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478 ACCOUNT OF DANISH LAPLAND BY LEEMS.
in his office was called Mearro-Oaave. The magician had colleéted all thefe members
in that place where they tried the cure of the fick man. At the invifible affembly (fo
called, becaufe vifible to the magician alone,) Aarja prefided, the Noaaid-Gadze, the
companions of the magician as well as the two women, which the Aarja added to this
invifible college fitting together with him. Women chofen into this invifible college
were called Rudok.
Each college, vifible and invifible, duly called and provided, the magician prepared
himfelf for his journey, that will be defcribed more at large by us, who, that he might
act agreeably to the rules of his art, after uncovering his head, and loofing his girdle
and latchets, covered his face with his hands, and twirled round his whole frame into a
variety of circles, with wondrous and ftrange geftures, adding thefe words, Va/ma/h/ftet
Haerge ! Satzhja let Vaanas! Let the rein-deer be got ready, and prepare the boat,
he faid, and fnatching up an axe, he dragged the burning pieces of fire with his bare
hands from the grate, aflerting with confidence, that he had nothing to fear in this.
ftate from raging flame. ‘Then, taking no fmall draught of brandy, he ftruck
his knees, not flightly, with the faid axe, and, raifing it up with both his hands,
he brandifhed it three times around each of the women S/yarak. During this time no
one was permitted to touch him, not even a fly, which they drove off with the greateft
care. When he had gone through thefe ridiculous, and almoft furious, geftures and
ceremonies, he ftretched himfelf, like a dead man, on the ground, under which defer.
tion of mind or trance, as it feemed, made up of body and mind, he lay; that while his
body lay in the cot, to be viewed by all, his mind, if you believe the Laplanders, through
fome fubterranean paflage, when all fenfe for the time was fhut up, fhould view the
Paffe-Varek, or facred mountains, with their inhabiting gods, and hear the fongs, called
in the Lapland Luodiit, which were ufually fung in the invifible college in this trance.
During this time the aforementioned women, S/jarak, were feated in the tent, adorned
with all their drefs, difcourfing in a low voice (a difcourfe of this kind was called in
Lapland Monataebme), as afking each other what part of the world now held our ma-
gician; one part or other of the facred mountain being conftantly mentioned by them.
If it happens that the women in their converfation fhould have fallen on the name of the
- mountain in which the magician, when the ecftacy is over, has afferted he has been taken,
on the bare mention of it he feemed in the trance to them, to move his hand or foot.
Mean time continuing their difcourfe, they go on to afk, whether in that place, in which
he has been taken up, he either fees or hears? The magician, when at length he returns
to himfelf, utters, in a low voice, the words which he boafts he heard uttered in the
facred college ; words fuch as thefe the Laplanders call Zaabme. ‘The women, fitting
together, finding out that the magician is returned to himfelf, began, with a clear and
loud voice, to fing. Thefe and other fuch diabolical rites and geftures being completed,
the magician, returned to himfelf, fignified, by clear and open expreflions, that a facri-
fice is to be made, an animal to be flain, at the fame time naming the place where it was
to be done, and interpofing his faith that the fick man -would recover within a certain
and limited fpace of time ; which fometimes did happen with exa€tnefs and order, at
another time not. For the whole day before the magician entered on this buiinefs, he
refrained altogether from meat and drink.
3ut it appears among all by whom the manners of this nation have been infpetted
andexamined, that the faid women Shyarak, had ever been prefent with the magician,
when exercifing his art in the college called vifible as witnefles of the atchievement : it
appears alfo that the magician had ufed in this act ceremonies and geftures, fuch as loofen-
ing
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