BY CANOE TO THE NEIDEN, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE
RUSSIAN LAPP'S DAUBSFEST AT BORIS GLEB
The Lapp in Lapland has his moments of personal cleanliness, as will be
remarked in their place. The Russian Lapp, who resides outside Lapland
proper, especially if he be of the fisher variety, scorns the outward
application of soap and water. In summer a good cake of dirt, especially
if it be well smeared in with tar, goes far to ward off the incessant
gnawings of the mosquito; and in winter, when the mercury of a
thermometer moves always sluggishly far below zero, what poor man would
willingly strip off an extra coat of clothing?
The Russian Lapp indeed has few true and Lappish attributes. He
resembles far more nearly the ordinary Russian _moujik_. He would even
wear the orthodox knee-boot if he could afford it, but he is usually in
a state of abject poverty, and attires himself in whatever rags may come
to hand.
He is not in the least picturesque. Cover up his face and hair, and put
him in a Bradford street, and he would pass for a British tramp,
without work, or any inclination to find work. But his gipsyish face,
with its black, beady eyes, and high cheek-bones, might betray him
somewhat, and anyway the cut of his hair, which is worn along the
eyebrows in front and fringing the coat collar (_à la moujik_) behind,
would cause the more curious of Bradford wayfarers to turn round and
stare.
The Lapp is not much in the reindeer business here on the Russian side.
To begin with, the country is ill-adapted to the raising of deer, as it
is mostly made up of lake and swamp; and as a further reason, the demand
for venison here would be small, since the Russian orthodox church
prohibits meat for quite half the year. So fishing becomes the Lapp's
chief industry, and by fishing he manages to wriggle along just beyond
the grip of starvation.
He permeates the lower reaches of the Pasvik Elv and the shores of the
Syd Varanger Fjord in considerable quantities, and there is a settlement
of him at Boris Gleb, just below the falls of the Pasvik, round the
white turreted church which we had seen from the Jarfjord road. At Boris
Gleb he is at his best. He is under the direct eyebrow of Holy Russia at
Boris Gleb, and has his place in statistics as an orthodox member of the
Greek Church. His houses are of wood, raised above the damp of floods on
curious three-foot piles, and the elements of sanitation are taught to
him by official pressure. He is not obtrusively sanitary, even in Boris
Gleb, which is by way of being a model village, with a rather high-class
patron saint, whom the devout from afar honour with pilgrimages; but he
wears there a kind of official "company manners," and he is quaintly
ready to be stared at by the foreigner.
In the Elvenaes neighbourhood he is known as a Skolte, or bald Lapp,
because though in the present year of grace he wears an ordinary head of
hair, at one time a skin disease ran through the community and made the
heads as bare as a boulder of ice-worn rock.
Now under the brilliant glare of a summer sun, Boris Gleb is not a good
place to visit. Gazed at from afar--say from above Elvenaes, as we saw
it first--it is a fairy chapel set in beauty. Looked at close-to, it is
merely a flimsy building of wood, freakishly architected, and painted an
indifferent white. The inside is tawdry. The priest is a vulgar showman
who would bring out his mother's corpse for a fee, and the interesting
model Skolte Lapps are just about as artificial as all the rest of the
paraphernalia. One does not exactly blame either parson or flock; they
are the possessors of a spectacle, and they exhibit it for a living;
only one kicks one's self for going to stare.
But Boris Gleb during one night of the long dark gloom of winter shows a
very different scene. On the Russian 6th of January (the 18th by our
reckoning) there takes place the annual Daubsfest, and from over the
bleak snows of the fjeld come in the reindeer sledges of Lapps who hold
to the Orthodox faith. For a week previous to the 6th, they are
straggling in towards the sacred place, and they crowd into the wooden
houses of the Skolte Lapps settlement, and spend much time in prayer. On
the 5th of January there is a solemn fast. On the day of the Daubsfest
they all come out of the warm lamp-lit houses into the Arctic gloom, men
and women both, treading barefoot in the snow, all clad merely in a
single linen shirt. They are girt under the arm-pits by a stout woollen
scarf, and in that bitter windy cold they march three times round the
church, solemnly chanting. The priest in his stiff embroidered robes
leads, and he is a showman no longer now, but an earnest Russian pope;
and with him go the surpliced acolytes bearing candles. Three times
round the white church they move, the icy wind whipping the bare bodies
of the singers, and the snow curls wreathing round their ankles. And
then they go off to the middle of the frozen river, and the ceremony
proceeds.
A hole has been dug with hatchets through the ice, and one by one the
Lapps come forward from the circle of worshippers, and the attendants
take them in charge. They lay hold of the scarf beneath the arms, and
the pilgrim is soused once, twice, and a third time deep into the cold
black water which scours so swiftly beneath the ice; and each time the
pope waves the three-armed crucifix before the pilgrim's eyes before
they go under. And when all have been immersed, they go back to the
houses, men and women both, and rub themselves with cloths, and put on
deerskin cloaks, and drink scalding tea in all abundance; and they begin
on the morrow to collect upon their persons another twelve months' dirt.
But whilst it is in action, that Daubsfest at Boris Gleb is an
impressive spectacle. The crowd of shirt-clad Lapps standing there in
the cold and dark of the Arctic night, the faint light of the candles
and torches flaring in the wind, the long-haired pope in his stiff,
embroidered vestments bright with barbaric colours, the aurora borealis
burning with its unspeakable glories far off on the Northern sky, and
the great white church looming weirdly through the gloom, make up a
sight that few who have seen it will ever be inclined to forget.
* * * * *
[Illustration: DAUBSFEST AT BORIS GLEB.]
At Elvenaes once more a change of plan was forced upon us, and this time
it was the Czar who interfered. His Imperial Majesty had sent a Boundary
Commission to fix the frontier line between his possessions and those of
his cousin of Norway, and almost all the available men of Boris Gleb and
Elvenaes had gone to the Commissioner's camp either as servants, or
advisers, or mere camp followers. Consequently the passage to Enare
See up the Pasvik Elv, which requires many arms to wield the paddles and
make the portages, was debarred. The utmost force we could rake up was
two dilapidated Russian Skolte Lapps, who would ferry us in a canoe by
the fjords and rivers to the Neiden, where we must trust to luck in
finding carriers who would take us through overland.
We accepted the alternative with philosophy, and told them we would
start at once. They said "certainly," and proceeded to waste the next
two hours in elaborately doing nothing. We sat down and smoked and
watched them: they were most laborious over it; they sweated and
perspired; and at last, having completed nothing most satisfactorily,
they announced smilingly that they were ready to get under way, and we
stepped on board.
The little craft was very much like a Canadian canoe in her lines, and
floated corkily. She was stained a rich saddle-colour with tar, which
came off in generous patches where one leaned against it. The younger
Lapp (whom we called Morris, through his resemblance to an acquaintance)
sat on the floor-boards forward, with his back in the curve of the bow,
and sculled with a pair of paddles which worked in withy beckets on
thole pins. Feodor, the skipper, squatted aft, with his paddles also in
beckets, and laboured on whichever side was required. As no more paddles
were available, we two English posed as passengers, and lay in
magnificence amidship on a luxurious couch of young green birch shoots,
with our worldly goods and chattels bestowed fore and aft of us. The
canoe just held her load, and there was nothing much to spare, and the
Lapps occupied another half hour in getting her trimmed to their
satisfaction. Then Morris pushed out into the swirling rapids of the
Pasvik, and we left behind us Elvenaes, and those who waved us farewell,
probably for always.
That journey down the Syd Varanger lingers in the memory. A blazing sun
dwelt overhead, in a sky as blue as one could see in Tripoli. The fjord
sides were sloped in graceful curves and draped with comely greenery.
The cuckoo cried to us from the woods. The air above the deep-blue water
was dancing with heat, and flights of whirring cormorants and duck gave
it life. I think, too, that our sense of comfort was accentuated by the
knowledge that not a dozen miles to the northward the cold waves of the
Varanger chilled the fishers to the bone, and frozen cliffs and snowy
ridges glared icily at the sky. Comfort and complacency depend so much
upon comparisons.
The absence of mosquitoes, too, was very grateful. Our faces were all
mottled in close patterns from the bitings of the day before, and we
told ourselves then that we had paid the initiation fee and had earned
immunity for the future. We thought that past experience had taught us
all about mosquitoes, but we were destined to learn a deal more about
the Northern variety of the breed before we were through at the other
side of Arctic Lapland.
The two Lapp canoe men provided us in the meanwhile with plenty of food
for observation. Feodor was the wily one. Work was not a thing Feodor
loved, and he shirked it like a diplomatist. One or other of his thole
pins was constantly carrying away. That naturally had to be replaced. To
do this he unshipped his paddles (which had blades shaped like the
"Warre" oar at Eton) and clambered forward over the baggage, and sorted
amongst the green boughs which formed our couch, till he found a piece
of stick of suitable diameter. He had got a reliable eye, and always
chose one that would be certain to break if properly handled; and then
he went aft again and whittled it accurately down to size with his
sheath-knife. Then he would give the withy beckets a thoughtful
overhaul, and by the time he had got his paddles shipped again and in
the water, he had usually earned a good twenty minutes' shirk. He was a
wrinkled little gnome, this skipper of ours, incredibly dirty, and
brimming with good humour. He had one available eye that gleamed like a
bird's, and over the other he wore a grimy patch made fast with a piece
of rope yarn round his lank black hair. Later on, when we got into a
breeze, this patch kept blowing up and caused him much annoyance. It
seemed that the eye itself was missing, and the wind got into the empty
socket and gave him cold in the head. For which very sufficient reason
he shipped his starboard paddle and held the patch in place with the
spare hand, so as to keep out the draught. He was a wonderfully agile
"sugarer" was this elderly Skolte Lapp.
Morris was different. He plugged away in the bows with never a grunt and
never an easy. He rowed about thirty strokes to the minute, just in the
water and out again, with a bent arm and without much pretence at a
swing. One of us gauged these matters with a professional eye, but we
did not feel inclined just then to set to work and reform the rowing
style of Lapland. He was a whimsical fellow, this same Morris, always
grinning at something, and always shaking back his wispy black hair from
the front of his eyes. We tried to tempt him into travelling up-country
with us, but he shuddered at the idea of getting out of touch with his
birthplace.
* * * * *
We turned out of the Syd Varanger into Bogofjord and crept up by the
flank of gray walls of naked upright rock against a strong ebb-tide, and
amused ourselves by taking occasional compass-bearings, and marvelling
at the inaccuracy of the published maps. Once we put ashore on a
shelving rock covered with mussels, and the crew lunched off kippered
salmon, which they ripped from the family joint in pieces with their
fingers as they required it; and afterwards they sought recreation by
scratching themselves thoroughly for half an hour. Then Morris put on a
pair of fingerless, brown-skin gloves to keep his delicate paws from
blistering, and we started again. A brown team of eider duck rustled
past us, _ventre à l'eau_, heading for the sea, and then a school of
porpoises surged by the canoe in chase of a shoal of flickering silver
fish.
Swarms of mosquitoes accompanied the canoe in a noisy biting cloud, and
it was some gloomy satisfaction to note that the Lapps suffered equally
with ourselves. Feodor indeed suffered so much annoyance that he
actually knocked off work to tie a grimy kerchief carefully round his
head, which it took him twenty minutes to accomplish before he had
managed it to his complete satisfaction.
Broods of duck, some familiar, some strange, began to flight, and we
sighed and broke the tenth commandment. But the gun perforce had to stay
in its mackintosh housing. The Norwegian Government (very properly)
keeps a fatherly eye on all the game within its marches, and has
appointed vigorous close-seasons for all except the outlaw wolf, the
bear, the lynx, the fox, and wild cat. And they ram home the edict by a
good healthy fine for wrongdoers, and a reward for the informer. Once
over the Russian border it would be different. There are no game laws in
Arctic Lapland. There is very little law of any description. We could
bag there whatever came in our way. In fact, Feodor assured us with an
impish grin that we might shoot a Laplander should we feel so disposed,
provided always we ate him afterwards so as to conceal the carcass from
a possible public view. Feodor, the one-eyed, was occasionally rather
grisly in his ideas of wit and humour.
A heavy, drenching rain-squall came on and blotted out all view, and
beat up a small, steep sea, which gave Feodor all he could do to keep
the little canoe from being swamped; and as it was, we two passengers
had to bale industriously to keep the water under. But we did not mind;
the mosquitoes were driven away, and it was an ecstasy to be without
them; the rain, too, cooled our itching bites.
But when we crossed the big fjord for the last time, and turned up
between the low alluvial banks of the Neiden Elv, the wet squall blew
over, and the sun blazed out again, making creation steam. The
mosquitoes came back promptly and punctually, and got to work. On the
mud banks, flocks of woodcock were digging for supper. Small black ducks
took their fluffy broods for excursions on the broad shallow river,
where salmon leaped for sheer sportiveness. Wading fowl plodded and
cried in the adjacent marshes, and from the graceful birch forests which
covered the alluvial flats, cuckoos hooted news of stolen nests. All the
Arctic world was rejoicing in its summer.
And then civilisation began. There was a scrap of fencing here, and a
rail to dry grass on there. A tiny hay barn on stilts perched gingerly
on a promontory, and farther on was a hut with a man building wood
sledges before his door. Then came five houses on a bluff, spread over
half a mile, then two more single dwellings, and afterwards naked river
bank and scrub forest. We had passed the thick of Neiden town.
The shallow river was narrowing, and it became harder to push the canoe
up against the stream. Presently some rapids showed in black and white
ahead, and Feodor put the canoe's nose on a bank, and announced with a
heartfelt sigh that the voyage was over. We got ashore, we and our
chattels, and within an hour we had found a hospitable roof.
We spent some time there in talk, and then we set off along a narrow,
muddy, trail up-stream parallel to the rapids. It seemed there was a man
with influence who had a farm farther on, and if any one could collect
carriers to take our goods across to Enare See, he was the man to do it.
So we tramped along the trail till we came to the river again above the
rapids, and then ferried over and called on the man with influence. He
got out of bed to receive us; yes, he could do this thing we
desired--for a consideration; and so we bought his influence, and bade
him set about his collection there and then.
We walked on up the bank of the river to the Falls of the Neiden, where
the best salmon pools lie. There was a Russian chapel on the way--a
rude, bare cabin of naked logs, with a shuttered window, and a
three-armed cross on one of its gables. The lower arm of these crosses
is always on the slant, as by Russian tradition Christ had one leg
shorter than the other. The Finns and Norwegians round here are
Lutherans to a man, and they look upon everything outside Lutheranism as
degrading superstition. So naturally they do nothing to keep the chapel
in repair. And the stray Lapps from the Russian side, to whom it
belongs, are too miserably poor to notice much the chapel's squalor and
wretchedness.
There was a graveyard round this lonely fane of an alien faith--a bare,
unenclosed patch of mounds, each surmounted by an axe, or shovel, or
some implement used by the departed during his earthly life, and it
struck me that heathendom and Christianity are sometimes very closely
akin. Not a year before I had seen graves in Central African villages
similarly decorated.
Farther on were the falls; and though they were too long to be
impressive from a mere jaded sight-seer's point of view, they were most
appetising when we considered the pools and rapids with the eye of a
fisher for salmon. And here again was another grave, that of a man
carried down the river from above, and stranded dank and drowned on a
jutting rock of the foss. There was no headstone to speak of his fate
and virtues, the mouldering remains of the usual overground coffin
showed the manner of his sepulture. We laid the compass on the mound,
and found it was orientated accurately magnetic east and west, not
allowing for the variation.
So the man had been buried with care and Christian hands, and not
bundled into a box and covered up where he lay. And yet he had not been
thought worth taking down to one of the Lutheran graveyards on the lower
fjords. We wondered much what his story might be, but we could form no
very reasonable hypothesis, nor could we find any person round there in
the Neiden district who would tell us. They all reddened and said they
did not know.
There was a quaintly cumbersome pipe on this lonely grave, and as it
happened we were both collectors of the curious in smoking utensils. It
was a temptation to carry it away. Let it be recounted then as something
of a small virtue that we left the pipe where it lay.
[Illustration: Feodor and Morris--two Skilte Lapps]