30 



RACIAL ELEMENTS IN SWEDEN 



FINNISH TYPES IN NORRBOTTEN 



Fig. 4. 



Fig. 5. 



Fig. 6. 



A very considerable immigration of Finns took place at the end of the sixteenth 

 century and the beginning of the seventeenth. Altogether at that time from 

 twelve to thirteen thousands of Finns at least settled in the middle of Sweden 

 or in the South of Norrland, especially in Warmland and the counties of Koppar* 

 berg and Gafleborg. Long before this however, a slower more disconnected 

 immigration of Finns had begun to take place, and continued to do so after* 

 wards. They have gradually become incorporated in the Swedish nation. A 

 great many of the serfs to be found in Sweden in olden times belonged almost 

 certainly to the Finnish race. In the most northerly parts of Sweden are to be 

 found about 25,000 so«called Finns, who speak the Finnish language. In spite 

 of this they are for the most part of very mixed descent, which can be ascer* 

 tained not only by means of genealogical investigation, but also manifests itself 

 in the varying types which appear among them. Part of them is of Finnish, 

 Swedish and Lappish descent, another part of Swedish and Finnish or of Finnish 

 and Lappish descent, etc. The number of persons in Sweden having more or 

 less decided Finnish racial characteristics is of considerable importance. They 

 include in all probability some hundreds of thousands of people. 



The Finnish races, that in olden times were especially numerous and who 

 were divided into many different branches, living in a territory stretching from 

 the most northerly part of Scandinavia through Finland and North Russia a good 

 way into Siberia, have by degrees lost their own national peculiarities and have 

 to a large extent become absorbed by other nations, especially by Slavonic races 

 in Russia. The Tavastlandish is considered to be one of the most pure of the 

 Finnish races. Such types are not so unusual even among us. A Finn of this 

 type is short in stature, thick*set and strongly built. He is fair and, as a rule, 

 has light eyes, his hair is straight and coarse, his complexion is fair and often of 

 a somewhat dirty grey colour; his head is short and fairly broad, as is also his 

 face. This has a square appearance caused by the broadness of the cheeks which 

 extend downwards even to the angle of the lower jaw. The nose is very clumsy 

 with a concave^brigde. Figs. 4 to 6 show us some Finnish types in Sweden, as 

 do also the pictures on Plates XI— XIII, mixed types on Plate XIV. 



