REINDEER TRAVELLING
Snow vanishes from the plains towards the middle (or end) of May, but remains the whole year round in the gorges of the mountains. The rivers are clear of ice about the beginning (or middle) of May, and within a month from that time the first shoots of verdure begin to appear on the meadows and hill-sides. The sun never sets from the 24th of May to the 21st of July. There is neither twilight nor night,—the long Arctic Day has set in. During this period the sun warms the soil only at noon, simply shining for the rest of the day, seemingly a golden orb without heat. Summer, beginning about the middle (i. e., end) of June, barely lasts two months. By July flowers are already shedding their blossoms, their rapid growth being aided by the unbroken daylight.
Any attempts at agriculture in such a climate are, of course, foredoomed to failure, but along the river banks some fairly good meadows enable the settlers of the Murman to rear all the cattle they need. Turnips are the only vegetables that can be raised, with, here and there, a few potatoes.
The southern and western portions of the Peninsula are covered with pretty good timber, mostly pine (Pinus silvestris). As you go further north, the timber becomes more and more stunted, consisting chiefly of birchwood, till you reach the open tundra, which is clothed in moss and low-growing shrubs.
The Lapps lead a semi-nomadic life. The settlements in which they live are called pagosts, each group of Lapps having its particular summer and winter pagost. The latter is usually inland near the forests, where they herd their deer in winter. In summer they wander nearer to the coasts and lakes for the sake of the fishing. The winter dwelling of the Lapp is called a toopa, a small smoky sod-covered hut, covering some 150 to 200 square feet; whereas in summer he lives in his vieja, a large wigwam resembling a Samoyede choom, but covered over, not with skins as with the Samoyedes, but with branches, tree-bark and turfs.
The typical Lapp is dwarf-like and thick-set. He usually wears a grey cloth jacket, his head being encircled in a high woollen cap tapering to a tassel at the top, while his feet, wrapped up in rags, are then covered with big shoes. In general, his whole appearance, with his pointed beard, bears a striking resemblance to the familiar representations of "gnomes," as these denizens of the subterranean world are pictured to us in fairy books. Few of the Lapps, however, confine themselves to this characteristic type of Lapp costume, but wear whatever comes to their hands,—hats, caps, clothes "made in Germany" and so on.
Among the women, especially the younger ones, some fairly pretty faces may be met with. Their dress is usually a calico sarafan, and generally speaking, there is nothing specially distinguishing about their apparel.
The Lapp race is evidently dying out, or rather, is gradually intermingling with, and being absorbed by, the neighbouring races. With neither written memorials nor a historic past to cling to, nor any particular religious belief, they are all of the Orthodox Faith. In assuming the customs and civilization of the Russians, the Lapps often abandon their own tribe, and assimilate with the stronger race. I have often heard such sayings as the following from Lapps who have more or less settled down: "I'm not a Lapp at all, I'm a Russian now," or "He's a good man" (i. e., active, energetic) "and not a Lapp."
So that they evidently have no particularly high opinion of themselves, and put no great value on their tribal individuality; and yet, as the free-born child of the broad and boundless tundra, the Lapp dearly loves his home and open roving life.
The chief occupations of the Lapps are reindeer-rearing and fishing, and in winter, the transport of goods by means of their deer. They are unfortunately bad husbandmen, utterly reckless about the increase of their herds, and never dreaming of looking upon them as sources of gain. Deer-herding is not, in their eyes, a regular business, they merely keep such head as are required for domestic uses, that is, for food, clothing and travelling. Very few Lapps own big herds, while most of them hardly know or care how many in reality they have. In summer, when the deer are not wanted for travelling purposes, they dismiss them to range at large, without any surveillance whatever. To escape the persecutions of gadflies and mosquitoes the deer generally flock to the Hibinski Mountains, or else wander to the sea-shore. When thus at large they multiply freely of themselves, and, by this time half wild, often stray away from the herds altogether.