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ACCOUNT OF DANISH LAPLAND BY LEEMS, 485
it, going to another at a confiderable diftance from it, but burn all the excrement of the
animal before they depart. Women are not permitted to eat the flefh of the head of the
rein-deer. It is not permitted to males or females to eat of the limb of any animal,
when they have felt a ike pain with it in their own ; fo that fhould a Laplander happen
to be ill in his eyes or back, he fhould religioufly abftain from the eating of the eyes and
back of the apimal.
The Laplanders to a man refrain moft obftinately from eating fwine’s flefh. If you
enquire the caufe of this abftinence, they tell you that {wine are the magicians’ horfes.
That they are averfe to it in reality I am convinced ; but the true caufe it has not been
in my power ever to afcertain, nor will one eafily be led to think that they themfelves
affign the true reafon. But they call the {wine Tazhya-Guouz/ya, that is, the Norman,
or Norwegian, bear, doubtlefsly for this reafon, that this animal, whofe flefh the Nor-
wegians fo eagerly eat, is not much unlike the bear in form.
‘They have a fancy that beafts, birds, and fifh are averfe to the places where facred
buildings have been raifed, and for this reafon very feldom attempt hunting in places
of this kind, by reafon of their diftruft of fuccels. Whenever any of the family went
out to fith, thofe who remained at home thought it impious to put a brand in a veflel
filled with water to extinguifh it, left an injury fhould happen to the fifhermen. On
their return they did not like to fpread their fifh on that part of the fhore which the
women frequented, thinking if they did that their fuccefs would be baulked by it.
Whenever a Laplander took a greater flounder, as called, he ufually marked it with the
fign of the crofs, when he took out the hook. It was accounted impious to put the
water in which this fith was boiled before a fhe-goat to drink, left the abundance and
catching fhould derive any detriment from it.
They are not very willing to call a bear by his proper and genuine name, Guoaz/ya,.
fearing left fo doing the favage beaft would tear their herds more mercilefsly ; they call
him then, fupprefling the name Moedda-Aigja, the old man with the fur garment.
Bears when killed have been brought home in a kind of triumph. On their return
they erected a cot near that in which they refided, into which they did not enter until they
had at firft ftript off their cloaths, confidering it as impious to enter it in the cloaths in
which they had killed the bear. The males ftayed three days here, but the women during
that time inhabited the cot : in the meantime no one was permitted to enter the dwelling
ef another. In the newly-erected cot the males cooked the bear’s flefh ; on which occafion
they did not ufe the accuftomed term Vuo/hjam, cook, but Guorde/tam in its place. When.
cooked the men regaled themfelves with it, giving part of it to the women, with fpecial
care that they fhould not have any part of the haunch, nor that it fhould be given them
through the ufual door, but put in through a rent made in the covering of the cot, in
the place where the pots and kettles were put, mentioned in Chapter V. Through this
place, by which bear’s as well as rein-deer’s flefh was put in, neither entrance nor outlet
was permitted to the women. When the bear’s flefh was confumed, the bones were
laid in the earth ;. and after three days that they lived feparately, a mutual intercourfe
was then opened for them. He who had the good fortune of killing the bear from that
time took it ill if any one paffed behind him.
Scheffer tedioufly defcribes a great number of fuperftitious ceremonies ufed in bear-
hunting, the truth of all I cannot vouch for, neither from what I actually know, or hear
from others; for in that part of the country in which I difcharged the function of a
miffionary a bear was feldom killed : and to the whole of this account of his on this
part of the fubje& I agree; nor is there any thing in.it that exceeds an ordinary belief,
in my opinion,
$ Wher
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