FINNS, SKRIDFINNS (LAPPS), AND THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF SCANDINAVIA
Before we proceed to the Norwegians' great contributions to the
exploration of the northern regions, we shall attempt to collect and
survey what is known, and what may possibly be concluded, about the most
northern people of Europe, the Finns, and the earliest settlement of
Scandinavia.
[Sidenote: Earliest mention of the Finns]
The Finns are mentioned, as we have seen (p. 113), for the first time in
literature by Tacitus, who calls them "Fenni," and describes them as
exclusively a people of hunters. Procopius does the same, but calls them
"Skridfinns," and removes their home to the northernmost Thule or
Scandinavia. Cassiodorus (Jordanes) also mentions the "Skridfinns" as
hunters in the same northern regions, but speaks moreover of "Finns" and
"Finaiti," and another people resembling the Finns ("Vinoviloth" ?)
farther south in Scandinavia. The Ravenna geographer also mentions the
"Skridfinns" (after Jordanes). Then comes Paulus Warnefridi, who speaks of
the ski-running of the Skridfinns, though indeed in a way which shows he
did not understand it very well, and mentions a deer of whose skin they
made themselves clothes, but does not say that this deer was domesticated.
Next King Alfred mentions "Skridfinns," "Finns," and "Ter-Finns," and in
the information he obtained from Ottar he speaks of the hunting, fishing
and whaling of the "Finns," and of their keeping reindeer in the north of
Norway. This description is in accordance with what we learn of the Lapps
from later history, with this difference only, that on account of the
killing-off of the game their hunting in recent times became of small
importance. Lastly we have Adam of Bremen's description of the Finns,
which contains nothing new of note. He mentions "Finnédi" or "Finvedi"
between Sweden and Norway (near Vermeland) and "Skridfinns" in northern
Scandinavia. Besides these he speaks of a small people who come down at
intervals, once a year or every three years, from the mountains, and who
are probably the Mountain Lapps with their reindeer. He mentions also a
people skilled in magic on the shores of the northern ocean [Finmark], and
skin-clad men in the forests of the north, who may be Fishing Lapps or
Forest Lapps. In connection with this we may also refer to the mention of
the Lapps in the "Historia Norvegiæ":
Norway "is divided lengthways into three curved zones [i.e., parallel
to the curved coast-line]: the first zone, which is very large and
lies along the coast; the second, the inland zone, which is also
called the mountain zone; the third, the forest zone, which is
inhabited by Finns [Lapps], but is not ploughed." The Lapps, in the
third zone, which was waste land, "were very skilled hunters, they
roam about singly and are nomads, and they live in huts made of hides
instead of houses. These houses they take on their shoulders, and they
fasten smoothed pieces of wood [literally, balks, stakes] under their
feet, which appliances they call 'ondrer,' and while the deer [i.e.,
reindeer] gallop along carrying their wives and children over the deep
snow and precipitous mountains, they dash on more swiftly than the
birds. Their dwelling-place is uncertain [it changes] according as the
quantity of game shows them a hunting-ground when it is needed."
From the earliest accounts referred to, especially from that of Adam of
Bremen, it looks as though there were Fishing Lapps and Reindeer Lapps in
northern Scandinavia in those remote times, as there are now, and they
were called Finns or Skridfinns; but besides these there were people who
were called Finns in southern Scandinavia, from whence they have since
disappeared. This has led to the hypothesis that the primitive population
in southern Scandinavia also was composed of the same Finns (Lapps) as are
now found in the northern part, to which they were compelled to retreat by
the later Germanic immigrants [cf. Geijer, 1825, pp. 411 ff.; Munch, 1852,
pp. 3 ff.; Sven Nilsson]. But for various reasons this hypothesis has had
to be abandoned, and the question has become difficult.
[Illustration: Men of the Woods in Northern Scandinavia (from Olaus
Magnus)]
[Sidenote: The name "Finn"]
The word "Finn" as the name of a people does not occur, so far as is
known, outside Scandinavia. The only place farther south where there are
place-names which remind one of it is in Friesland, where we find a
Finsburg. The origin of the national name "Finn" is unknown. Some have
thought that it might be connected with the word "finna" (English, to
find), and that it means one who goes on foot.
Since in Swedish and Norwegian the name has come to be applied to two such
entirely different peoples as, in Norway, the Fishing Lapps and Reindeer
Lapps and, in Sweden, the people of Finland, we must suppose that in the
primitive Norse language it was a common designation for several
non-Germanic races, whom the later Germanic immigrants in south
Scandinavia drove into the wastes and forest tracts, where they lived by
hunting and fishing. This would provide a natural explanation of the
curious circumstance that Jordanes, as well as Adam of Bremen (later also
Saxo), mentions Finns, Finvedi, and other Finn-peoples in many parts of
south Scandinavia; in our saga literature there are also many references
to Finns far south. But the most decisive circumstance is, perhaps, that
the word Finn occurs in many place-names of south Scandinavia, from
Finnskog and Finnsjö in Uppland, and Finnheden or Finnveden in Småland, to
Finnö in the Bokn-fjord [cf. Müllenhoff, ii. 1887, p. 51; A. M. Hansen,
1907]. It may be quoted as a strong piece of evidence that a people called
Finns must have lived in old times in south Norway, that the oldest
Christian laws, of about 1150, for the most southern jurisdictions, the
Borgathing and Eidsivathing, visit with the severest penalty of the law
the crime of going to the Finns, or to Finmark, to have one's fortune told
[cf. A. M. Hansen, 1907, p. 79]. It may seem improbable that here (e.g.,
as far south as Bohuslen) this should have referred to Finns (Lapps) in
the north, in what is now called Finmark; and we should be rather inclined
to believe it to refer to the Finns (and Finnédi) mentioned by Jordanes
and Adam of Bremen nearer at hand, in the forest tracts between Norway and
Sweden, where we still have a Finnskog, which, however, is generally
connected with the later immigration of Kvæns or Finns from Finland (the
so-called wood-devils; compare also Finmarken between Lier and Modum). But
it might be thought that these Christian laws were compiled more or less
from laws enacted for northern Norway, and thus provisions of this kind,
which were only adapted for that part of the country, were included. And
it must be borne in mind that the northern Finns (Lapps) in particular had
an ancient reputation for proficiency in magic and soothsaying, and,
further, that Finmark in those times was often regarded as extending much
farther south than now, as far as Jemteland and Herjedalen.
[Sidenote: Immigration to Scandinavia]
It is difficult to decide with certainty what kind of people the "Finns"
who were found in many parts of south Scandinavia may have been. The
supposition that they were the same people as the Finns (Lapps) of our
time has had to be abandoned, as we have said, in the face of more recent
archæological, anthropological and historical-geographical researches.
Müllenhoff [ii. 1887, pp. 50 ff.] has proposed that the word "Finn" may
originally have been a Scandinavian common name for several peoples who
were diffused in south Scandinavia, but who in his opinion were
Ugro-Finnish, like the Kvæns, Lapps and others [cf. also Geijer, 1825, pp.
415 f.]. He even goes so far as to suppose that the very name of
Scandinavia may be due to them (like that of the ski-goddess "Skaði,"[200]
who was a Finn-woman, cf. p. 103). But it has not been possible to point
either to linguistic or anthropological traces of any early Finno-Ugrian
people in any part of south Scandinavia, and there are many indications
that the southern diffusion of the Mountain Finns (Reindeer Lapps) is
comparatively late.
Dr. A. M. Hansen, therefore, in his suggestive works, "Landnám" [1904] and
"Oldtidens Nordmænd" ["The Norsemen of Antiquity," 1907], has put forward
the hypothesis that the Finns of earliest history, whom he would include
under the common designation of "Skridfinns," were a non-Aryan people,
wholly distinct both from the Finno-Ugrian tribes and from the Aryan
Scandinavians, who formed the primitive population of northern Europe and
were related to the primitive peoples of southern Europe, the Pelasgians,
Etruscans, Basques and others. In Scandinavia they were forced northwards
by the Germanic tribes, and have now disappeared through being partly
absorbed in the latter. In the east and north-east they were displaced by
the Finno-Ugrian peoples who immigrated later. The last remnants of them
would be found in the Fishing Lapps of our time, and in the so-called
Yenisei Ostyaks of north-western Siberia. This bold hypothesis has the
disadvantage, amongst others, of forcing us to assume the existence of a
vanished people, who are otherwise entirely unknown. In the next place,
Dr. Hansen, in arbitrarily applying the name of Skridfinns to all the
"Finns" in Scandinavia, does not seem to have laid sufficient weight on
the difference which early writers make between Skridfinns in the north
and the other Finns farther south.
In earlier times there was a strong tendency, due to old Biblical notions,
to imagine all nations as immigrants to the regions where they are now
found. But when a zoologist finds a particular species or variety of
animal distributed over a limited area, he makes the most natural
assumption, that it has arisen through a local differentiation in that
region. The simplest plan must be to look upon human stocks and races in
the same way. When we have tried in Europe to distinguish between Celts,
Germans, Slavs, Ugro-Finns, etc., the most reasonable supposition will be
that these races have arisen through local "evolution," the home of their
differentiation being within the area in which we find them later. As such
centres of differentiation in Europe we might suppose: for the Celts,
western Central Europe; for the Germans, eastern Central Europe; for the
Slavs, Eastern Europe; for the Ugro-Finns, northern East Europe and
western Siberia, etc.
[Sidenote: Southern Finns in Scandinavia]
This is doubtless a linguistic division, but to a certain extent it
coincides with anthropological distinctions. Since the North was covered
with ice till a comparatively recent period, we cannot expect any local
differentiation of importance there since that time, but must suppose an
immigration to the north and to Scandinavia of already differentiated
races, from southern Europe. We may thus suppose that tribes belonging to
the parent-races of brachycephalic Celts and Slavs, and dolichocephalic
Germans, came in from the south and south-east, and Ugro-Finns and
Mongoloid tribes immigrated from the south-east and east. In this way we
may expect, at the commencement of the historical period, to find
Celto-Slavs and Germans in southern and central Scandinavia, and Mongoloid
and Finno-Ugrian people in the northernmost regions and towards the
north-east and east (Finland and North Russia). This agrees fairly well
with what is actually found. If we except the northernmost districts,
anthropological measurements (principally by Brigade-Surgeon Arbo) show
that the people of Norway are descended not only from the tall, fair, and
pronouncedly dolichocephalic Germanic race, but also from at least one
brachycephalic race, which was of smaller stature and dark-haired.[201]
Measurements in Sweden and Denmark show a similar state of things, but in
Denmark and the extreme south of Sweden the short-skulls are more numerous
than in the rest of Scandinavia. In order to explain these anthropological
conditions, we must either suppose that the various Germanic tribes which
have formed the people of Scandinavia were more or less mixed with
brachycephalic people, even before they immigrated,[202] in proportions
similar to those now obtaining, or that tribes immigrated to Scandinavia
belonging to at least two different races, one specially dolichocephalic
and one specially brachycephalic. The latter hypothesis will be, to a
certain extent at all events, the more natural, and as it is not probable
that the short-skulls arrived later than the long-skulled Germanic tribes,
it is most reasonable to suppose that there was at least one short-skulled
primitive people before they came. These primitive people were hunters and
fishermen, and must therefore in most districts have wandered over a wide
area to find what was necessary to support life. It was only the more
favourable conditions of life in certain districts--for instance, the
abundance of fish along the west coast of Norway--that allowed a denser
population with more permanent habitation. As the taller and stronger
Germanic tribes spread along the coasts, the older short-skulled hunters,
who may have been Celts,[203] were in most districts forced towards the
forest tracts of the interior, where there was abundance of game and fish.
In districts where they lived closer together and had more permanent
settlements, as on the west coast of Norway, they were not altogether
displaced. For this dark primitive people, who were shorter of stature
than themselves, and who hunted and fished in the outlying districts, the
Germanic tribes may, in one way or another, have found the common name of
"Finns," whether the people called themselves so or the name arose in some
other way.[204] When the Germanic people then came across another short,
dark-haired people of hunters and fishermen in the north, they applied the
name of "Finn" to them too, although they belonged to an entirely
different linguistic family, the Finno-Ugrian, and to an even more
different Mongoloid race. But to distinguish them from the southern Celtic
people of hunters, the northern were sometimes called "Skridfinns."
Gradually, as the southern Finns became absorbed into the Germanic
population and disappeared as a separate people, the name in Norway
remained attached to the other race and country (Finmark) in the north,
and in Sweden to the very different people and country (Finland) in the
north-east.
The southern Finns were an Aryan people, and as the Aryan languages at
that remote time, when they became detached from the more southern
short-skulls of Europe, the Celts and Slavs, did not vary very much, it
is easily explicable that scarcely a single ancient place-name can be
found in southern Norway which can be said with certainty to bear a
non-Germanic character. If, on the other hand, the southern Finns, who are
mentioned so late as far on in the Middle Ages, had been a Finno-Ugrian or
other non-Aryan people, it is incredible that we should not be able easily
to point to foreign elements in the place-names, which would be due to
their language.
[Illustration: Skridfinns hunting (from Olaus Magnus)]
Scandinavian finds of skulls of the Stone Age, and later, are so few and
so casual that we can conclude very little from them as regards the race
to which the primitive population belonged. Further, it must be remarked
that the early people of hunters, the short-skulled "Finns," must have
been very few in number, and have lived scattered about the country, in
contrast to the later Germanic tribes who had a fixed habitation. That
among the earliest skulls found there should only be a few short ones is,
therefore, what we should expect. It must also be remembered, of course,
that the proportion of skulls left by each people depends in a great
degree on its burial customs.
[Sidenote: Northern "Finns" in Finmark]
We now come to the northern Finns, of whom Ottar gives a sufficiently
detailed description to enable us to form a fairly accurate picture of
their culture. Since they were able to pay a heavy annual tribute in
walrus-tusks, ropes of walrus-hide and seal-hide, besides other skins and
products of fishery, we must conclude that they were skilled hunters and
fishermen even at sea, and such skill can only have been acquired through
the slow development and practice of a long period, unless they learned it
from the Norsemen. But on the other hand they also kept reindeer,
resembling in this the eastern reindeer nomads. These two ways of living
are so distinct that they can scarcely have been originally developed in
one and the same people, and we must therefore conclude that a concurrence
of several different cultures has here taken place.
Now as regards whaling and sealing, it is remarkable that along the whole
northern coast of Europe and Asia there is no trace of any other race of
seafaring hunters. Not until we come to the Chukches, near Bering Strait,
do we find a sea-fishery culture, but this is borrowed from the Eskimo
farther east, and originally came from the American side of Bering Strait.
In Novaya Zemlya, it is true, there is a small tribe of Samoyeds who live
by hunting both on sea and land, and who do not keep reindeer, but on the
other hand use dogs for sleighing; but their sea-hunting is primitive,
like the more casual sealing and walrus-hunting I have seen practised by
the reindeer Samoyeds along the shores of the Kara Sea, with firearms, but
without special appliances and with extremely clumsy boats. It is
difficult to see in this the remains of an older, highly developed people
of hunters.
This sealing culture which was found in Ottar's time in northernmost
Norway and on the Murman coast cannot, therefore, have come from the east
along the coast of Siberia, but must have been a local development,
perhaps arising from the amalgamation of the original hunting culture of
these "Finns" with a higher European culture from the south.
[Sidenote: Archæological relics of "Finns" in Varanger]
It fortunately happens that at Kjelmö, on the southern side of the
Varanger Fjord, a rich find of implements has been made, which must belong
to the very same people of "Finns" who, as Ottar says, lived here and
there along the coast (of Finmark and Terfinna Land) as hunters, fishermen
and fowlers. Dr. O. Solberg in particular has in the last few years made
valuable excavations on this island.[205] The many objects found lay
evenly distributed in strata, the thickness of which shows that they must
be the result of many centuries of accumulation. Solberg refers them to
the period between the seventh and about the eleventh centuries.
In North Varanger many heathen graves containing implements have been
found. By the help of the latter Solberg has been able to show that the
graves are partly of the same age and partly of a somewhat later time than
the Kjelmö find, and certainly belong to the same people. By comparing
these various finds we can form a picture of this people's culture and its
associations.
[Illustration: 7-9, Fish-hooks (of reindeer-horn); 10, potsherds; 1-6,
harpoon-points (of reindeer-horn), from Kjelmö; less than half natural
size (after O. Solberg, 1909)]
In addition to a number of bones of fish, birds and mammals, the Kjelmö
find contains a variety of implements, mostly made of reindeer-horn and
bone, which have been remarkably well preserved in the lime-charged sand,
while on the other hand the iron, with few exceptions, has rusted entirely
away. There are also many fragments of pottery, baked at an open fire and
made of clay found on the island. These hunters and fishermen, therefore,
understood the art of the potter as well as that of the smith, and thus
the culture of this northern district on the shores of the Polar Sea was
not on such a very low level. But it was not of independent growth; the
pottery shows a connection with that of the older Iron Age in south
Scandinavia; while on the other hand a couple of bronze objects,
especially the small figure of a bear, found in a grave in North Varanger,
are typically representative of the early part of the Permian Iron Age in
eastern Russia (from the eighth century). Many other objects found in the
graves also point to connection with the south-east, partly with Russia or
Ottar's Beormaland, and perhaps with Finland; while on the other side
there may have been communication westwards and south-westwards (Ottar's
route) with Norway. Solberg has found marks of ownership on the Kjelmö
implements which he shows to have much resemblance to those still in use
among the Skolte-Lapps.[206] But the use of owner's marks was an ancient
and universal custom among the Germanic peoples, and the Finns probably
derived it from them. The owner's marks found by Solberg bear a
resemblance to many ancient Germanic ones [cf. Hofmeyer, 1870; Michelsen,
1853], and seem rather to point to cultural connection with the Norsemen.
[Illustration: Probable mode of using the harpoon-points from Kjelmö]
Among the implements of reindeer-horn and bone in the Kjelmö find there
are especially many fish-hooks, which show that fishing played an
important part in the life of these people on the island, probably mostly
in the summer months. Possibly there are also some stone sinkers which
would show that they had nets. There are also fish-spears of
reindeer-horn, which were used for salmon-fishing in the rivers. Further,
there is a quantity of arrow-heads; but of special interest to us are a
number of harpoon-points of various form, which doubtless do not show so
highly developed a sealing culture as that of the Eskimo, but which are
nevertheless quite ingenious and bear witness to much connection with the
sea. It is worth mentioning that, while some of these harpoon-points
(Figs. 2 and 3 above) resemble old, primitive Eskimo forms, which are
found in Greenland, another still more primitive form (Fig. 1 above) bears
a striking resemblance to harpoon-points of bone which are in use, amongst
other places, in Tierra del Fuego, and which are also known from the Stone
Age in Europe. This proves how the same implements may be developed quite
independently in different places.
It is curious that among the same people such different forms of
harpoon-points should be found, from the most primitive to more ingenious
ones. This may tend to show that their sealing culture was not so old as
to have acquired fixed and definite forms like that of the Eskimo.
It is remarkable that by far the greater number of harpoon-points were
made entirely of reindeer-horn, without any iron tip. Only on two of them
(see Fig. 2, p. 214) are there marks of such a tip, which was let in round
the fore-end, but which has rusted completely away. There is nowhere a
sign of the use of any blade of iron (or stone), such as is used by the
Eskimo. All these harpoon-points were made fast to a thong by deep notches
at the base, or by a hole; and they have either a tang at the base which
was stuck into a hole in the end of the harpoon-shaft, or else they have a
hole or a groove at the base, which was surrounded by an iron ring, and
into which a tang at the end of the shaft was inserted. As no piece of
reindeer-horn or bone has been found which might serve as a tang for
fixing the harpoon-points, it is possible that these were fastened
directly on to the wooden shaft. With the help of the thong, which was
probably made tightly fast (on a catch ?) to the upper part of the shaft,
the point was held in its place. But when the harpoon was cast into the
animal, the point remained fixed in its flesh and came away from the
shaft, which became loose, and the animal was caught by the thong, the end
of which was either made fast to the boat or held by the hunter; for it is
improbable that it was made fast to a buoy or bladder, which is an
invention peculiar to the Eskimo. All the harpoons found at Kjelmö are
remarkably small, and cannot have been used for any animal larger than a
seal. Among the objects found there is only one piece cut off a
walrus-tusk, and none of the implements were made of this material,
except, perhaps, one arrow-head. The explanation of this cannot be merely
that the walrus was not common in the neighbourhood of Kjelmö; it shows
rather that these Finns did not practise walrus-hunting at all; for if
they had done so, we should expect their weapons and implements to be
made to a large extent of walrus-tusk, which has advantages over
reindeer-horn.
Whether the harpoons, which we know to have been used later by the
Norsemen, resembled those from Kjelmö, and whether they learned the use of
them from the Finns, or the Finns had them from the Norsemen, are points
on which it is difficult to form an opinion. Nothing has been found which
might afford us information as to the kind of boats these northern sealers
used. It is possible that they were light wooden boats, somewhat like the
Lapps' river-boats, and that they used paddles. Nor do the Kjelmö finds
tell us whether these people kept tame reindeer. It is true that bones of
dogs have been found, like the modern Lapp-hound; but whether they were
used for herding reindeer cannot be determined, nor can they have been
common on the island, since otherwise the animal bones would have shown
marks of having been gnawed by dogs.
The masses of bones found show that the people lived on fish to a great
extent, many kinds of birds, among them the great auk (Alca impennis),
reindeer, fjord-seal (Phoca vitulina), the saddleback seal (Ph.
grœnlandica), grey-seal (Halichœrus grypus),[207] porpoise, beaver, etc.
It will be seen that everything we learn from this find agrees in a
remarkable way with the statements of Ottar, with the single exception
that there are no indications of walrus-hunting, beyond the one piece of
tusk mentioned.[208]
As has been said, this sealing of the Finns must be regarded as a locally
developed culture, which was not diffused farther east than Ter or the
Kola peninsula. But with their reindeer-keeping the opposite is the case;
this has its greatest predominance in Asia and north-eastern Europe, and
is specially associated with the Samoyeds. It seems, therefore, most
probable that it was brought to north Scandinavia from the east.
[Sidenote: Ottar's "Finns"]
If, then, Ottar's description of his Finns' and Terfinns' diffusion
towards the east (as well as the description in Egil's Saga) tallies
almost exactly with the diffusion of the Fishing Lapps and Reindeer Lapps
of our time, and if what he tells us of the Finns' manner of life agrees
in all essentials with what we know of the life of the Lapps long after
that time, down to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, then this in
itself points to Ottar's "Finns" having been essentially the same people
as the present-day Lapps. But to this may be added the statement of Ottar,
who must have known the Finns and their language well: that they and the
Beormas spoke approximately the same language. Since, then, the Lapps of
our time--who live in the same district as Ottar's Finns--and the East
Karelians--who live in the same district, on the western side of the White
Sea, as Ottar's Beormas--speak closely related languages, and since,
further, the Karelians are a people with fixed habitation like the
Beormas, then it will be more natural to suppose that they are the same
two peoples who lived in these districts at that early time, instead of
proposing, like Dr. A. M. Hansen, to replace them both by an unknown
people, who spoke an unknown language.[209]
The correctness of this hypothesis is also supported, as we have seen, by
the rich Kjelmö find, which shows that in Ottar's time there was in the
Varanger Fjord a well-developed sealing culture, to which we know no
parallel from finds farther south, and which both in date and
characteristics is distinct from the Arctic Stone Age. Through grave-finds
in North Varanger, belonging to later centuries, we have, as Solberg shows
[1909], a possible transition from the Kjelmö culture to that of the Lapps
of our own time, and there is thus a connected sequence.
[Sidenote: Ancient Lappish skulls]
In old heathen burial-places on the islands of Sjåholmen and Sandholmen,
in the Varanger Fjord, Herr Nordvi found a number of skulls and portions
of skeletons, which probably belonged to the same people as the dwellers
on Kjelmö. Some of these skulls are in the collection of the Anatomical
Institute at Christiania, and have been described by Professor J. Heiberg
[1878]. They are brachycephalic with a cephalic index between 82 and 85;
one was mesocephalic with an index of 78. Dr. O. Solberg has also found a
few such skulls. Time has not permitted me to subject these heathen
skulls at the Anatomical Institute to a detailed examination; I have only
made a purely preliminary comparison between them and half a dozen skulls
of modern Reindeer Lapps and Skolte-Lapps, and found that in certain
features they differ somewhat from the latter. Doubtless the Lapps and
Skolte-Lapps of our time are very mixed, partly with the Finns (Kvæns) and
partly with Norwegians and others; but the typical Reindeer Lapp skulls
are nevertheless quite characteristic, and as they are somewhat more
brachycephalic than the skulls from the heathen graves, it is difficult to
suppose that this is due to any such recent mixture of race. As possible
differences the following may be noted: the heathen skulls as compared
with the Reindeer Lapp skulls are not quite so typically brachycephalic;
seen from the side they are somewhat lower (i.e., the length-height index
is less, according to Heiberg's measurements it would be about as 77 to
86); the forehead recedes somewhat more from the brow-ridges, which are
more prominent than in the typical Reindeer Lapp skulls. The Skolte-Lapp
skulls examined were of more mixed race, and were more mesocephalic; but
they bore most resemblance to the Reindeer Lapp skulls, although some of
them also showed a transition to the heathen skulls. According to this it
does not look as though the heathens to whom these graves belonged can be
accepted offhand as the ancestors of our Reindeer Lapps. They may have
been an earlier, kindred race who, to judge by Ottar's statements, spoke a
similar language, closely related to Karelian. The Reindeer Lapps must in
that case have immigrated later.
[Sidenote: Place-names of the Lapps]
It remains to examine what place-names can tell us. It is remarkable, as
Qvigstad [1893, p. 56 f.] has pointed out, that while the Lapps have
genuine Lappish names for the inner fjord coasts--e.g., Varanger, Tana,
Lakse, Porsanger, and Alten fjords--all their place-names for the outer
sea-coasts, even in Finmark, are of Norwegian origin, if we except the
names of a few large islands, such as "Sallam," for Sörö in West Finmark
and for Skogerö in Varanger, and "Sievjo," for Seiland in West Finmark. It
would therefore seem as though the Norwegians arrived on the outer coasts
before either the Fishing Lapps or Reindeer Lapps, while the latter came
first to the inner fjord coasts. This conclusion may be supported by the
fact that the Lapps' names for sea-fish and sea-birds are throughout
loan-words from Norwegian, as also are their words for appliances
belonging to modern boats and sailing, which may indicate that they
learned fishing and navigation from the Norwegians. Their name for walrus
has probably also originally come from Norwegian, but on the other hand,
the names of river fish, and their numerous names for seals, are as a rule
genuine Lappish [Qvigstad, 1893, p. 67]. This conclusion, however, does
not agree with Ottar's description, which distinctly says that "Finns,"
who were hunters and fishermen, lived scattered along the coasts of
Finmark and the Kola peninsula, while the Norwegians (i.e., Norwegian
chiefs) did not live farther north than himself, and did not practise
whaling farther north than, probably, about Loppen. Dr. Hansen therefore
thought to find in this a support for his theory, that the "Finns" of that
time, whom he called Skridfinns, were a non-Aryan primitive people
entirely distinct from the Reindeer Lapps of our day. But this bold
hypothesis is little adapted to solve the difficulties with which we are
here confronted. Thus, in order to explain the Lappish loan-words from
Norwegian, one is obliged to assume that these Skridfinnish ancestors of
the Fishing Lapps first lost their own language and their own place-names
and words for the implements they used and the animals they hunted, etc.,
and adopted the Norwegian language entirely; and then again lost this
language and adopted that of the later immigrant Reindeer Lapps, who
chiefly lived in the mountainous districts of the interior. At this later
change of language, however, they retained a number of Norwegian words,
especially those used in navigation and place-names; but strangely enough
they acquired new, genuinely Lappish names for certain large islands, and
moreover they adopted the many names for seals, which were the most
important object of their fishery, from the nomadic Reindeer Lapps, who
previously had known nothing about such things. The question arises of
itself: but if these Skridfinns were capable of undergoing all these
remarkable linguistic revolutions, why may they not just as well have
begun by speaking a language resembling Lappish, and gradually adopted
their loan-words and place-names from Norwegian? This will be a simpler
explanation. Nor, as we have seen, is Dr. Hansen's assumption probable,
that the Beormas also belonged to these same Skridfinns, and spoke their
language, while they were not replaced by the Karelians until later;[210]
but still less so is the hypothesis which is thereby forced upon us, that
the Reindeer Lapps came as reindeer nomads from the district east of the
White Sea, and learned their language, allied to Karelian, through coming
in contact with the Karelians on their journey westward round the south of
the White Sea. This contact cannot have lasted very long, as the country
on the south side of the White Sea is not particularly favourable to
reindeer nomads. And if in so short a time they lost their old language
and adopted an entirely new one, it will seem strange that they have been
able to keep this new language comparatively unchanged through their later
contact with the Norwegians, to whom moreover they were in a position of
subjection. In any case it must be considerably less improbable that an
original people of hunters, established in Finmark, who from the beginning
spoke Karelian-Lappish, should have adopted loan-words and place-names
from the later immigrant and settled Norwegians, to whom they were
subject, and who were skilled sailors with better seagoing boats. In more
or less adopting the Norwegians' methods of navigation and fishery, with
better appliances, they also acquired many loan-words from them. But on
the whole we must not attach too much weight to such linguistic evidence,
when we see that the Lapps have such a great quantity of loan-words from
other languages.
[Sidenote: Conclusions as to the origin of the Northern "Finns"]
To sum up what has been said here, the following explanation may be the
most natural: in prehistoric times the coasts and inland districts of
north Scandinavia and the Kola peninsula were inhabited by a wandering
people of hunters, who belonged to the same race or family as the Fishing
and Reindeer Lapps, and who were thus related to the Samoyeds farther
east; but through long contact with the Karelians on the White Sea and
with the Kvæns they had acquired a Karelian-Finnish language. Their
language, however, as Konrad Nielsen has shown, contains also many words
which resemble Samoyed, whether this be due to original kinship or to
later influence. These people were called by the Norsemen Finns, or, to
distinguish them from the other sort of Finns farther south, Skridfinns,
because they were in the habit of travelling on ski in the winter. People
of this race of hunters learned the domestication of reindeer from contact
with reindeer nomads, the Samoyeds, farther east. Most of them continued
their life of hunting, sealing and fishing, but adopted reindeer-keeping
to some extent as an auxiliary means of subsistence. The Eskimo are a good
example of how, in northern regions, a wandering people of hunters may
have a fairly uniform culture and language throughout a much greater
extent of territory than is here in question; for they have essentially
the same culture and language from west of Bering Strait to the east coast
of Greenland. A tribe related to these hunter Finns, who spoke very nearly
the same language but lived farther east, where there was certainly
hunting to be had on land but little at sea, gradually became transformed
entirely into reindeer nomads, and diffused themselves at a comparatively
late period over the mountainous tracts westward, and along the Kjölen
range southward. As the Norsemen pressed northward along the coast of
Nordland they encountered the hunter Finns or Fishing Lapps. Through this
contact with a higher culture these Lapps learned much, but on the other
hand the Norsemen learned something from their sealing and hunting
culture, which was well adapted to these surroundings. Thus a higher
development of sea-hunting arose. Originally the Lapps had a light boat,
the planks of which were fastened together with osiers, with a paddle,
which was well adapted to sea-fishing, and for which they still have a
genuine Lappish word in their language. From the Norsemen they learned to
build larger boats and to use sails, whence most of their words for the
new kind of navigation were Norse loan-words. We see from Peder Claussön
Friis's description that in the sixteenth century the Fishing Lapps even
"had much profit of their shipbuilding, since they are good carpenters,
and build all the sloops and ships for the northward voyage themselves at
their own cost and to a considerable amount.... They also build many
boats...." In other words, we see that they had completely adopted the
Norwegians' boat- and ship-building, and with it the words connected
therewith. In the same way they certainly acquired better appliances for
sea-fishing than those they originally had; consequently in this too they
learned of the Norwegians, and it was therefore natural that they
gradually adopted Norse names for sea-fish too, even if they had names for
them before; besides which they were always selling this fish to the
Norwegians. It was otherwise, however, with sealing, which had previously
been their chief employment on the sea. In this they were superior to the
Norsemen, as the implements of the Kjelmö find show, and here the Norsemen
became their pupils. For this reason then they kept their own names for
seal, and the many genuine Lappish words they have for them prove that
this was an important part of their original culture. If we should imagine
that the Lappish language came in at a comparatively late period with the
Reindeer Lapps, as Dr. Hansen thinks, we should be faced by incomparably
greater difficulties in explaining how they acquired these many genuine
Lappish words for seal, than would confront us in explaining how they got
loan-words for reindeer-keeping from the Norwegians, or how the original
Fishing Lapps took Norse loan-words for sea-fishing and the use of boats.
And now as regards place-names, it is not improbable that these were
determined for later times principally by the permanent settlements of the
Norsemen, along the outer sea-coast, and not by the scattered Finns
(Lapps), who led a wandering life as hunters and fishermen, and who no
doubt were driven out by the Norsemen. If we suppose that these Finns were
kept away from a place, a fishing-centre or a district, by the Norwegian
settlement, it would only require the passing of one or two generations
for them to forget their old place-names, and in future they would use
those of the Norwegians settled there. But that they once had names of
their own is shown by the genuine Lappish names for some of the larger
islands. Within the fjords, where the Norwegians were late in establishing
themselves, and where the Finns (Lapps) could live with less interference,
it was different, and there they kept their own names.
We do not seem therefore to have any information or fact which is capable
of disproving the unbroken connection between Ottar's Finns, along the
coasts of Finmark and Ter, and the Fishing Lapps of our time, although the
latter at present consist to a large extent of impoverished Reindeer
Lapps, especially in West Finmark. The original culture of the Fishing
Lapps and the distinction between it and that of the Reindeer Lapps who
immigrated later have been preserved to recent times in their broader
features. It is true that the Fishing Lapp no longer keeps reindeer; he
only has a poor cow or a few sheep to milk [cf. A. Helland, 1905, p.
147]; but amongst other descriptions we see from that of the Italian
Francesco Negri of his travels in Norway in 1664-5 [L. Daae, 1888, p. 143]
that the Fishing Lapps of Nordland and Finmark still kept reindeer in the
latter part of the seventeenth century. He says of the Finns [i.e.,
Fishing Lapps] in Finmark that
"they live either along the coast or in the forests of the interior.
They are, like their neighbours the Lapps, small in stature, and they
resemble them in face, clothing, customs and language. The only way in
which they differ from the Lapps is, that the latter are nomads, while
the Finns of this part have fixed dwellings. They possess only a few
reindeer and a little cattle. They are also called Sea Lapps, while
the other nomads are called Mountain Lapps...."
[Sidenote: Fishing Lapps and Reindeer Lapps]
This distinction between Finns (i.e., Fishing Lapps) and Lapps (i.e.,
Reindeer Lapps) seems to have been common. Thus in the royal decree of
September 27, 1726, both Finns and Lapps are mentioned, and in mediæval
maps of the fifteenth century, beginning with that of Claudius Clavus, of
about 1426, we find on the Arctic Ocean in north-east Sweden "Findhlappi,"
and farther north "Wildhlappelandi," and in later Clavus maps
[Nordenskiöld, 1889, Pl. xxx.] we find to the north-east of Norway a
"Finlappelanth," and farther north an extensive "Pillappelanth," sometimes
also "Phillappelanth," besides a "Finlanth" in the east. Pillappelanth is
the same as Claudius Clavus's "Wildlappenland."[211] This word may be
thought to have arisen through a misunderstanding of the word "Fjeldlap"
(Mountain Lapp), which Clavus may have seen written as Viellappen and
taken to mean Wild Lapp (he calls them "Wildlappmanni"). But, as Mr.
Qvigstad has pointed out to me, the name "Wild Lapps" for Mountain
(Reindeer) Lapps is also found in Russian. Giles Fletcher (English
Ambassador to Russia in 1588) writes:[212]
"The Russe divideth the whole nation of the Lappes into two sortes.
The one they call 'Nowremanskoy Lapary,' that is, the Norvegian
Lappes.... The other that have no religion at all but live as bruite
and heathenish people, without God in the worlde they cal 'Dikoy
Lapary,' or the wilde Lappes."
There is, however, a possibility that this Russian name may have come from
the maps or in a literary way. In any case we have as early as the
fifteenth century a distinction between Finnlapps (i.e., Fishing Lapps)
and Mountain Lapps or Wild Lapps, besides Finns in Finland; but this shows
at the same time that they must have been nearly akin, since both are
called Lapps.
Of great interest is Peder Claussön Friis's description of the Lapps,
which is derived from the Helgelander, Judge Jon Simonssön (ob. 1575). He
draws a distinction between "Sea Finns," who live on the fjords, and
"Lappe-Finns" or "Mountain Finns," "who roam about the great mountains,"
"and both sorts are also called 'Gann-Finns' on account of the magic
they use, which they call 'Gan.'" "The Finns [i.e., Lapps] are a thin
and skinny folk, and yet much stronger than other men, as can be
proved by their bows, which a Norse Man cannot draw half so far as the
Finns can. They are very black and brown on their bodies, and are
hasty and evil-tempered folk, as though they had the nature of bears."
"The Sea Finns dwell always on Fjords, where there is sufficient fir
and spruce, so that they may have firing and timber to build ships of,
and they live in small houses or huts, of which the half is in the
ground, albeit some have fine houses and rooms.... They also row out
to fish like other Northern sailors, and sell their fish to the
merchants, who come there, for they do not sail to Bergen, and they
are not fond of going where there are many people, nor do people wish
to have them there, and they apply themselves greatly to shooting seal
and porpoise, that they may get their oil, for every Finn must have a
quart of oil to drink at every meal...."
"They keep many tame reindeer, from which they have milk, butter, and
cheese ... they also keep goats, but no sheep.
"They shoot both elks and stags and hinds, but for the most part
reindeer, which are there in abundance; and when one of them will
shoot reindeer, he holds his bow and arrow between the horns of a tame
reindeer, and shoots thus one after another, for it is a foolish beast
that cannot take care of itself."
"The Finns are remarkably good archers, but only with handbows, for
which they have good sharp arrows, for they are themselves smiths, and
they shoot so keenly with the same bows that they can shoot with them
great bears and reindeer and what they will. Moreover they can shoot
so straight that it is a marvel, and they hold it a shame at any time
to miss their mark, and they accustom themselves to it from childhood,
so that the young Finn may not have his breakfast until he has shot
three times in succession through a hole made by an auger.
"They are called Gann-Finns for the witchcraft they use, which they
call 'Gann,' and thence the sea or great fjord which is between Russia
and Finmark, and stretches to Karelestrand, is called Gandvig.
[Illustration: Skridfinn Archer (from Olaus Magnus)]
"They are small people and are very hairy on their bodies, and have a
bear's nature...."
"The Sea Finns can for the most part speak the Norse language, but not
very well.... And they have also their own language which they use
among themselves and with the Lapps, which Norse Men cannot
understand, and it is said that they have more languages than one; of
their languages they have however another to use among themselves
which some[213] can understand, so it is certain that they have nine
languages, all of which they use among themselves."[214]
"Of the Mountain Finns the same is to be understood as has now been
noted of the Sea Finns; the others [i.e., the former] are small, hairy
folk and evil, they have no houses and do not dwell in any place, but
move from one place to another, where they may find some game to
shoot.[215] They do not eat bread, nor do the Sea Finns either.... And
he [the Mountain Finn] has tame reindeer and a sledge, which is like a
low boat with a keel upon it...."
From this description it appears with all desirable clearness that, on the
one hand, there was no noticeable external difference in the sixteenth
century between the small Fishing Lapps and the small Reindeer Lapps, and
on the other there was no essential difference between the Lapps of that
time and the Finns described by Ottar--we even find the decoy reindeer
still used in the sixteenth century; further, that the Lapps were
unusually skilful hunters and archers, for which they were also praised
by earlier authorities (we read in many places of Finn-bows, Finn-arrows,
etc. Some thought that the man who at the battle of Svolder shot and hit
Einar Tambarskelve's bow so that it broke, was a Lapp). We see too that
the Reindeer Lapp was not exclusively a reindeer nomad, but practised
hunting to such an extent that he moved about for the sake of game, and it
even looks as if this was his chief means of livelihood, which is
therefore mentioned first. That the reindeer-keeping mentioned by Ottar
should have been so essentially different from that of the present day, as
A. M. Hansen asserts, is difficult to see. That the decoy reindeer which
Ottar tells us were used for catching wild reindeer, and which were so
valuable, are no longer to be found in our day is a matter of course,
simply because the wild reindeer in northern Scandinavia has practically
disappeared from the districts frequented by the Lapps with their tame
reindeer. Furthermore, with the introduction of firearms decoy reindeer
became less necessary for getting within range of the wild ones; but we
see that they were still used in the sixteenth century, when the Lapps
continued to shoot with the bow. So long as there was abundance of game,
before the introduction of the rifle, the Reindeer Lapp also lived, as we
have seen, to a large extent by hunting; but then he was not able to look
after large herds of reindeer. It is therefore probable that a herd of 600
deer, as mentioned by Ottar, must then have been regarded as constituting
wealth, although to the Reindeer Lapps of the present day, who live
exclusively by keeping reindeer, it would be nothing very great.[216]
Those of the modern Lapps whose manner of life most reminds us of Ottar's
"Finns" are perhaps the so-called Skolte-Lapps on the south side of the
Varanger Fjord. Helland [1905, p. 157] says of them: "They have few
reindeer and keep them not so much for their flesh and milk as for
transport. Their principal means of subsistence is salmon and trout
fishing in the river, and a little sea-fishing in the fjord on Norwegian
ground. They are also hunters."
We must suppose that the "Finns" who according to Ottar, or to Alfred's
version of him, paid tribute in walrus-hide ropes, etc., lived by the sea
and engaged in sealing and walrus-hunting, and in any case they cannot
have kept reindeer except as a subsidiary means of subsistence, like the
Fishing Lapps in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But Alfred's
expressions do not exclude the possibility of there having been amongst
the "Finns" some who were reindeer nomads like the Reindeer Lapps of our
time. That they already existed at that time and somewhat later seems to
result from the statements in the sagas of the sheriffs of Hâlogaland
(e.g., Thorulf Kveldulfsson), who in order to collect the "Finn" tribute
travelled into the interior and up into the mountains. It cannot have been
only wandering hunters who paid this tribute, and they must certainly also
have had herds of reindeer.
[Sidenote: Decline of hunting]
That the Lapps have degenerated greatly as hunters and sealers in the last
few centuries, and that the Fishing Lapps no longer enjoy anything like
the same prosperity as they did in Ottar's time, and even as late as the
seventeenth century, is easily explained. For on the one hand the game
both in the sea and on land has decreased to such an extent that it can no
longer support any one, and on the other it is a well-known fact that a
people originally of hunters loses its skill in the chase to a
considerable extent through closer contact with European civilisation,
while at the same time it becomes impoverished. How this comes about may
be accurately observed among the Eskimo of Greenland in our time. So long
as the Lapps were heathens, as in Peder Claussön Friis's time, and were
still without firearms and, what is perhaps equally important, without
fire-water, and not burdened with schooling and book-learning, they
retained their old hunting culture and their hereditary skill in sealing
and hunting; but with the new culture and its claims, the new objects,
demands and temptations of life, their old accomplishments suffered more
or less; nor were they any longer held in such high esteem that the Lapp
child had to shoot three times running through an auger-hole before he
might have his breakfast. And just as the Eskimo of the west coast of
Greenland have been obliged to take more and more to fishing and
bird-catching, which were looked down upon by the old harpooners, so have
our Fishing Lapps become more and more exclusively fishermen.
[Illustration: Snæfells Glacier in Iceland]