Jokkmokk [2]

The sinews for use in tinned thread are made by boiling the feet of reindeer or cattle. The fat is used, also bird-fat. The thread is pulled through a horn, being put in at the hollow end, and then it is coiled up round hand and foot. The metalled thread is doubled and melted together.

Women and girls sit with their feet placed to the side.

Hay, stacked hay in Västerbotten. Fresh hay is piled up over night so that it heats up, and then it is spread out in the day. This makes it more full-bodied and efficacious – just like the hops in Jamtland, which are packed tight together when fresh and then spread out to dry when they have built up a little heat.

Various methods of drying grain:

• In Skåne they mow it and gather it up with a rake when dry.
• In Småland they cut it and dry it on a frame, also in Västerbotten.
• In Östergötland they stack it 2 by 2 in a long row.
• In Uppland they mow it, bind it and build stacks.
• In Ångermanland they hang the whole year’s harvest over a large frame.
• In Västerbotten they cut it and hang it crosswise on a frame.

23rd. I left the mountain district in the evening, setting off from Kvikkjokk down the Lule river by water.

The Lapp women grease their tin thread with fats boiled from the feet of reindeer and cattle; the fat of seabirds is also suitable for this purpose.

The white fox or mountain cur resides in the mountains and lives on lemmings as well as ptarmigan. It is smaller than the red fox.

The ptarmigan, “cheruna” in Lappish, lives on dwarf birch and creeps under the snow at night like capercaillie. Consequently, great quantities of its droppings are to be found on the ground in springtime, which is why it is easily caught by foxes.

In some years lemmings are everywhere, gnawing away the grain and devouring the grass in their millions. Then all at once they are away and no one knows where they have gone. They do not, however, do any damage in the houses.

Stoats, white in winter and red in summer, are found plentifully in the forests but seldom in the mountains.

Foxes and wolves have disposed of most of the hares; also, wolves eat foxes.

There are shrews and fieldmice in Lappmark but there are no rats.

Bear-hunting is often undertaken by one man alone. When he gets on the trail of a bear, he puts his dog on a lead, having tied up its mouth so that it cannot bark. Once the dog has caught a scent of the bear, it begins to become uneasy and to pull on the lead, which lets the Lapp know for sure that the bear is not far away. As soon as the Lapp knows in which direction the bear is, he adjusts his approach so that the wind blows from the bear to the man and not vice versa. Thus the bear, which is half blind in bright light and cannot see far, does not pick up his scent and the Lapp crawls to within gunshot of it. Once he has loosed off at the bear, which in autumn is usually just going about picking berries, and if the shot does not strike home, the bear is quick to his feet and sets off after the little Lapp. The Lapp takes to his heels as fast as he can but leaves his knapsack behind in the place where he was. When the bear reaches it, he tears and smites the bag into a 1000 fragments. The Lapp, meanwhile, whose hand is by no means unsure, reloads and fires off a second shot, at which the bear either falls or flees.

24th. I saw a tool in their tents that I had not seen before and which they use for stirring the pots. It was made of tin.

There was excellent iron-ore west of Vallevare, halfway to Kvikkjokk, but it would hardly repay the trouble of extracting it because of the difficult route to Luleå.

I saw a star tonight, the first I have seen since the summer solstice. The night, however, was not so dark that I could not write whatever I wanted.