THE LAPP HAMLET OF KAUTOKEINO.--A BATH IN A BIG IRON POT.--AN ARCTIC WAY
OF WASHING CLOTHES.--DRESS AND ORNAMENTS OF THE LAPPS.--APPEARANCE
AND HEIGHT OF THE LAPPS.--GIVIJAeRVI.--KARASJOK.
A few days after the events I have just related to you, I found myself
in the Lapp hamlet of Kautokeino, with its Lutheran church, near
latitude 69 degrees. Here and there were queer-looking storehouses which
belonged to the nomadic Lapps. I alighted before the post station, and
entered the house and was welcomed by the station master. The dwelling
was composed of two rooms, one for the use of the family, the other for
guests or travellers. The place was full of Lapp men and women who had
come to rest, go to church on the following Sunday, or see their
children who were at school; or to get coffee, sugar, and other
provisions stored in their own houses.
On the opposite side of the post station was the cow house, and between
it and the house was the old-fashioned wooden-bucket well with its long,
swinging pole, surrounded by a thick mass of ice made of the dripping
water from the bucket. I did not wonder when I saw the ice, for it was
43 degrees below zero that day, and sometimes it is colder still.
I went into the cow-house. It was, as usual, a very low building, lower
than most of those I had seen before. The two long windows admitted a
dim light. At the further end was the usual big iron pot seen in almost
every cow-house, for soaking the grass in boiling water, as the coarse
marsh grass is so hard to chew that it has to be thus prepared. The
daughter of the house, a girl about twenty years old, said to me, "I am
going to prepare a meal for the cows and the sheep."
The huge iron pot was filled with reindeer moss and grass and warm
water. "This food is for the cows and sheep," she said. "The horse is
fed on fine fragrant hay, gathered during the short summer; horses will
not eat the food we give to the cows and sheep; they are very
particular."
I was very much in need of a good wash and of a warm bath, for I had
only used snow to wash my hands and face for many days. As I looked at
the big iron pot I said to myself, "This pot will make a good wash-tub."
I went to the mistress of the house and asked her if I could take a warm
bath in the big iron pot. "Certainly," she replied. Then she called her
daughter, and both went to the cow-house. They cleaned the iron pot
thoroughly; then filled it about two thirds full with water from the
trough communicating with the well, which the old station master drew
for them. They lighted a fire under the pot, and cleaned the
surroundings, and laid down a reindeer skin for my feet, and a chair for
me to sit on.
When the water was warm, and the fire under it extinguished, the wife
said that my bath was ready.
How good I felt when I was in the big iron pot filled with warm water. I
gave grunts of satisfaction. I put my head under water and thought "How
good; how good the water feels."
Suddenly one of the family appeared, and before I had time to say "What
do you want?" had jumped into the water all dressed and got hold of one
of my legs and rubbed it with soap. Then came the turn of the other leg,
then the body, head and all. I was rubbed with a brush as hard as if I
had been a piece of wood that had no feelings, and as if my skin had
been the bark of a tree. Two or three times I screamed out, but my
attendant only laughed. After the rubbing I was switched with birch
twigs till I fairly glowed, and then I was left alone. When I looked at
my body my skin was as red as a tomato. The blood was in full
circulation and I felt fine, for it was such a long time since I had
taken a real bath that I had almost forgotten that there was such a
thing.
How nice it was to put clean underwear on. How comfortable it felt. I
put on a new pair of reindeer trousers, that were lent to me and that
had never been worn before, and a new "kapta." Here was a good occasion
to have my underwear washed, and my fur garments cleansed of everything,
for it was over 40 degrees below zero. This wearing of the same clothes
for a long time is the greatest hardship of travelling in winter in the
Arctic regions; for in the course of time obnoxious things swarm in the
fur and also in the woollen underwear. When these become unendurable the
following way of washing has to be performed without soap or water.
After a person has changed his fur garments and underwear, he hangs them
outside when the temperature is from 20 to 50 degrees below zero. The
colder it is, the better for the clothes that are to be cleansed. These
are left hanging for several days, during which time all the noxious
things are killed by the intense cold. After this the underwear and the
fur garments are well shaken and beaten, and then they return from this
kind of laundry clean, according to the views of the Arctic regions, and
are ready to be worn again. I often had my clothing washed in that
manner, and also my sleeping-bags.
On Sunday many Lapps attended the Lutheran church from different parts
of the country, coming either on skees or with their sleighs; those who
lived far away starting the day before. Some had come even so far as one
hundred and fifty miles. I was present at the religious services; the
church was crowded. The clergyman was not in his clerical robes, but
dressed in furs--like the rest of the congregation, for the churches are
not heated.
On my return from church, the Lapps asked me where I was going. I
replied I wanted to go as far as the land went north of me, as far as
Nordkyn. They all wondered why I wanted to go there. They asked me if I
was a merchant and bought fish. I told them I was not, but that I
travelled to see the country and its people. They thought I was a very
strange man, and they wondered at my ways.
This hamlet was composed of about twelve homesteads. The dwelling-houses
were built of logs, those for beasts of turf or stones. By the church
was the schoolhouse, and there was a large store very much like our
country stores at home.
The inhabitants owned about sixty cows,--such small cows! they were
about three feet in height--one hundred and seventy sheep and a few oxen
as small as the cows.
Kautokeino was full of nomadic Lapps, and we had a good time together,
for the Lapps are very friendly and I had learned to love them. "We come
here," they said, "to meet our friends, to see our children who are in
school, to get some of the provisions kept in our storehouses and other
things we want; and we bring with us skins of reindeer and the garments
and shoes that have been made in our tents."
In this church hamlet were a number of very old Lapps, men and women who
could no longer follow their reindeer and endure a hard, wandering life.
Thither also the sick or the lame come, to stay until they get well or
die. Two Lapps were pointed out to me who were nearly one hundred years
old.
The inhabitants of these Lapp hamlets are not nomadic; they live on the
produce of their farms, the increase of their reindeer, by catching
salmon, and in employing themselves as sailors on the fishing-boats of
the Arctic Sea, which they reach by descending the rivers.
The Lapp women wore queer-fitting little caps of bright colors, and when
in holiday dress wore a number of large showy silk handkerchiefs.
Sometimes they had as many as four, on the top of one another, over
their fur dresses; they wore necklaces of large glass beads, round their
waists were silver belts, and their fingers were ornamented with rings.
They wore trousers of reindeer skin, as the Lapp women do universally.
The men wore peaked caps.
These people were short of stature, compactly but slightly built, with
strong limbs, their light weight allowing them to climb, jump, and run
quickly. There are no heavy men with big stomachs among them. Quite a
number of Lapps have fair hair and blue eyes. They are unlike the
Esquimaux, and in a crowd at home, dressed like ourselves, would pass
unnoticed. There are a number of Lapps in the North-west of our own
county. The tallest woman that I saw was 5 feet 1/2 inch, the tallest
man 5 feet 4-1/2 inches; the smallest woman 4 feet 4-1/4 inches, the
smallest man 4 feet 7 inches. There were more women averaging 4 feet 10
inches than men of that size, men averaging generally above five feet.
I left Kautokeino, and that same day I came to Lake Givijaervi. I had to
be told that it was a lake, for it was a continuous snow-land. Here was
a farm, the owner of which kept a small store and sold sugar, coffee,
salt, flour, tobacco, matches, some woollen underwear, etc., to the
Lapps; and bought from them skins, shoes, and gloves, in summer smoked
tongue and reindeer meat, reindeer cheese, etc., and every year went
with these to some of the Norwegian towns on the Arctic Sea to sell them
and buy groceries and other goods.
Here I had a clean room and bed. The place was a great rendezvous for
nomadic Lapps, and I found many of them. The farmer extended to them
unbounded hospitality, and spread as many reindeer skins on the floor at
night as the room could hold, for them to sleep on.
The Lapps liked the place very much, and came there to rest for a few
days, bringing their food with them. Their wives and children would also
come, and were sure to be welcome at the farm. I could not drink
sufficient milk or coffee, or eat enough reindeer meat, cheese, or
butter that had been churned in summer, to please the good-hearted
farmer. He wanted no pay. He even insisted on accompanying me to
Karasjok.
The sleighing was fine, and the snow was six and seven feet deep on a
level. Our arrival at Karasjok, after a hundred miles' journey from
Givijaervi, was announced by the fierce barking of the dogs of the place,
and twice I was almost overtaken by one more fierce than the others.
"They only bark," shouted my guide. I was now in latitude 69 deg. 35', and
within a few miles of the longitude of Nordkyn. The hamlet was situated
on the shores of the Karasjoki river. Some of the fir trees of the
forests near Karasjok measured twenty inches in diameter; but once cut
they do not grow again. I saw very few young trees.
The hamlet was composed of eighteen or twenty homesteads, with about one
hundred and thirty inhabitants. There were over twenty horses, besides
cows, sheep, and reindeer. The horses were so plentiful because they are
used to haul timber. I reflected that the horse is a wonderful animal,
and can live like man in many kinds of climate.
All the houses at Karasjok were built of logs. The finest residence was
that of the merchant of the place. The Karasjok Lapps, and others in the
neighborhood, were very unlike those I had seen before. They were tall;
some of them six feet in height. The women were also tall, most of them
having dark hair. The fair complexion and blue eyes were uncommon. Men
and women wore strange-looking head-dresses. The men wore square caps of
red or blue flannel, filled up with eider down. The women put on a
wooden framework of very peculiar shape, appearing more or less like a
casque or the helmet of a dragoon.
I only stopped the night in Karasjok, and after getting new reindeer at
the post station and a new guide, started north.