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REGNARD’S JOURNEY TO LAPLAND. 169
ceafed, which the ancients called manes, fhould do them any injury. The coffin confifts
of a tree hollowed out, or even fometimes of their fledge, into which they put all that
the dead perfon had moft valuable, as his bow, his arrows, and his lance, with the inten-
tion that fhould he one day return to life, he may be able to exercife his former profef-
fion. Some of them are even fuch gallant chriftians as to confound chriftianity with their
ancient fuperftitions ; for having heard their priefts tell that we fhould one day arife
again from the dead, they put into the coffin of the dead perfon his hatchet, a flint, and
a piece of iron to ftrike a fire, (Laplanders never travel without thefe neceffaries, ) that
when he arifes he may be able to cut down trees, level rocks, and burn all the obftacles
that he may meet with in his road to heaven. You fee, Sir, that notwith{tanding all
their errors, thefe people move thitherward as much as poflible ; they wifh to arrive at
it either peaceably or by force, fo that it may be faid, His per ferrum et ignes ad celos
graffari conftitutum, and that they expect by iron and fire to enter the kingdom of heaven.
They do not always inter their dead in cemeteries, but very often in forefts and ca-
verns: they fprinkle the place with fpirits ; all the mourners drink of them ; and three
days after the funeral they kill the rein-deer which had borne the dead to the burying-
place, and a feaft is made of it to all the company prefent : the bones are not thrown
away, but gathered carefully for the purpofe of burying at the fide of the deceafed. It
is at this repaft that they drink the pa/igavin, that is, fortunate liquor, becaufe they
drink in honour of a perfon whom they believe to be happy.
Succeilions are fettled nearly in the fame manner as in Sweden : the widow takes the
half; and ifthe deceafed has left any property, the boy takes two-thirds of it, and leaves
the reft to his fifter. ;
We were very earneftly engaged in this converfation, when we were informed that
fome Laplanders with their rein-deer were obferved approaching on the tops of the moun-
tains : we {allied out to meet them, that we might have the pleafure of feeing their equi-
page and their march ; but we fell in with three or four perfons only who carried on
their deer fome dried fith for fale at Swapavara. I have long fpoken to you, Sir, about
the rein-deer, without having given you a defcription of that animal, which I have already
fo often alluded to. _ It is but reafonable, therefore, that I fhould now proceed to gratify
your curiofity, as I have at prefent gratified my own.
Rheen is aSwedifh word by which they have been diftinguifhed, either on account of its
neatnefs or his {wiftnefs; for rhen fignifies neat, and renna means to run, in that language.
The Romans were totally ignorant of this animal, and the modern Latins call it rangifer.
I cannot give you any other reafon for this, than that the Swedes formerly called this
animal rangi, to which word fera was added, as if they had faid, the animal called rangi.
Although I do not wifh to fay that the horns of this animal, which fhoot out in the form
of large branches, have led them to give it this appellation ; for in that cafe they would
rather have called it ramifer than rangifer. Whatever may be in this, Sir, one thing is
certain, that although this animal is almoft like a f{tag, it neverthelefs differs from it in
fome refpects. ‘The rein-deer is larger, but the horns are totally different; they rife
to a great height, and become crooked in the middle, forming a kind of circle round
the head, which is covered with hair from top to bottom, of the colour of the ikin, and
is full of blood throughout ; fo that if it is hard prefled by the hand, the animal {hows
by its conduct that it feels pain in that part. But that which this animal has in parti-
cular to diftinguifh it fromall others, is the great quantity of horns with which Nature
has provided them for their defence again{t wild beafts. ‘The {tag has only two horns,
from which fprout a number of fharp points; .but the rein-deer has another in the
centre of the forehead, which produces the fame appearance with that which has been
VOL.’I. Zz painted
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