The Mountains [1]

I wondered how the people doing the milking could know and recognise which animals they had milked and which they had not, for as soon as the cows were milked they were released. They answered that all the reindeer have their own individual names and the people know exactly which is which. This struck me as amazing since their appearance is so similar, their colour (which changes every month) is the same, and the size varies according to age. It was quite amazing to me that they could recognise these animals when they were swarming about like ants on an anthill.

10th. I noted here the great tranquillity that these people possessed. When they had done the milking, when the wife had made her cheeses and boiled up the whey until it had thickened and when they had eaten, they lay down to rest and sleep. Believe me. he who lives humbly lives righteously, and there will rarely be any dissension. The neighbours within a village erect their tents together in a row running east to west or some other direction.

When my serving man came in, he placed his nose against the nose of the person he was going to greet as though he were going to kiss him, and uttered the word “Purist”, the old term of greeting. I asked whether he had kissed him. He replied that he had not, but merely placed his nose against him, and even that gesture only extended as far as kinsmen.

A boy had been out and collected a whole pot full of common sorrel with both leaves and stalks. This was all put in a pan with a little water in the bottom and stirred and boiled for a long time until everything had dissolved, after which it was mixed with milk in large casks. When it had all stood for a while, it took on a pleasant sourish taste quite different from when it is fresh. These casks are then put in pits in the ground and walled up or even buried with birch bark placed around them to prevent mice from eating them.

Someone else brought a whole armful of Angelica stalks that had not yet flowered. The leaves were taken off with a knife, as was the outer skin, which came off like hemp, and then everyone ate them like apples with great relish. I got my share, too.

As they were not really suitable for eating, the leafy sheaths containing the umbels were collected up, chopped and mixed in with the sorrel that was being boiled to make sorrel milk.

A child was lying in its leather cradle and above its head there was a leather hood from which 2 joined, cloth curtains were hanging. These could be drawn together by a string. Over the top of the child lay a reindeer skin but the child’s shoulders, chest and head were bare. It lay like this in the cold tent at night or quietly out in the open air even in cold weather without ever suffering from the cold.

I was given cheese pulp to eat, that is, the milk itself after it has been mixed with their rennet. It weighed on my stomach and, together with the large amount of cheese and whey-cheese I had eaten before, made me constipated even though I felt the need to perform.

At night I always slept between 2 reindeer skins.

The women as well as the men smoked tobacco and, indeed, most of them wore trousers.

The men normally do the cooking here, whereas the women only make the cheese and deal with milk foods. The men prepare all the fish and meat and, if no woman is present, they also prepare the milk foods and the cheese.

No one stays in the mountains in the winter. The Lapps live down in the forest zone at that time of year since there is insufficient reindeer moss up here and, to be brief about it, a shortage of wood. Also, the snow crust gets too hard.

A few of the poorest Lapps stay up here to trap ptarmigan (Lagopos) in the following manner. They take a small, forked twig about 7 inches long and fashion a snare out of sail-yam or horsehair. They split the twig slightly and fix the snare in the split. The snare is now hanging loose. Then, since this gallows is made of birch wood, they carefully peel the thin bark off the side and this forms a curl. A curl of bark is placed on each side of the snare to ensure that the snare remains flush with the gallows and does not turn at right angles to it. The two prongs of this fork are then stuck into the snow-crust in among the birch scrub, and about 2 yards are left between each trap. A small fence of brushwood is laid between the traps so that, when the ptarmigan come mnning along, they do not fly over the fence but try to walk through it – and cannot get through except where the traps are. Often as many as 40 to 50 birds are trapped in a night.

I heard and saw some birds today: ‘Cuculus’ [Cuckoo], which the Lapps call “geecka”, and ‘Piscator magnus, dorso cinereo’ [female Goosander], which they call “staule”.

While I was walking on the snow I fell through but managed to get a grip with my hands. The stream had undenruned it and it was fairly deep. I crashed through but, as it was not far from the village, 2 men with ropes pulled me up and I was unharmed apart from being wet and having bmised my thigh.

I met a Lapp who was both a Swedish and a Danish citizen.3 He gave me schnaps, which I refused, but he forced drink on me, and tobacco as well.