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ACCOUNT OF DANISH LAPLAND BY LEEMS. 463
honeft man), there are living in deep fprings, certain animals not very unlike to infants,
if you look to their figure yet fmooth, and without hair; he faid that their fleth
was well relifhed; that they were to be caught but feldom, and this only by art; by a
plate of butter put at the fide of the {pring where they keep. By the {cent of this, the
Lhiakkalaggak allured, immediately come up, and, when rifing, are fhot by men who
lie in wait. If fuch animals really exift, and that there was an opportunity of getting
them, they would be worthy of a place in the king’s mufeum,
There was a certain Laplander dwelling in Porfanger, of the name of Andrew Ef-
kildfon, among the Norwegians called Andrew Bredefkalde, that is Andrew Broadfront,
commonly fo called, who died a little before my coming into this country. He, as the
report fays, ufually prayed to Saint John for women in child-bearing.
Cuap. XX.—Of the idolatrous Sacrifices of the Laplanders.
THE names of the Lapland idols, as well as the rites ufed in their worfhip, fo vary
from the various fituations inhabited by Laplanders, that to give an exact defcription of
them, would, in this chapter, be extremely difficult ; meantime, what I have obferved
whilft among them, or have learned from the obfervations of others who were {killed in
thefe matters, I have determined to communicate to the reader.
Animate things chiefly, and among thefe principally rein-deer and fheep, feals feldom,
were facrificed to the gods. Inanimate, as milk, rice-milk, cheefe, and other things
of this nature were alfo fometimes offered.
The rites ufed in facrifices were various and manifold. In the facrifices of living
things, either the whole animal, or at leaft fome part was offered.
Sometimes they boiled the whole animal, and when boiled, devoured it, except the
bones, which were left for the god of the place, whom, they little doubted, was able
and willing to cover them with new flefh. It was their practice to ereét certain long
{ticks, bef{meared with the blood of the victim, in the place where the facrifices were
made. Sticks of this kind were called in Lapland Liet Morak. Sometimes they ufed
to facrifice the animal at a certain river, into which the blood of the victim was poured ;
certain fticks ftained with the blood being folemnly erected in the place of facrifice.
If they happened to kill a bear, when the fkin was {tripped off, and fome part of the
meat was boiled, the liver was taken out, which, put on a {take and roafted at the
fire, as a hoft or kind of facramental facrifice, called in the Lapland Vuodio-ba/em.
The Laplanders are faid to offer certain facrifices for young children, in this order ;
for an infant as yet in the womb, a fheep; for the fame, when born, a dog, which
was buried alive, and, after birth, any animal dreffed in a linen hood.
The method of facrificing inanimate things was thus: they poured brandy and
liquids of fuch fort on the ground to propitiate the Lares, who were believed to in-
habit the hearth or threfhold, in that libation which they called Seime-Staebmae. To
pour the beeftings of a cow the firft time fhe brings forth young, on the floor of the
cow-houfe, belonged alfo to the facred ceremonies. When going to dwell in a different
place, they had a cuftom of pouring milk on the place from whence they were
coming, in order to declare a grateful and devoted mind towards the deity of that
place, on account of the -benefits received during the whole time of their refidence
in it.
The difeafes with which men as well as cattle were at different times affeCted, hunt-
ing and fifhing that was unfuccefsful, and fuch incidents, furnifhed the Laplanders with-
opportunity and even neceflity of appeafing their gods by facrifices. Victims Lr
chie y:
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