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F1NNISH TYPES IN NORRBOTTEN
Fig. 4. Fig, 5. Fig. 6.
A very considerable immigration of Finns took place at the end of the sixteenth
century and the beginning of the seventeenth. Altogether at that time from
twelve to thirteen thousands of Finns at least settled in the middle of Sweden
or in the South of Norrland, especially in Wärmland and the counties of Koppar*
berg and Gäfleborg. Long before this however, a slower more disconnected
immigration of Finns had begun to take place, and continued to do so after*
wards. They have gradually become incorporated in the Swedish nation. A
great many of the serfs to be found in Sweden in olden times belonged almost
certainly to the Finnish race. In the most northerly parts of Sweden are to be
found about 25,000 so*called Finns, who speak the Finnish language. In spite
of this they are for the most part of very mixed descent, which can be ascer*
tained not only by means of genealogical investigation, but also manifests itself
in the varying types which appear among them. Part of them is of Finnish,
Swedish and Lappish descent, another part of Swedish and Finnish or of Finnish
and Lappish descent, etc. The number of persons in Sweden having more or
less decided Finnish racial characteristics is of considerable importance. They
include in all probability some hundreds of thousands of people.
The Finnish races, that in olden times were especially numerous and who
were divided into many different branches, living in a territory stretching from
the most northerly part of Scandinavia through Finland and North Russia a good
way into Siberia, have by degrees lost their own national peculiarities and have
to a large extent become absorbed by other nations, especially by Slavonic races
in Russia. The Tavastlandish is considered to be one of the most pure of the
Finnish races. Such types are not so unusual even among us. A Finn of this
type is short in stature, thick=set and strongly built. He is fair and, as a rule,
has light eyes, his hair is straight and coarse, his complexion is fair and often of
a somewhat dirty grey colour; his head is short and fairly broad, as is also his
face. This has a square appearance caused by the broadness of the cheeks which
extend downwards even to the angle of the lower jaw. The nose is very clumsy
with a concave*brigde. Figs. 4 to 6 show us some Finnish types in Sweden, as
do also the pictures on Plates XI—XIII, mixed types on Plate XIV.
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