INHABITANTS 01 LAPLAND. 
61 
procure the recovery of their health. They cut it off with one of 
their stone hatchets. There was scarcely one in ten of them who was 
not mutilated. The inferior people also cut off a joint of the little 
finger on account of the sickness of the chiefs to whom they belong. 
They seem to have no ideas of future punishment. They believe, 
however, that they are justly punished upon earth, and therefore use 
every method to render their divinities propitious. The supreme 
Author of all things they call Kallafoolonga, who, they say, is a female 
residing in the sky, and directing all the changes of the weather. 
They believe that when she is angry with' them, the productions of 
the earth are blasted by lightning, &c. and that they themselves are 
punished with sickness and death, as well as their hogs and other 
animals. They also admit a plurality of deities, though all inferior 
to Kallafoolonga. They call life, or the living principle, Otooa, i. e* 
a divinity, or invisible being. 
The power of the king is unlimited, and the lives and properties of 
his subjects^ are at his disposal. The lower ranks of people have no 
property, nor safety for their persons, but are at the will of their 
chiefs. When any one wants to speak with the king, he advances, and 
sits down with his legs across; a posture to which they are so much 
accustomed, that any other position is disagreeable to them. To 
speak to the king standing, would be accounted a mark of rudeness. 
Though some of the chiefs may vie with the king in point of posses- 
sions, they fall very short im rank, and in certain marks of respect. 
It is a particular privilege annexed to his sovereignty, not to be punc- 
tured and circumcised as all his subjects are. Whenever he walks 
out, every one ho meets must sit down, till he has passed. The per- 
son vvho is to pay obeisance, squats down before the chief, and hows 
his head to the sole of his foot, which, when he sits, is so placed that 
it cannot be easily come at ; and having tapped or touched it with 
the under and upper side of the fingers of both hands, he retires : the 
hands, after this application to the chief’s foot, must not touch any kind of 
food until they be washed. While in this state they are called “taboo 
rema;” q, d. forbidden hands. Their great men are fond of having 
women sit beside them all night, or until they fall asleep, with some 
kind of music ; after which they relax a little of their labour, unless 
they appear likely to awake, in which case they redouble their 
drumming until they are again fast asleep. 
Inhabitants of Lapland. 
The Laplanders are very low in stature, but have remarkably large 
heads. They are ill-shaped, and their feaitures harsh. They are, 
however, strong, hardy, and robust, can bear incredible fatigue, and 
it is said that the stoutest Norwegian is not able to bend the bow of 
a Laplander. The women are much less homely than the men, and 
many of them have a delicate and florid complexion. These people 
are simple, honest, hospitable, and timorous ; their timidity, howeyer, 
respects war alone, for to many other species of dangers they expose 
themselves with surprising intrepidity, whether in ascending and 
descending mountains and precipices with their snow-shoes and in • 
