Their ancient History and Conversion to Christianity.—Self-denial and Poverty of the Lapland Clergy.—Their singular Mode of Preaching.—Gross Superstition of the Lapps.—The Evil Spirit of the Woods.—The Lapland Witches.—Physical Constitution of the Lapps.—Their Dress.—The Fjälllappars.—Their Dwellings.—Store-houses.—Reindeer Pens.—Milking the Reindeer.—Migration.—The Lapland Dog.—Skiders, or Skates.—The Sledge, or Pulka.—Natural Beauties of Lapland.—Attachment of the Lapps to their Country.—Bear-hunting.—Wolf-hunting.—Mode of Living of the wealthy Lapps.—How they kill the Reindeer.—Visiting the Fair.—Mammon Worship.—Treasure-hiding.—“Tabak, or Braende.”—Affectionate Disposition of the Lapps.—The Skogslapp.—The Fisherlapp.
The nation of the Lapps spreads over the northern parts of Scandinavia and Finland from about the 63d degree of latitude to the confines of the Polar Ocean; but their number, hardly amounting to more than twenty thousand, bears no proportion to the extent of the vast regions in which they are found. Although now subject to the crowns of Russia, Sweden, and Norway, they anciently possessed the whole Scandinavian peninsula, until the sons of Odin drove them farther and farther to the north, and, taking possession of the coasts and valleys, left them nothing but the bleak mountain and the desolate tundra. In the thirteenth century, under the reign of Magnus Ladislas, King of Sweden, their subjugation was completed by the Birkarls, a race dwelling on the borders of the Bothnian Gulf. These Birkarls had to pay the crown a slight tribute, which they wrung more than a hundred-fold from the Lapps, until at length Gustavus I. granted the persecuted savages the protection of more equitable laws, and sent missionaries among them to relieve them at the same time from the yoke of their ancient superstitions. In 1600 Charles IX. ordered churches to be built in their country, and, some years after, his son and successor, the celebrated Gustavus Adolphus, founded a school for the Lapps at Pitea, and ordered several elementary works to be translated into their language. In the year 1602, Christian IV., King of Denmark and Norway, while on a visit to the province of Finmark, was so incensed at the gross idolatry of the Lapps that he ordered their priests or sorcerers to be persecuted with bloody severity. A worthy clergyman, Eric Bredal, of Drontheim, used means more consonant with the spirit of the Gospel, and, having instructed several young Lapps, sent them back again as missionaries to their families. These interpreters of a purer faith were, however, received as apostates and traitors by their suspicious countrymen, and cruelly murdered, most likely at the instigation of the sorcerers. In 1707 Frederic IV. founded the Finmark mission, and in 1716 Thomas Westen, a man of rare zeal and perseverance, preached the Gospel in the wildest districts of the province. Other missionaries and teachers followed his example, and at length succeeded in converting the Lapps, and in some measure conquering their ancient barbarism. Nothing can be more admirable than the self-denial and heroic fortitude of these ministers of Christ, for to renounce all that is precious in the eyes of the world to follow nomads little better than savages through the wilds of an Arctic country surely requires a courage not inferior to that of the soldier
Who seeks preferment at the cannon’s mouth.
The Lapland schoolmaster enjoys an annual salary of twenty-five dollars, and receives besides half a dollar for every child instructed. But the priest is not much better off, as his stipend amounts to no more than thirty dollars in money, and to about 150 dollars in produce. Among this miserably paid clergy there are, as in Iceland, men worthy of a better lot. The famous Löstadius was priest at Karesuando, seventy-five leagues from Tromsö, the nearest town, and a hundred leagues from Tornea. His family lived upon rye bread and fishes, and but rarely tasted reindeer flesh. Chamisso mentions another Lapland priest who had spent seven years in his parish, which lay beyond the limits of the forest region. In the summer he was completely isolated, as then the Lapps wandered with their herds to the cool shores of the icy sea; and in the winter, when the moon afforded light, he travelled about in his sledge, frequently bivouacking at the temperature of freezing mercury, to visit his Lapps. During all that time his solitude had been but twice broken by civilized man; a brother had come to see him, and a botanist had strayed to his dwelling. He well knew how to appreciate the pleasure of such meetings, but neither this pleasure nor any other, he said, was equal to that of seeing the sun rise again above the horizon after the long winter’s night.
It is a singular custom that the pastors preaching to the Lapps deliver their harangues in a tone of voice as elevated as if their audience, instead of being assembled in a small chapel, were stationed upon the top of a distant mountain, and labor as if they were going to burst a bloodvessel. Dr. Clarke, who listened to one of these sermons, which lasted one hour and twenty minutes, ventured to ask the reason of the very loud tone of voice used in preaching. The minister said he was aware that it must appear extraordinary to a stranger, but that, if he were to address the Laplanders in a lower key, they would consider him as a feeble and impotent missionary, wholly unfit for his office, and would never come to church; that the merit and abilities of the preacher, like that of many a popular politician, are always estimated by the strength and power of his lungs.
Though the Lapps (thanks to the efforts of their spiritual guides) hardly even remember by name the gods of their fathers—Aija, Akka, Tuona—they still pay a secret homage to the Saidas, or idols of wood or stone, to whom they were accustomed to sacrifice the bones and horns of the reindeer. They are in fact an extremely superstitious race, faithfully believing in ghosts, witchcraft, and above all in Stallo, or Troller, the evil spirit of the woods.
Many of them, when about to go hunting, throw a stick into the air, and then take their way in the direction to which it points. The appearance of the Aurora borealis fills them with terror, as they believe it to be a sign of divine wrath, and generally shout and howl during the whole duration of the grand phenomenon, which their ignorance connects with their own petty existence.
The pretended gift of being able to predict future events is common among the Laplanders. The sorcerers fall into a magic sleep, during which their soul wanders. In this state, like the somnambules of more polished nations, they reveal things to come or see what passes at a distance. Men and women affect the power of fortune-telling by the common trick of palmistry, or by the inspection of a cup of liquor; and this, to insure the greatest possible certainty, must be a cup of brandy, which at once explains the whole business of the prophecy. The Lapland witches pretended, or perhaps still pretend, to the power of stilling the wind or causing the rain to cease, and such was their reputation that English seamen trading to Archangel made it a point to land and buy a wind from these poor creatures.
The Lapps are a dwarfish race. On an average, the men do not exceed five feet in height, many not even reaching four, and the women are considerably less. Most of them are, however, very robust, the circumference of their chest nearly equalling their height. Their complexion is more or less tawny and copper-colored, their hair dark, straight, and lank, its dangling masses adding much to the wildness of their aspect. They have very little beard, and as its want is considered a beauty, the young men carefully eradicate the scanty supply given them by nature.
Their dark piercing eyes are generally deep sunk in their heads, widely separated from each other, and, like those of the Tartars or Chinese, obliquely slit towards the temples. The cheek-bones are high, the mouth pinched close, but wide, the nose flat. The eyes are generally sore, either in consequence of the biting smoke of their huts or of the refraction from the snow, so that a Lapp seldom attains a high age without becoming blind. Their countenances generally present a repulsive combination of stolidity, low cunning, and obstinacy. Hogguer, who dwelt several months among them, and saw during this time at least 800 Lapps, found not twenty who were not decidedly ugly; and Dr. Clarke says that many of them, when more advanced in years, might, if exhibited in a menagerie of wild beasts, be considered as the long-lost link between man and ape.