Jokkmokk [2]

In winter, between St Andrew’s Day and Christmas, they set out nets for powan. They make holes in the ice and drag with poles, like ice-dragnets.

The Lapps use “ackjor”, that is sledges, as storage chests. They close them in with a slightly convex cover which has a small plughole on top through which they drop things in and then seal it with a bung. These are also used for transport so that things do not get wet.

The necks of black-throated divers, that is Lumme Wormii, are used to make hoods; they have a grey ring around the neck.

26th. A description of an “ackja”. The “ackja” is a form of transport invented by the Lapps. It is dragged along the ground like a sledge and is made of birch wood. The stern, which is oval-shaped and 1 foot high and 1/2 feet wide, is upright but with its lower part sloping slightly inwards. The body is mounted for a little over half its length to a keel, which has 5 planks running lengthwise on each side of it and overlapping each other. It is on this keel that the whole thing rests, not on its sides. All of the planks are 1/2 inches thick, slightly thicker at the upper edge and thinner at the lower edge, so that each plank overlaps the one below it.

These planks are rounded rather than flat on the outside, thus explaining the many furrows they leave as tracks in the snow. Only the keel is flat. The planks at the front end are fixed together with a cord that is tied around all of them: they are not nailed together. The “ackja” is 6 feet long; starting from the stem, it remains a constant width for 4 feet and then, as the keel curves up, the sides curve in to meet it in a point.

The whole thing is pulled along by a rope through a hole in the front of the keel.

When they want to cover in the “ackja”, they use a partial cover if a person is going to travel in it and a full cover if they are transporting goods. The cover is of sealskin or cloth mounted over 2 or 3 semi-circular frames that are fitted internally between the bows and a point 2 feet short of the stem. If a person is travelling, the back flap of the cover is tied to him like an apron so that the snow cannot get in. There are also cords fixed to the sides of the “ackja” to secure the traveller and prevent him falling out for, when the vehicle tilts over to the side, the passenger very often has to rely on his elbows.

It is very strange that the Lapps do not have any calendars except for a sort of rune-staff consisting of 7 small pieces of wood. They do have names for their months though they do not reckon by the months as we do but by the names of the feast days that they keep. They have a name for each week. They do not know in advance about eclipses of the sun and moon. The calendar for the year starts on the Friday before Christmas etc.

In summer the Lapps dress in a fur tunic with either a woollen homespun garment or with nothing at all under it.

We arrived at Purkijaur at sunset and since there was no boat we were forced to make a raft. There was a mist and the night became so murky that we could not see 20 feet in front of us. We finally got out into the current and it very nearly separated us from the log-raft but, once that danger was past, we sailed along for 3 miles and reached the farm that lay on an island.

I hired a man in Purkijaur to accompany me pearl-fishing and gave him 6 daler for doing so. He made a raft of 5 logs, each as fat as I am, and 12 feet long. He hammered a wedge in at the far end to attach the anchor, which was a stone of about 18 pounds wrapped in a basketwork of birch so that it could not fall and disappear. The anchor rope consisted of 2 withies attached end to end, so the whole thing was 12 feet long. He also had a 12 foot pole – at any greater depth than that it is impossible to see the bottom of the river clearly. Thus equipped he set off into the mighty rapids, steering his raft with the pole. When he could see the bottom clearly he dropped his stone, attached the other end of the cable to the wedge, and the raft stayed still. When he wanted to move to another spot he drew up the stone.

He stood upright on the raft in places where it was not particularly deep but he lay at full-length where it was deep.

He picked up the pearl mussels with a 12 foot long set of wooden tongs. The actual pincers were a hand’s breadth long and 3 fingers wide not counting the point, and each side of the pincer lay flush against the other. By holding the very end, he could pick up the mussels from the bottom.

Most of the mussels were lying wide-open and could easily be seen because their insides were white. As soon as there was any sort of strong movement in the water around them, however, they closed up even though they had neither eyes nor ears.

He opened them with a snail shell that he forced between the two shells at the base endffor it was impossible to do it with the fingers) and looked for the pearl on the inside of the shell at the opposite end. If the shell was white he got a white pearl, if it was dark or red the pearl would be likewise.

This river, when first discovered, was the very finest pearl-fishery but now it is largely fished out. When it was first discovered they used to say that it was hardly possible to touch the bottom for mussels. That is no longer so.