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184
II. THE SWEDISH PEOPLE.
<h.igh mountains take place, the oldest Lapps often remain at the lakes where
fish are plentiful, and, together with a smaller number of poor Lapps who have
lost their reindeer and subsist mainly on fishing, are called Fisher Lapps. Out
of the 7 138 Lapps in Sweden (approx. 1910) about 3 641 were nomads; in the
läns of Norrbotten 4 330, in that of "Västerbotten 1 780, in Jämtland,
Härjedalen and Idre in Dalarne, etc. 1 028. With regard to their breeding of reindeer
and the numbers of the latter, the reader is referred to the article on Reindeer,.
Part II.
Everyone knows that the Lapps have almost at all periods been hard pressed
and often unfairly treated by their Scandinavian neighbours. During the Middle
Ages they were oppressed by the "birkarlar", the privileged traders, and the
tax-gatherers. In more recent times the "grass fens", "straw fields", and
"drying-hurdles" of the settlers, and their dogs have occasioned the numerous and the bitterest
conflicts. The unpractical method of the settlers of leaving their hay on the
drying-hurdles until the winter, when it is stored as need arises, is unfortunately
still retained in most of the Lapp country, and owing to the damage clone by
the reindeer to the open hay-hurdles is the frequent cause of strife.
More or less practical attempts to regulate the relations between the Lapps
and the settlers have long been made by the Swedish authorities. The Act
relating to the Right of Swedish Lapps to pasture Reindeer (as well as a law
relating to "Reindeer Marks"1) was issued on June 4th 1886 and — with several
admendments — July 1, 1898. In 1008 a Commission was appointed for the
investigation of "measures to be taken to secure the existence of the Lapp
people and the development of reindeer-breeding"; from this Commission we may
expect a final settlement of the "Lapp question". The Lapps have had great
difficulties in consequence of international relations. The Swedish frontier on
the north was long unsettled, and consequently the Lapps in certain
districts-suffered severely. The relations with Russia were arranged by the Teusina
Peace in 1595, and with Denmark and Norway preliminarily by the Peace of
Knäred in 1613, when Sweden desisted from her claims to the coast land furthest
north. It was not, till the important treaty of Strörpstad in 1751 that the
north and west frontier of Lappland was definitely settled, a special "codicil"
determining that the ancient rights of the Lapps to pasture on the Norwegian
frontier should be respected "even in time of war".
However, the happier times which had thus ensued for the Lapps were not
to last very long: the last century was fertile in strife and bickerings between
the Lapps and the Norwegian settlers. In order to put an end to these disputes.,
various Swedo-Norwegian commissions were at work during the 19th century;
the outcome of their efforts was in 1883 an enactment relating to "those Lapps who
move with their reindeer between Sweden and Norway"; this enactment was to be in
force for fifteen years, but has been prolonged for the present. In the most
northerly Lapp districts this state of things was worsened by the Norwegio-Russian
"closing of the frontier" in 1852, when Russia, after certain negotiations with
the Norwegians relating to fishing waters on the Norwegian coast, closed its
frontiers to the Norwegian Lapps. The immediate consequence was that a large
number of Kautokeino Lapps with considerable herds of reindeer migrated to
the Swedish Enontekis Lapp country, in order, as Swedish subjects, to circumvent
the enactment. But many of those who migrated were notorious for
reindeer-stealing, and, as the previously scanty Swedish pastures now became still more
exhausted, this measure was extremely unfortunate for these northern nomads.
Things became still worse for them when the frontier between Sweden and
1 "Reindeer Marks": Reindeer are marked by cutting thier ears (as is the practice with
sheep in Iceland). This "trade mark" affords legal protection to the owners of the animals.
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