Although The Forests, The Rivers, And The Sea Supply Them
In A Great Measure With Their Food, It Is Upon The Reindeer
That The Laplander Is Dependent For Every Other Comfort
In Life.
The reindeer is his estate, his horse, his cow,
his companion, and friend.
He has twenty-two different
names for him. His coat, trousers, and shoes are made of
reindeer's skin, stitched with thread manufactured from
the nerves and sinews of the reindeer. Reindeer milk is
the most important item in his diet. Out of reindeer
horns are made almost all the utensils used in his domestic
economy; and it is the reindeer that carries his baggage,
and drags his sledge. But the beauty of this animal is
by no means on a par with his various moral and physical
endowments. His antlers, indeed, are magnificent, branching
back to the length of three or four feet; but his body
is poor, and his limbs thick and ungainly; neither is
his pace quite so rapid as is generally supposed. The
Laplanders count distances by the number of horizons they
have traversed; and if a reindeer changes the horizon
three times during the twenty-four hours, it is thought
a good day's work. Moreover, so just an appreciation has
the creature of what is due to his own great merit, that
if his owner seeks to tax him beyond his strength, he
not only becomes restive, but sometimes actually turns
upon the inconsiderate Jehu who has over-driven him.
When, therefore, a Lapp is in a great hurry, instead of
taking to his sledge, he puts on a pair of skates exactly
twice as long as his own body, and so flies on the wings
of the wind.
Every Laplander, however poor, has his dozen or two dozen
deer; and the flocks of a Lapp Croesus amount sometimes
to two thousand head. As soon as a young lady is born - after
having been duly rolled in the snow - she is dowered by
her father with a certain number of deer, which are
immediately branded with her initials, and thenceforth
kept apart as her especial property. In proportion as
they increase and multiply does her chance improve of
making a good match. Lapp courtships are conducted pretty
much in the same fashion as in other parts of the world.
The aspirant, as soon as he discovers that he has lost
his heart, goes off in search of a friend and a bottle
of brandy. The friend enters the tent, and opens
simultaneously - the brandy - and his business; while the
lover remains outside, engaged in hewing wood, or some
other menial employment. If, after the brandy and the
proposal have been duly discussed, the eloquence of his
friend prevails, he is himself called into the conclave,
and the young people are allowed to rub noses. The bride
then accepts from her suitor a present of a reindeer's
tongue, and the espousals are considered concluded. The
marriage does not take place for two or three years
afterwards; and during the interval the intended is
obliged to labour in the service of his father-in-law,
as diligently as Jacob served Laban for the sake of his
long-loved Rachel.
I cannot better conclude this summary of what I have been
able to learn about the honest Lapps, than by sending
you the tourist's stock specimen of a Lapp love-ditty.
The author is supposed to be hastening in his sledge
towards the home of his adored one: -
"Hasten, Kulnasatz! my little reindeer! long is the way,
and boundless are the marshes. Swift are we, and light
of foot, and soon we shall have come to whither we are
speeding. There shall I behold my fair one pacing.
Kulnasatz, my reindeer, look forth! look around! Dost
thou not see her somewhere - BATHING?"
As soon as we had thoroughly looked over the Lapp lady
and her companions, a process to which they submitted
with the greatest complacency, we proceeded to inspect
the other lions of the town; the church, the lazar-house, -
principally occupied by Lapps, - the stock fish
establishment, and the hotel. But a very few hours were
sufficient to exhaust the pleasures of Hammerfest; so
having bought an extra suit of jerseys for my people,
and laid in a supply of other necessaries, likely to be
useful in our cruise to Spitzbergen, we exchanged dinners
with the Consul, a transaction by which, I fear, he got
the worst of the bargain, and then got under way for this
place, - Alten.
The very day we left Hammerfest our hopes of being able
to get to Spitzbergen at all - received a tremendous shock.
We had just sat down to dinner, and I was helping the
Consul to fish, when in comes Wilson, his face, as usual,
upside down, and hisses something into the Doctor's ear.
Ever since the famous dialogue which had taken place
between them on the subject of sea-sickness, Wilson had
got to look upon Fitz as in some sort his legitimate
prey; and whenever the burden of his own misgivings became
greater than he could bear, it was to the Doctor that he
unbosomed himself. On this occasion, I guessed, by the
look of gloomy triumph in his eyes, that some great
calamity had occurred, and it turned out that the following
was the agreeable announcement he had been in such haste
to make: "Do you know, Sir?" - This was always the preface
to tidings unusually doleful. "No - what?" said the
Doctor, breathless. "Oh nothing, Sir; only two sloops
have just arrived, Sir, from Spitzbergen, Sir - where they
couldn't get, Sir; - such a precious lot of ice - two
hundred miles from the land-and, oh, Sir - they've come
back with all their bows stove in!" Now, immediately on
arriving at Hammerfest, my first care had been to inquire
how the ice was lying this year to the northward, and I
had certainly been told that the season was a very bad
one, and that most of the sloops that go every summer to
kill sea-horses (i.e., walrus) at Spitzbergen, being
unable to reach the land., had returned empty-handed;
but as three weeks of better weather had intervened since
their discomfiture, I had quite reassured myself with
the hope, that in the meantime the advance of the season
might have opened for us a passage to the island.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 50 of 78
Words from 50660 to 51729
of 79667
