Lachesis Lapponica; Or, A Tour in Lapland, Volume 1Linné, Carl von
History
Lachesis Lapponica; Or, A Tour in Lapland, Volume 1
Linné, Carl von
Lapland -- Description and travel; Natural history -- Lapland
I again met with the hemipterous insect mentioned _p. 31_, which feeds
on fish, and with it another black and dotted one of the coleopterous
order, which is seen running with the former among the scales of fish,
as well as in the crevices of the floors of the Lapland huts. The
last-mentioned insect smells like rue. See figure.
[Illustration]
An oblong piece of brown cloth is sewed into the back part of the collar
of the women's jackets.
_June 4._
Adjoining to a hut I remarked some round pieces, apparently of a sort of
napped cloth, as black as pitch. Not being able to imagine what they
could be, I was informed they were the stomachs or rennet-bags of the
reindeer turned inside out, for the purpose of preserving the milk of
that animal in a dry state till winter. Before the milk thus preserved
can be used, it is soaked in warm water. Some use bladders for the same
purpose. In the more mountainous parts they boil sorrel (_Rumex
Acetosa_) with the milk which they preserve for winter use.
I wondered, indeed I more than wondered, how these poor people could
feed entirely on fish, sometimes boiled fresh, sometimes dried, and then
either boiled, or roasted before the fire on a wooden spit. They roast
their fish thoroughly, and boil it better and longer than ever I saw
practised before. They know no other soup or spoon-meat than the water
in which their fish has been boiled. If from any accident they catch no
fish, they cannot procure a morsel of food. At midsummer they first
begin to milk the reindeer, and maintain themselves on the milk till
autumn; when they kill some of those valuable animals, and by various
contrivances get a scanty supply of food through the winter.
The young children sleep in oblong leather cradles, without any thing
like swaddling-clothes, enveloped in dried bog-moss (_Sphagnum
palustre_), lined with the hair of the reindeer. In this soft and warm
nest they are secured against the most intense cold.
The winter huts, capable of being removed from place to place, consist
of four large curved poles, perforated at the top and fastened two and
two together, which being supported by four other straight sticks, form
a kind of arch. The whole is covered, except at the very top, where an
opening is left for a chimney, with the coarse cloth called _walmar_ or
_walmal_. The edifice when finished is about four feet high.
Tormentil (_Tormentilla officinalis_) here always grows in boggy ground,
which is remarkable. Its root is chewed along with the inner bark of the
Alder, and the saliva thus impregnated is applied to leather, to dye it
of a red colour. Thus their harness, reins, girdles, gloves, &c. are
tanned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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