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570 VI. AGRICULTURE AND CATTLE-BREEDING OF SWEDEN.
Reindeer at the Skansen Museum in Stockholm.
Reindeer-breeding.
An altogether special kind of cattle-breeding, without any connection with
that pursued elsewhere in Sweden, is the reindeer-breeding carried on by the
Lapps, this small nomadic people — at present consisting of but a few thousands
of individuals — concerning which an account is given in the foregoing, p. 166.
For the Lapp, the reindeer is a necessary condition of life. He is carried
by it across the snow-covered fells, amid the winter-night illumined by the northern
light. He gains his principal food from the flesh and milk of the reindeer, he
makes his clothes of its hide, sewing them by means of thread made from its
sinews, and, finally, he makes domestic utensils of its bones and horns. In former
days, the Lapps were the sole masters of the northern alpine regions in our
country, with the large adjoining moors and forests. But simultaneously with the
close approach of culture to the North, the pasture-lands of the Lapps have also
been restricted, and the number of nomadic Lapps has decreased. In consequence
of this, reindeer-breeding has also decreased, to which, moreover, the fact has
contributed that the Lapps not so freely as formerly can drive their herds across
the borders of Norway and Finland. — In 1890 the total number of reindeer was
296,220, of which 203,170, or 69 % were found within the Län of Norrbotten,
and the rest within those of Vesterbotten and Jemtland. The number of reindeer
is decreasing, so that in 1900 they amounted to but 231,960. As there are but
a few hundreds of reindeer owners, the average number of animals in each
reindeer herd is found to be very considerable.
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