Notwithstanding the hard conditions of their life, and the dreariness of the region which they inhabit, the Eskimos are a cheerful people. They are keenly sensible of the charms of music, though their own vocalization is inconceivably melancholy; and they are partial to many rude pastimes, mostly of a gymnastic character.
Their good nature has been praised by many travellers; but they show the usual inhumanity of the savage towards the aged and infirm. Weakness is no title to the sympathy of the Eskimo; he respects strength, but he utterly disregards and cruelly oppresses the feeble. He is ungrateful towards his benefactors, and in his intercourse with strangers his fidelity can be relied upon only so long as he knows that any breach of faith will be severely punished. He does not steal from his own people, and “Tiglikpok,” “he is a thief,” is a reproach among the Eskimos as among ourselves; but no shame attaches to him if he robs the white man, though the latter may have loaded him with favours.
If we add that they display a strong affection for their children, and that the children are singularly docile and obedient to their parents, we shall have said enough to assist the reader in forming an accurate conception of the characteristics of the inhabitants of the Eskimo Land.
CHAPTER VIII.
LAPLAND AND THE LAPPS.
Lapland, or the Land of the Lapps, which the Lapps themselves call Sameanda or Somellada, forms the north and north-eastern portions of the Scandinavian peninsula, and is divided between Sweden and Russia. Norwegian Lapland includes the provinces of Norrland and Finmark; Swedish, of North and South Bothnia; and Russian, of Kola and Kemi. The last-named has an area of 11,300 square miles, with a population of 9000; Swedish Lapland, an area of 50,600 square miles, with 4000 inhabitants; and Norwegian, an area of 26,500 square miles, with a population of 5000. We are here referring to the number of true Lapps; in each division the population would be largely increased if we included Finns, Russians, Swedes, Norwegians.
Lapland, for nine months in the year, is blighted by the rigour of a winter climate. The summer months, when the sun does not set for several weeks, are July and August; and these are preceded by a brief spring, and followed by even a briefer autumn. Cereals do not thrive higher than the sixty-sixth parallel, with the exception of barley, which is cultivated as far north as the seventieth. The greater part of the country comes within that wooded zone which we described in an earlier chapter, and the forests, consisting of birch, pine, fir, and alder, spread over a very extensive area. On the mosses and lichens which grow abundantly in their shelter, are fed the immense herds of reindeer which constitute the principal wealth of the inhabitants.
The Lapps may almost be regarded as a nation of Lilliputians. Their men seldom exceed five feet in height, while the majority are some inches below that very moderate stature; and the women are even shorter. They are, however, a robust race, with muscular limbs, and unusual girth of body, the circumference of their chest being nearly equal to their height. Their complexion is dark, tawny, or copper-coloured; their dark, piercing, deep-sunken eyes are set very wide apart, so as to communicate a peculiar character to the physiognomy. The wild, strange effect is further increased by the unkempt masses of dark, lank, straight hair which droop on either side of the whiskerless, beardless face. The cheek-bones are prominent, like those of a Celtic Highlander; the nose is flat; the mouth wide, with thin compressed lips. It may be supposed that the Lapps, from these indications, are not models of masculine or feminine beauty; and Dr. Clarke asserts that, when aged, many of them, if exposed in a menagerie, might be mistaken for the long-lost transitional form intermediate between man and ape. And, certainly, there is something repulsive in the constant blinking of eyes rendered sore by the pungent smoke of their huts, or the white glare of the snow, as well as in the expression of obstinacy and low cunning which one reads in every feature.
An aristocrat might be proud of their small and finely-shaped hands; but their arms, like their legs, are disproportionately short, clumsy, and thick. Clumsy, we mean, in shape; certainly not in movement, for the extraordinary flexibility of their limbs is one of the traits by which a Lapp is easily distinguished.
Of the dress of the Lapps it is needless to say much. In winter it consists of bears’ skins, in which both male and female wrap themselves up, with the fur outward. In summer the men wear a sort of tunic, the poesk, made of coarse light-coloured woollen cloth, depending to the knee, but bound about the waist with a belt or girdle. Their head-gear consists of a kind of fez, made of wool, and adorned with a red worsted band round the rim, and a bright red tassel. Their boots or shoes are cut from the raw skin of the reindeer, with the hair outwards, and they are peaked in shape. They are thin, and they have no lining; but the Lapp defends his feet and ankles from the cold by stuffing the vacant space of the boot with the broad leaves of the Carex vesicaria, or Cyperus grass, which he cuts in summer, rubs in his hands, and dries before using. The female costume resembles that of the males, but their girdles are gayer with rings and chains.