Lycksele Lappmark

The poor Lapp, who himself has to live on nothing but fish at this time of year as well as feeding his family on it, scarcely gets 1 or 2 fish now. I asked him why he did not complain and he said he had once brought up the question with the authorities in the person of the district judge but the latter had said it was just a triviality. The Lapp regards the pronouncements of crown servants as though they were spoken from the tripod of Apollo annd thus incapable of being erroneous.6 He venerates his king as he does God, and he firmly believes that if the king knew what was happening he would not tolerate it.

2nd June. The forest was full of pines but to no purpose, for no one builds houses from them and no one exploits them. It seemed to me they could be of some use if they were burned for pitch and tar.

The Lapps love the settlers who settle among them. They are glad to show them where hay can be gathered, since they do not need it themselves because the reindeer prefer to feed in dry places; and they think they will be able to buy flour and milk from them.

Ovid’s description of the Silver Age still holds true among the Lapps. The earth is not gashed by ploughs, nor is there the clash of iron weapons; man does not descend into the bowels of the earth, nor is there strife about frontiers; the earth gives everything of its own volition.7 They are nomads, they live in humble abodes, they are herdsmen – like the patriarchs.

It is the husband’s task to prepare the food, for then he does not need to talk sweetly to the housewife when he wants to entertain a guest.

On their heads they wear little cloth caps just like those in Stenbrohult.8 They are made in 8 segments and edged with bands of brown cloth. The cap is grey or dark-blue and reaches only to the bottom of the ear.

Their outer garment is open to the midriff, being fastened up with hooks as far as the breastbone. Their chests are thus bare, look like toad-skin and are burned brown by sun and smoke. These tunics reach to below the knee but are tied up with a belt so that they just hang as far as the knee. Lapps are invariably smaller in stature than other people. Their collars are about the width of 4 fingers, thick and embroidered with thread.

The women do the sewing. They make thread from sinews taken from the legs of reindeer and softened in their mouths before being twisted together. They also use the roots of spruce trees.

On the river bank there is sometimes gravel, sometimes pebbles and sometimes sand. Stones are very rare in the forest.

The Ume river was beginning to flood. The weather had been very hot for some days and ice and snow were melting, thus causing the water in the river to rise so much that river travel was only possible with difficulty. The fullest spate normally comes at Midsummer.

The Lapps said that the Ume river rises in the mountains 7 miles from the Norwegian Ocean, enters the Ume lake, whence it flows down here.

There are no settlers beyond this point.

We landed in order to rest for a while at a cabin. A father killed his daughter here a year ago to prevent his son-in-law from inheriting.

There was a very cold wind from the north today.

More than 12 sets of bull-reindeer antlers were hanging in a tree beside a hut.

Among the diseases of the Lapps is “ullem” or colic, as I mentioned earlier. They use soot, tobacco, powdered salt and various other things against it but it often afflicts them so badly that they crawl around.