第56章 LETTER X(2)

This relationship with the Polynesian Niggers,the native genealogists would probably scout with indignation,being perfectly persuaded of the extreme gentility of their descent.Their only knowledge of the patriarch Noah is as a personage who derives his principal claim to notoriety from having been the first Lapp.Their acquaintance with any sacred history--nay,with Christianity at all--is very limited.It was not until after the thirteenth century that an attempt was made to convert them;and although Charles the Fourth and Gustavus ordered portions of Scripture to be translated in Lappish,to this very day a great proportion of the race are pagans;and even the most illuminated amongst them remain slaves to the grossest superstition.When a couple is to be married,if a priest happens to be in the way,they will send for him perhaps out of complaisance;but otherwise,the young lady's papa merely strikes a flint and steel together,and the ceremony is not less irrevocably completed.When they die,a hatchet and a flint and steel are invariably buried with the defunct,in case he should find himself chilly on his long journey--an unnecessary precaution,many of the orthodox would consider,on the part of such lax religionists.When they go boar-hunting--the most important business in their lives--it is a sorcerer,with no other defence than his incantations,who marches at the head of the procession.In the internal arrangements of their tents,it is not a room to themselves,but a door to themselves,that they assign to their womankind;for woe betide the hunter if a woman has crossed the threshold over which he sallies to the chase;and for three days after the slaughter of his prey he must live apart from the female portion of his family in order to appease the evil deity whose familiar he is supposed to have destroyed.It would be endless to recount the innumerable occasions upon which the ancient rites of Jumala are still interpolated among the Christian observances they profess to have adopted.

Their manner of life I had scarcely any opportunities of observing.Our Consul kindly undertook to take us to one of their encampments;but they flit so often from place to place,it is very difficult to light upon them.Here and there,as we cruised about among the fiords,blue wreaths of smoke rising from some little green nook among the rocks would betray their temporary place of abode;but I never got a near view of a regular settlement.

In the summer-time they live in canvas tents:during winter,when the snow is on the ground,the forest Lapps build huts in the branches of trees,and so roost like birds.The principal tent is of an hexagonal form,with a fire in the centre,whose smoke rises through a hole in the roof.The gentlemen and ladies occupy different sides of the same apartment;but a long pole laid along the ground midway between them symbolizes an ideal partition,which I dare say is in the end as effectual a defence as lath and plaster prove in more civilized countries.At all events,the ladies have a doorway quite to themselves,which,doubtless,they consider a far greater privilege than the seclusion of a separate boudoir.

Hunting and fishing are the principal employments of the Lapp tribes;and to slay a bear is the most honourable exploit a Lapp hero can achieve.The flesh of the slaughtered beast becomes the property--not of the man who killed him,but of him who discovered his trail,and the skin is hung up on a pole,for the wives of all who took part in the expedition to shoot at with their eyes bandaged.Fortunate is she whose arrow pierces the trophy,--not only does it become her prize,but,in the eyes of the whole settlement,her husband is looked upon thence forth as the most fortunate of men.As long as the chase is going on,the women are not allowed to stir abroad;but as soon as the party have safely brought home their booty,the whole female population issue from the tents,and having deliberately chewed some bark of a species of alder,they spit the red juice into their husband's faces,typifying thereby the bear's blood which has been shed in the honourable encounter.

Although the forests,the rivers,and the sea supply them in a great measure with their food,it is upon the reindeer that the Laplander is dependent for every other comfort in life.The reindeer is his estate,his horse,his cow,his companion,and friend.He has twenty-two different names for him.His coat,trousers,and shoes are made of reindeer's skin,stitched with thread manufactured from the nerves and sinews of the reindeer.Reindeer milk is the most important item in his diet.Out of reindeer horns are made almost all the utensils used in his domestic economy;and it is the reindeer that carries his baggage,and drags his sledge.But the beauty of this animal is by no means on a par with his various moral and physical endowments.His antlers,indeed,are magnificent,branching back to the length of three or four feet;but his body is poor,and his limbs thick and ungainly;neither is his pace quite so rapid as is generally supposed.The Laplanders count distances by the number of horizons they have traversed;and if a reindeer changes the horizon three times during the twenty-four hours,it is thought a good day's work.Moreover,so just an appreciation has the creature of what is due to his own great merit,that if his owner seeks to tax him beyond his strength,he not only becomes restive,but sometimes actually turns upon the inconsiderate Jehu who has over-driven him.

When,therefore,a Lapp is in a great hurry,instead of taking to his sledge,he puts on a pair of skates exactly twice as long as his own body,and so flies on the wings of the wind.