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456 ACCOUNT OF DANISH LAPLAND BY LEEMS.
feemed, forfooth, to require, a pair of breeches, which lay in his way. And
now the whole is drawn out, fome armed with mufkets, others with hatchets, and
fome had bills. A woman of the troop I converfed with on this imaginary fray, had
a child on one arm, and a bill hook in the other. And as the numbers thickened
through confternation, ignorant of the way, and confufed by the darknefs of the
night, on their march they miftook the path, and fell, fortunately without any harm,
into a pit-fall, and when extricated by the next morning exhibited a ftriking and ridi-
culous fpectacle of the effects of fear on the imagiation.
A Laplander of Alten in weftern Finmark, whofe name was Peter Nelfon, wagered
witha failor of Bergen, that he would hit with a grooved gun, ftanding in the hatches
of the veflel, the top of the maft with exaétnefs ; and performed his engagement.
Cuap. XVIIN.—On the Difeafes and Deaths of the Laplanders.
THE fmall pox, a terrible and contagious kind of difeaie, is feldom in Finmark, and
fearcely once makes its attack within thirty or forty years. Some years back this dif-
order raged in thefe countries with fuch malignity, as to carry offan incalculable num-
ber of every age and fex. A young Scotchman, brought it to Bergen whehce,
the contagion {preading extenfively, as it ufually does, feattered itfelf about in all
quarters, and tainted with its venom certain perfons, refiding at Bergen’on bufinefs,
during the fummer, from the extremity of Nordland. But from the nature and effeéts
of this difeafe, epidemically {preading itfelf, we may know in part, and eftimate the in-
fcrutible ways and methods by which the Divine juftice proceeds to vindicate itfelf.
And as it is cuftomary among the Norwegians peafants, to count their years, from the
Jaft war between the Danes and Swedes, fo are the Laplanders accuftomed to count
from the time of this raging malady, reckoning in this manner ufually: “ Tjam fo
many years of age from the laft vifitation of the fmall pox.”
The Laplanders are afflicted at times with the head-ache, and a few other common
illneffes ; in other refpets, they are a found and robutt people.
They get rid of internal difeafes, as they call them, by drinking feal’s blood, yet
tepid or the blood of the rein-deer. ‘They cure the tooth-ache, elfewhere, a molt
fharp and almoft incurable pain, in like manner by a draught of feal’s blood. For-
merly, and in times of ignorance, they thought of no remedy again{t this more im-
mediate than the rubbing the teeth with a tlake from a tree ftruck with lightning.
Befides an unufual fpecies of tooth-ache prevails among the Laplanders, if you look
efpecially to the caufe of it arifing from the bite of a certain kind of worm of a yellowith
colour, with a black head, as large as a grain of barley, which gets into the teeth of
the Laplanders, and gnaws them with the acuteft pain.
They ufually cure the eyes, darkened by a film drawn over them, by putting in a
fmall vermin, the loufe, to eat through the membrane by its fubtle rubbing. Delicacy
would have prevented my mentioning this kind of cure, but as it is fo uncommon and
unufual, that it may be fought for in vain, among the medical tribe, you will indulge
me in the bare mentioning it. Fora kibe on the heel, and other ills contracted from
extreme cold, they ufe oil of rein-deer, with which they rub over the -part affected.
They foften the fores of wounds by gum from the fir tree. Ihave known fome Lap-
landers, who, on fracturing a limb, before they would reftore the limb, put out of
joint and bruifed, by bandaging it up when fet right, to have drunk filver, or it they
had none, brafs when pulverized, affirming folemmly that they had received no fmall
relief from the ule of this potable metal.
ti . How
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