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138 THROUGH NORWAY WITII A KNAPSACK.
rob, murder, enslave, or oppress those whom they please
to call the inferior race; and if the difference of strength
is sufficiently great, the " civilized " people succeed in
their efforts. It may be imagined that the Lapps have
remained unmolested by the Norwegians because they
are so poor as to be not worth robbing either by legal or
illegal processes. It is true that the fjeld they occupy
is quite valueless for tillage, and almost so for pasturage;
but this is not the case with the fishing ground. The
Fjeld Lapp, as before stated, is a considerable capitalist,
and, like all other capitalists, could not exist as such
unless protected either by morality, law, or fighting. A
full-grown reindeer sells for about three or four dollars.
A flock of 400 reindeer is the smallest upon which
a Lapp family can subsist ; and a Laplander who has
fewer is obliged to eke out his existence by fishing and
shooting. The average value of the property of each
family of the pure Fjeld Lapps is probably not less than
200/.; and this for the most part in a readily convertible
form. It is not an uncommon case for a single family
to possess as many as a thousand reindeer. If the Lapps
were a sensual, drunken, or in any way improvident
people, such a state of things could not continue, in contact
with open markets, money, and civilization: they would
sell their reindeer to purchase the means of present
indulgence, and rapidly sink into abject poverty and
starvation. If there were many sharpers among the
Norwegians—" ’cute traders," addicted to " swapping,"
these poor simple Lapps would long since have been
tempted to their ruin.
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