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THE SWEDISH LAPPS.
167
the prominent cheek-bones, the slender figure and comparatively small stature, etc.
are well-known anthropological features, which, however, äro often much modified.
The Lapps are not so short as it appears at first sight, from their not wearing
heeled shoes. As to their mental culture and intelligence, they undoubtedly
rank highest among all primitive peoples. Among the younger generation there
are hardly to be found any individuals who cannot read and write; and among
the older, such as cannot read are exceedingly rare. They have a quick
perception, and they are good-natured, though quite suspicious as regards
people of other races than their own. They are not more superstitious than
peasantry generally, and, as a rule, they are honest, moral, and religiously
inclined. No Shamanism exists in Swedish Lappland any more. The strong love
of liquor, for which the Lapps are known, is now, in most of their communities,
so much diminished that, even in this respect, the Lapps cannot be considered
more degenerated than their neighbours. Morally, the most northern Swedish
Lapps (in both of the northernmost parishes) are considered to rank lower than
the southern Lapps, while, on the other hand, they are more industrious and
more scrupulous in their care of the reindeer.
The typical Lapp is a nomad, the reindeer being everything to him. So it
has been in all times, as far back as ethnical research has been able to penetrate.
No wonder then that all the visible ethnographical features of the Lapps have
been developed to the utmost practical perfection as regards their ways of living
and with reference to the surrounding climate and nature. The Fjäll Lapps
live in a kind of tent (kåta or käte) which by all experts is recognized to be
of the most practical type. In it every post, every place has its name and its
purpose, although to the superficial observer everything appears chaotic. The
turf or bark hut is inhabited by the comparatively more stationary Fisher
Lapps. In the greater part of Swedish Lappland it is conical, and, where
practical, modeled on the tent; but in the northernmost parts of the country
it receives a more or less distinct spherical form, and is very much like the
purely high-arctic mud or snow hut.
The costume of the Lapps varies considerably, as regards more unimportant
ornaments and fashions, making it easy for an expert to determine to which
community a Lapp belongs, but the practical frock, the beaked shoes, and some such
things are always characteristic of their outfit. Their shoes may be called the
arctic foot-wear, which, in contrast to the sandal and its descendants, must have
originated through the necessity of protecting the foot against cold instead of heat.
Ethnological researches have refuted the old theory that the Lapps formerly
inhabited the whole of Sweden. Broadly speaking, they are not considered to
have ever spread farther towards the south than now, though in former times
quite a number of Lapps frequently extended their more temporary migrations
far down towards Southern Sweden, and individual Lapps roamed in these
regions far more than they do now. Statistical information regarding this
people is generally doubtful and of difficult interpretation. But considering how
many prosperous tribes have died out within one generation, in all of the
Lapp communities, and the persecution and disastrous diseases which in several
places have decimated the reindeer herds, it is hard to see the future of the
Lapps in an especially bright colour. And yet the case does not appear hopeless.
This hardy and morally strong people has passed triumphantly through even
more severe struggles.
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