Jokkmokk [2]

The Lapp, who had got hold of a number of large bleak, cooked them on a spit, putting 20 on the spit at once with the back of one pressed up against the belly of the next so that they formed a flat surface towards the fire. Thus he roast and ate them – unsalted, though they had been dried earlier.

The Lapp bow is made from hard, fir heart-wood and birch glued together.

The glue is made as follows. Some large perch are skinned, the skins dried and then soaked in a little cold water so that the scales can be scraped off. They take 4 or 5 of the skins, put them in a bladder or wrap them in birch-bark so that the water cannot get to them, and put them to boil in a pan of water. A stone is placed on top so that they cannot move. Using this glue, which never comes unstuck, they whip together the surfaces of the wood in the bow and thus join them.

The Lapps never carry any provision bag other than their outer jacket when they are travelling. Since it is always belted, they put their things between that and the inner jacket. Their tunics are always loose and equally wide at top and bottom.

‘Lysimachia purpurea s. Epilobium’ [Rosebay Willowherb] makes the meadows quite beautiful to behold. ‘Virga aurea’ [Golden-rod] was in flower here though not in the mountains; it must, therefore, flower later in the mountains.

I have never seen an animal swim so high in the water as a reindeer; almost half its body remains dry.

The water in the lake at Tjåmotis was very whitish, as though mixed with milk. They called it chalk-water (because of its colour, not because of its cause or origin) and said that it came from the mountains. This river joins the main river at Tjåmotis and makes the water whitish for 30 to 35 miles. I saw it at Virijaure.

I noted with amusement how the Lapps dipped their index fingers in the schnaps before they drank it and smeared a little on their foreheads and a little on their breastbone. When I asked for the reason, they answered that it was to prevent it making them feel heavy in the head or breast.

In winter, when the reindeer cannot get at ‘coralloides’ [reindeer mosses] on the ground, they chop down trees so that they can eat their fill of ‘Usnea’ [beard mosses], though that scarcely suffices. The reindeer of the Forest Lapps have a very troubled time during the dog days when they have no snow in which to keep themselves cool; that is why Mountain Lapps are richer.

Some of the Lapps got hold of fresh bleak and boiled them until they were lying in a sort of dirty porridge. They then ate them with their fingers.

The Lapps protect their necks very well with their thick collars, without which they would be unable to venture out in such extreme cold. This sensitive organ with its many nerves, muscles, windpipe, important veins and arteries would otherwise come to serious harm since it is so thin and also the least warm part of the body. That is why it is bad for our young women and young men to tie neckerchiefs so tightly round their necks that they go red in the face as if they were being strangled.

We Swedes are encased in clothes. Neckerchief, coat, waistcoat, trousers, stockings and vests are all done up tight – the tighter, the more elegant. The Lapps on the other hand have two lightly fastened garments: trousers, fastened at the top but no tighter than that they can be pulled up and down without undoing them; and a hide belt but, since the tighter it is the more uncomfortable it is, they wear it loose.

25th. There are not so many plants in the lakes here as in the south and the bottom is very clear and bare, as also are the shores. There is no ‘Nymphaea’ [Water-lily] or ‘Juncus’ [rush] etc. growing here, though out on the lakes there is ‘Ranunculus foliis rotundis et capillaceis’ [Pond Water Crowfoot], which makes the lake all white. I was amazed to see how white the lakes had become even though a fortnight ago, when I travelled up, not even the smallest shoot was to be seen. Now there are branches yards long lying over the water. The stem was quite white, having grown so vigorously, often from a depth of 3 fathoms. Where it was washed up onto the shore, I saw that its hair-fine leaves become roots, as they must also be in the water. Some ‘Potamog.foliis amplexicaulibus’ [Perfoliate Pondweed] was also to be seen.

I also saw a very large variety of floating grass which was branched and had cylindrical spicules – perhaps, ‘Gramen aquaticum geniculis spicatis’ [Marsh Fox-tail]?

The Norwegian crossbow is a weapon with which it is possible to shoot squirrels quite neatly at 20 to 30 paces as if with a gun. I looked on in amazement when he knocked over a little stick that I had set up for him at 30 paces.

There is said to be no clay in Lappnrark but I found it in 2 places, both in lakes; wherever there was sand on the shores there was mainly clay on the bottom. The places wereRandijaur and Skalkaträsk.