The Lapp Hamlet of Kautokeino.—A Bath in a Big Iron Pot.—An Arctic Way of Washing Clothes.—Dress and Ornaments of the Lapps.—Appearance and Height of the Lapps.—Givijärvi.—Karasjok.
A FEW days after the events I have just related to you, I found myself in the Lapp hamlet of Kautokeino, with its Lutheran church, near latitude 69 degrees. Here and there were queer-looking storehouses which belonged to the nomadic Lapps. I alighted before the post station, and entered the house and was welcomed by the station master. The dwelling was composed of two rooms, one for the use of the family, the other for guests or travellers. The place was full of Lapp men and women who had come to rest, go to church on the following Sunday, or see their children who were at school; or to get coffee, sugar, and other provisions stored in their own houses.
On the opposite side of the post station was the cow house, and between it and the house was the old-fashioned wooden-bucket well with its long, swinging pole, surrounded by a thick mass of ice made of the dripping water from the bucket. I did not wonder when I saw the ice, for it was 43 degrees below zero that day, and sometimes it is colder still.
I went into the cow-house. It was, as usual, a very low building, lower than most of those I had seen before. The two long windows admitted a dim light. At the further end was the usual big iron pot seen in almost every cow-house, for soaking the grass in boiling water, as the coarse marsh grass is so hard to chew that it has to be thus prepared. The daughter of the house, a girl about twenty years old, said to me, "I am going to prepare a meal for the cows and the sheep."
The huge iron pot was filled with reindeer moss and grass and warm water. "This food is for the cows and sheep," she said. "The horse is fed on fine fragrant hay, gathered during the short summer; horses will not eat the food we give to the cows and sheep; they are very particular."
I was very much in need of a good wash and of a warm bath, for I had only used snow to wash my hands and face for many days. As I looked at the big iron pot I said to myself, "This pot will make a good wash-tub."
I went to the mistress of the house and asked her if I could take a warm bath in the big iron pot. "Certainly," she replied. Then she called her daughter, and both went to the cow-house. They cleaned the iron pot thoroughly; then filled it about two thirds full with water from the trough communicating with the well, which the old station master drew for them. They lighted a fire under the pot, and cleaned the surroundings, and laid down a reindeer skin for my feet, and a chair for me to sit on.
When the water was warm, and the fire under it extinguished, the wife said that my bath was ready.
How good I felt when I was in the big iron pot filled with warm water. I gave grunts of satisfaction. I put my head under water and thought "How good; how good the water feels."
Suddenly one of the family appeared, and before I had time to say "What do you want?" had jumped into the water all dressed and got hold of one of my legs and rubbed it with soap. Then came the turn of the other leg, then the body, head and all. I was rubbed with a brush as hard as if I had been a piece of wood that had no feelings, and as if my skin had been the bark of a tree. Two or three times I screamed out, but my attendant only laughed. After the rubbing I was switched with birch twigs till I fairly glowed, and then I was left alone. When I looked at my body my skin was as red as a tomato. The blood was in full circulation and I felt fine, for it was such a long time since I had taken a real bath that I had almost forgotten that there was such a thing.