494 proceedings: anthropological society 



generally invisible and haunt certain saivo places. These saivo people 

 are believed to be reindeer breeders. Several facts make it appear 

 that the saivo world originally was the world of the dead; thus, in some 

 shamanistic tales the shaman goes to the saivo world to fight for the 

 recovery of a sick person, and until recent years offerings have been 

 made to the saivo world, in order to prolong the life of a person. A 

 belief is also common in certain vagrant spirits, "muones," who bring 

 sickness to people; their traits disclose their original nature as spirits 

 of the dead, although they are not now always conceived as such. 

 The Lappish shaman, or noaide, still uses the ghosts of dead persons 

 as helping spirits. There is, however, also among the Lapps a belief 

 in local spirits, which probably have nothing to do with the spirits of 

 the dead. According to the beliefs of the northern Lapps, every thing 

 and every locality may be inhabited by local spirits, "haldek," who 

 in some way are the owners of these localities. In Pithe he heard a 

 Lapp woman sing a song to the localitj^ when the tent was set up in a 

 new place, and a song of parting when the camp was moved again. 

 Important supernatural powers are connected with the lodge, in which 

 every place has some occult significance. The place behind the fire 

 is still sacred; the fire itself or the powers of the fireplace have some 

 intimate connection with the renewal of life, as can be seen from certain 

 old customs. 



The Lapps have always been considered great magicians. The 

 magic drum, which was still in use in some parts of Lapland 50 years 

 ago, has now disappeared, and magic is much less prominent than in 

 earlier times. As magic knowledge is a personal possession which 

 loses part of its power by being given to others, information is hard to 

 obtain. The main purposes of Lappish magic are, to bring sickness and 

 death to men and reindeer and to cure sickness. Sickness is always 

 due to some sort of spiritual contagion, which may come from the dead 

 but also may come from the earth, stagnant water, whirlwinds, or cer- 

 tain rocks. The evil influences are driven back to the place whence 

 they came, by teri'ifying the hostile power. The magician, therefore, 

 in his magic formulas, talks in a superior and commanding way to the 

 sickness-bringing power. In order to remove the evil influence, the 

 sick part may be touched by the same object from which the evil came — 

 very much as electricity is unloaded by means of a conductor. The 

 two concepts, individual spirits and supernatural power, are in Lappish 

 magic and religion usually connected; but in some cases the idea of 

 power itself is so highly emphasized that it seems devoid of personality. 



The idea of reindeer luck is characteristic of the Lapps. Reindeer 

 luck is the standard form of happiness, for which our modern idea of 

 wealth can not be substituted. In order to insure reindeer luck, sacri- 

 fices until lately have been in vogue. The main feature in sacrifice 

 of reindeer is that not a single bone must be broken, for in the bones 

 resides the vital principle, and in the saivo world the bones will again 

 be clothed with flesh. In ordinary slaughtering no bone is hurt; the 

 slaughtering of reindeer nmst be done in accordance with old rules. 



