NOTES ON THE LAPPS AND THE REINDEER. 

 By Rasmus B. Anderson. 



Author of "Norse Folk-lore Stories," "Norse Mythology," " I'ikiuy 'rales," etc. 



Madison, Wis., February 17, 1894. 



The name of the Lapps is supposed to he derived from the word "lappan," to flit 

 or move from place to place. They belong to the Ugro-Finnic race and have inhab- 

 ited the northern part of Norway, Sweden, and Russia from time immemorial. The 

 race includes lesB than 30,000 people, there being in Norway, in 1875, 19,269; in 

 Sweden in 1880, 6,404; and .it the same time about 3,000 in Finland and Russia. The 

 large majority of the Lapps now live in permanent homes and subsist on fishing and 

 stock-raising near the sea, on the west coast of Norway, where the climate is greatly 

 modified by the gulf stream. But there are a couple of thousand of the race, the 

 so-called "Mountain"' Lapps, who are nomadic and get their living exclusively from 

 the seinidomesticated reindeer, making their homes in the interior on the mountain 

 plateaus, where neither other human beings nor other domestic animals could exist. 



These notes refer only to the nomadic mountain Lapps, of whom yon are now 

 about to transport a few families as reindeer-herders to Alaska. These dusky people 

 are able to suffer hardships and privations which it would be utterly impossible for 

 the white man to endure. 



The Lapp lives with his reindeer day and night, getting his entire subsistence 

 from the animal. Every part of the reindeer, young or old, living or dead, is util- 

 ized. The blood, meat, entrails, and marrow are all eaten; the skin is made into 

 shoes and clothing, and the sinews are spun into thread for sewing; the antlers and 

 bones arc made into all kinds of household ntensils and into ornaments. What can 

 not be converted into food or clothing, utensils and ornaments, is boiled into soup 

 for the dogs or manufactured into glue. By the sale of skins, meat, cheese, and 

 glue the Lapp is able to buy cloth, salt, coffee, and tobacco. 



1 1 si 'ins incredible, but is nevertheless a fact, that the Lapp frequently sleeps upon 

 the mountain plateaus, with no other covering than the snow and the clothes be 

 wears. He digs a hole in the snow, and in the morning, when he awakes, he some- 

 times has to crawl out of a couple of feet of snow, which has fallen while he slept 

 the sleep of the just. It is his reindeer clothing that keeps bim warm, and makes 

 such life possible even for his hardy nature. 



The Lap) i and his family employ well nigh all their time in taking care of the herd, 

 parti; in protecting it from wolves, and partlj in seeing that it is increased as rap- 

 idly as possible; for the size of the herd determines his wealth. A family can live 

 comfortably on 300 reindeer, and if they own 1,000, t he\ arc considered to be in good 

 circumstances. One Lapp family in Norway owns a herd of 0, out) reindeer, and some 

 years ago there was a herd of 10,000 belonging to one man, but by his death this 

 large herd had to be divided. A reindeer herd of 2,000 is expected to increase by 



200 to 250 fawns annually. 



In Norway the Lapps spend the winters far in the interior, on the mountain plains 

 near Kautokeino and Karasjok, where the snow is not so deep as it is nearer the 

 coast and hence it is easier for the reindeer to get at the moss and other lichens. 



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