more vehement; but by losing the thyrd they rayse playne tempestes as in old tyme they were accustomed to rayse thunder and lyghtnyng” (Hist. of Trauayle, 1577). Though we are familiar in English with allusions to “Lapland witches,” it appears that the art, according to native custom, was in the hands of the men. During his divination the wizard fell into a state of trance or ecstasy, his soul being held to run at large to pursue its Witchcraft.inquiries. Great use was made of a curious divining-drum, oval in shape and made of wood, 1 to 4 ft. in length. Over the upper surface was stretched a white-dressed reindeer skin, and at the corners (so to speak) hung a variety of charms—tufts of wool, bones, teeth, claws, &c. The area was divided into several spaces, often into three, one for the celestial gods, one for the terrestrial and one for man. A variety of figures and conventional signs were drawn in the several compartments: the sun, for instance, is frequently represented by a square and a stroke from each corner, Thor by two hammers placed crosswise; and in the more modern specimens symbols for Christ, the Virgin, and the Holy Ghost are introduced. An arpa or divining-rod was laid on a definite spot, the drum beaten by a hammer, and conclusions drawn from the position taken up by the arpa. Any Lapp who had attained to manhood could in ordinary circumstances consult the drum for himself, but in matters of unusual moment the professional wizard (naid, noide or noaide) had to be called in.
History.—The Lapps have a dim tradition that their ancestors lived in a far eastern land, and they tell rude stories of conflicts with Norsemen and Karelians. But no answer can be obtained from them in regard to their early distribution and movements. It has been maintained that they were formerly spread over the whole of the Scandinavian peninsula, and they have even been considered the remnants of that primeval race of cave-dwellers which hunted the reindeer over the snow-fields of central and western Europe. But much of the evidence adduced for these theories is highly questionable. The contents of the so-called Lapps’ graves found in various parts of Scandinavia are often sufficient in themselves to show that the appellation must be a misnomer, and the syllable Lap or Lapp found in many names of places can often be proved to have no connexion with the Lapps.[1] They occupied their present territory when they are first mentioned in history. According to Düben the name first occurs in the 13th century—in the Fundinn Noregr, composed about 1200, in Saxo Grammaticus, and in a papal bull of date 1230; but the people are probably to be identified with those Finns of Tacitus whom he describes as wild hunters with skins for clothing and rude huts as only means of shelter, and certainly with the Skrithiphinoi of Procopius (Goth. ii. 15), the Scritobini of Paulus Warnefridus, and the Scridifinni of the geographer of Ravenna. Some of the details given by Procopius, in regard for instance to the treatment of infants, show that his informant was acquainted with certain characteristic customs of the Lapps.
In the 9th century the Norsemen from Norway began to treat their feeble northern neighbours as a subject race. The wealth of Ottar, “northmost of the northmen,” whose narrative has been preserved by King Alfred, consisted mainly of six hundred of those “deer they call hrenas” and in tribute paid by the natives; and the Eigils saga tells how Brynjulf Bjargulfson had his right to collect contributions from the Finns (i.e. the Lapps) recognized by Harold Haarfager. So much value was attached to this source of wealth that as early as 1050 strangers were excluded from the fur-trade of Finmark, and a kind of coast-guard prevented their intrusion. Meantime the Karelians were pressing on the eastern Lapps, and in the course of the 11th century the rulers of Novgorod began to treat them as the Norsemen had treated their western brethren. The ground-swell of the Tatar invasion drove the Karelians westward in the 13th century, and for many years even Finmark was so unsettled that the Norsemen received no tribute from the Lapps. At length in 1326 a treaty was concluded between Norway and Russia by which the supremacy of the Norwegians over the Lapps was recognized as far east as Voljo beyond Kandalax on the White Sea, and the supremacy of the Russians over the Karelians as far as Lyngen and the Målself. The relations of the Lapps to their more powerful neighbours were complicated by the rivalry of the different Scandinavian kingdoms. After the disruption of the Calmar Union (1523) Sweden began to assert its rights with vigour, and in 1595 the treaty of Teusina between Sweden and Russia decreed “that the Lapps who dwell in the woods between eastern Bothnia and Varanger shall pay their dues to the king of Sweden.” It was in vain that Christian IV. of Denmark visited Kola and exacted homage in 1599, and every year sent messengers to protest against the collection of his tribute by the Swedes (a custom which continued down to 1806). Charles of Sweden took the title of “king of the Kajans and Lapps,” and left no means untried to establish his power over all Scandinavian Lapland. By the peace of Knäröd (1613) Gustavus Adolphus gave up the Swedish claim to Finmark; and in 1751 mutual renunciations brought the relations of Swedish and Norwegian (Danish) Lapland to their present position. Meanwhile Russian influence had been spreading westward; and in 1809, when Alexander I. finally obtained the cession of Finland, he also added to his dominions the whole of Finnish Lapland to the east of the Muonio and the Köngämä. It may be interesting to mention that Lapps, armed with bows and arrows, were attached to certain regiments of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany during the Thirty Years’ War.
The Lapps have had the ordinary fate of a subject and defenceless people; they have been utilized with little regard to their own interest or inclinations. The example set by the early Norwegians was followed by the Swedes: a peculiar class of adventurers known as the Birkarlians (from Bjark or Birk, “trade”) began in the 13th century to farm the Lapps, and, receiving very extensive privileges from the kings, grew to great wealth and influence. In 1606 there were twenty-two Birkarlians in Tornio, seventeen in Lule, sixteen in Pite, and sixty-six in Ume Lappmark. They are regularly spoken of as having or owning Lapps, whom they dispose of as any other piece of property. In Russian Lapland matters followed much the same course. The very institutions of the Solovets monastery, intended by St Tryphon for the benefit of the poor neglected pagans, turned out the occasion of much injustice towards them. By a charter of Ivan Vasilivitch (November 1556), the monks are declared masters of the Lapps of the Motoff and Petchenga districts, and they soon sought to extend their control over those not legally assigned to them (Ephimenko). Other monasteries were gifted
- ↑ The view that the Lapps at one time occupied the whole of the Scandinavian peninsula, and have during the course of centuries been driven back by the Swedes and Norwegians is disproved by the recent investigations of Yngvar Nielsen, K. B. Wiklund and others. The fact is, the Lapps are increasing in numbers, as well as pushing their way farther and farther south. In the beginning of the 16th century their southern border-line in Norway ran on the upper side of 64° N. In 1890 they forced their way to the head of the Hardanger Fjord in 60° N. In Sweden the presence of Lapps as far south as Jämtland (or Jemtland) is first mentioned in 1564. In 1881 they pushed on into the north of Dalecarlia, about 61° 45′ N.
