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CONCERNING LAPLAND. 305
called Noaaids. In this office of facrificing they difcovered great
dexterity, and on that account were diftinguifhed by the Danith
name of b/odmander, or men of blood. | They knew how to fepa-
rate and divide the different parts of the animal, according to the
nature of the facrifice, and the deity it was intended for. Upon
thefe occafions they conftantly wore a particular habit.
Thofe acts of worfhip, occafioning a great reduction of their
ftock of cattle, often brought the Laplanders to a fituation of
mifery and want: as the mountain Laplanders, when attacked
by the fmall-pox or the meafles, with difficulty got over thefe
diforders, owing to the pores of their {kins being rendered imper-
vious by the dirt and fmoke in which they lived, they made
numerous facrifices of rein-deer during their illnefs, fometimes to
the number of twelve rein-deer to one perfon. Now thefe people,
obferving that the converts to chriftianity appeared to rid them-
felves of all complaints, by merely figning themfelves with a crofs,
were eafily difpofed to adopt that religion. But as the God of the
chriftians feemed to them only to have provided for their happi-
nefs hereafter ; and was, moreover, too mild and gracious to afflict
them with difeafes, they {till confidered it to be their intereft,
occafionally te continue. their facrifices to the gods of their fore-
fathers, in order to relieve themfelves from ficknefs and the evils
of this prefent ftate ; and herein they feem to have refembled the
Samaritans mentioned in the New Teftament, who worfhipped
the God of Ifrael, and the idols of the Gentiles at the fame time.
This in fome meafure accounts for the Laplanders being only fully
Vor. II. Rr converted
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