Laputa

“ I have often asked myself that question, and till lately I used to reply, "For ever because they cannot find a leader with the proper authority, and they have no common cause to fight for." But a year or two ago I began to change my mind.
'It is my business to act as chief Intelligence officer among the natives. Well, one day, I came on the tracks of a curious person. He was a Christian minister called Laputa, and he was going among the tribes from Durban to the Zambesi as a roving evangelist. ”

“ John Laputa, and his destination was Durban. The next day being Sunday, who should appear to address us steerage passengers but the black minister. He was introduced by the captain himself, a notably pious man, who spoke of the labours of his brother in the dark places of heathendom. Some of us were hurt in our pride in being made the target of a black man's oratory. Especially Mr Henriques, whose skin spoke of the tar-brush, protested with oaths against the insult. ”

“ After all, then, in this strange country, where there is supposed to be “nothing but reindeer,” one may still find among these half-savage people financiers—like Mickel Nilsson Nia—poets, and artists—types which certainly go to show that the Lapps possess some of the attributes of a civilized nation. Music alone is unknown in Lapland, and this may be because the Lapp, with his boundless pride of race, considers he has no need of its chastening and refining influence. ”

“ They lived far up in Lapland, in Aimio, which lies near Tenojoki or the Tana River. (You can see it on the map of Finland, where Lapland can be found like a great nightcap on Finland's high head.) The place was barren and wild, but the Lapp and his wife felt sure that nowhere on the whole earth could you see such white snow, such clear stars, and such beautiful Northern Lights as at Aimio. There they had built themselves a hut such as Lapps usually live in. No large trees grew in that region,—only slender birches, that were more like bushes than trees—so where could they get wood for a house? ”

“ Others reflect more particularly the national characteristics of the Lapp folk. Thus, for instance, there is to be found among them a tradition of a general deluge, a universal catastrophe, whereof there still remains a dim reminiscence in the consciences of so many other primitive people.
Before the Lord destroyed mankind, so says the Lapp legend, there were people in Samelads (Lappland) , but when the Flood came upon the earth every living creature perished except two, a brother and sister, whom God conducted to a high mountain—Passevare—“The Holy Mountain.” ”

“ If witchcraft is still practised in Lapland, it is done with small ostentation, but I am inclined to think the whole business has died out. The degenerate Lapps,—those whose fathers have at one time failed as deer-herders on the fjeld, and who have come down to being vagabond river-fishers, or mere prosperous lake-side farmers,—are moving with the times. Many of them can read, and some can write. Schoolmasters go amongst them during the idle months of winter. ”

“ THE GOD OF LOVE I THE MAY-DAY QUEEN This is the book of Lappo Lappi, called by his friends the careless, the happy-go-lucky, the devil-may-take-it, the God-knows-what. Called by his enemies drinker, swinker, tumbler, tinker, swiver. Called by many women that liked him pretty fellow, witty fellow, light fellow, bright fellow, bad fellow, mad fellow, and the like. Called by some women who once loved him Lapinello, Lappinaccio, little Lappo. Called now in God as a good religious should be, Lappentarius, from a sweet saint myself discovered—or invented; need we quibble?—in an ancient manuscript. ”

“ So that I take Lappi to signify no other than banish’t persons, which is the genuine signification of Lapp in the Lapland language; for the Laplanders were originally Finlanders, and from leaving their Country may be presum’d to have took their name; and that not of their own choosing, but the Finlanders [2] imposition, with whom to Lapp signifies to run away: whence the compellation seeming something scandalous, no person of quality to this day will endure to be call’d by it, tho from the Finlanders others Nations, as the Germans, Swedes and Moscovites, have learnt to call them so. ”

“ These Lapp settlements in Northern Finland are few in number. It is said that there are not more than two thousand Lapps in Finland. The Finnish word Lapp or Lappu means Land-End folk. The Lapps use another name for themselves; it is Samelats and for their country, Same. Many of the Lapps are fishermen, but there are also forest and mountain Lapps.
One wonders how they could get along without the reindeer, which furnishes them with milk, meat, and even clothing, besides drawing their sledges. Because of these animals the Lapps prefer the open country where reindeer [41] moss is plentiful. ”

“ Now we will see why ’tis call’d Lapponia and Lappia, the Etymology of which words is not yet agreed upon by the Learned. Ziegler thinks they were named so by the Germans, from the dulness and stupidity of the people, which the word Lappi signifies amongst them; but this seems improbable, since this Country is but of late known to the Germans, and none of their antient Writers make any mention of Lappia. Moreover, the Finlanders, Swedes and Russians, who differ much in their language from one another, as well as from the Germans, call it all by the same name ”

“ I can testify, with many others, the fulfillment of this prophecy. Lapa attained an extreme old age, and had so much to endure in persons and things that she loved, that she was continually saying: "God has riveted my soul to my body, so that it cannot be separated from it; how many children and grand-children have I already lost ? it is only I that cannot die, I am left to feel the sufferings and death of all the others."
Lapa's heart was so obstinate, that she did not think of her soul's salvation. God then appeared to refuse his Spouse what he granted her at first. ”

“ Such is a pen portrait of a people who once ruled the whole of Scandinavia. A short trip inland brings us to the summer encampment of the Lapps, formed of a few rude huts, outside of which they live except in the winter months. A Lapp sleeps wherever fatigue overcomes him, preferring the ground, but often lying on the snow. They are a wandering race, their wealth consisting solely in their herds of reindeer, to procure sustenance for which necessitates frequent changes of locality. A Laplander is rich provided he owns enough of these animals to support himself and family. ”

“ Flesh is their favourite, in winter almost their only food, though they also use reindeer milk, cheese and rye or barley cakes. The sea Lapps are in some respects hardly to be distinguished from the other coast dwellers of Finmark. Their food consists mainly of cooked fish. The river Lapps, many of whom, however, are descendants of Finns proper, breed cattle, attempt a little tillage and entrust their reindeer to the care of mountain Lapps.
In Finland there are comparatively few Laplanders, and the great bulk of them belong to the fisher class. ”

“ It is chiefly in their dialect and creed that the two divisions differ; the imperfect Christianity of the Russian Lapps being that of the Greek Church, and their speech, although, I believe, intelligible to a Norwegian Lapp, being stamped with several well-marked peculiarities. It is the structure of their language that shows them to belong to the same stock as the Kwains of Finland, the difference of their complexion and stature being considerable; for the Lapp is dark-haired, dark-eyed, swarthy-skinned, under-sized, and weak-built, as is the Samoeid also. ”

“ Ropata showed the manner of man he was in the fights which followed. A dozen of his own sub-tribe (Aowera, of the iwi of Ngati-Porou) had been taken, fighting among the Hauhau. Ropata set them before him in a row and said, more in sorrow than in anger, "This is my word to you, O foolish children. You are about to die. I do not kill you because you fought against me, but because you disobeyed my orders and joined the Hauhau." He then shot every man of the twelve with his own hand.
Like master, like man. ”

“ In Russian Lapland there is an obvious intermixture with the Russian moujik, and in Lapland proper they naturally marry largely with the all-pervading Finn.
The inhabitant of Lapland is not so light-fingered as his more western brother, perhaps because there is less opportunity of pilfering. And he does not make himself so unpopular, because there are fewer aliens for him to get unpopular with, and no one goes out regularly to shoot him as a domestic nuisance. In fact the Lapps we were in contact with (and the Finns, too, for that matter) never stole any of our particular properties ”

“ One time la Lupa fell in love with a handsome youth who had just served out his time in the army, and had come home and was helping to reap the notary's harvest with her; for surely it means to be in love when she felt the flesh burn under the fustian shift, and on looking at him to experience the thirst that one has in hot June days down in the low-lands. ”

“ Beyond a doubt the old Scandinavians are describing the ancient and ill-used Lapp population, once so widely spread over Northern Europe, when their sagas tell of the dwarfs, stunted and ugly, dressed in reindeer kirtle and coloured cap, cunning and cowardly, shy of intercourse even with friendly Norsemen, dwelling in caves or in the mound-like Lapland ‘gamm,’ armed only with arrows tipped with stone and bone, yet feared and hated by their conquerors for their fancied powers of witchcraft. ”

“ 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? ”

“ In the early days of the settlement, before the ruler Patalolo had shaken off his allegiance to the Sultan of Koti, Lakamba appeared in the river with two small trading vessels. He was disappointed to find already some semblance of organization amongst the settlers of various races who recognized the unobtrusive sway of old Patalolo, and he was not politic enough to conceal his disappointment. He declared himself to be a man from the east, from those parts where no white man ruled, and to be of an oppressed race, but of a princely family. ”

“ Now this information was none of it very encouraging, and none of it very definite. It was most of it frankly given as depending on mere hearsay. And although we advertised our want largely, and tramped up and down the fish-strewn streets to see countless likely people, nowhere could we find a man who knew Lapland personally, much less one who would (for a fee) act as guide, much less one who could serve as guide and interpreter both. For here was another difficulty: the Lapps spoke Quivnsk (or Finnish) , and we did not. ”

“ The Leputa, which is a continuation of the Lobolo, takes a south-west course, through which the Umvuli flows, and several tributaries of the river Panyame, that flows into the Zambese a few miles below the old Jesuit mission station Zumbo, on the north bank of the river. The watershed from the Lobolo mountain takes a south course to 18 degrees 10 minutes South latitude, at an elevation of 4650 feet, continuing in the same course for sixty miles, where the altitude reaches 4780 feet; then turns south-west for 180 miles to Gubuluwayo, the king’s kraal, where it is 4800 feet above sea-level. ”

“ Nanni was all grease and dirt from the olives put to fermenting, and Maricchia would not have him on any account; but her mother grabbed her by the hair as they stood in front of the hearth and hissed through her set teeth,—
"If you don't take him, I'll kill you."
La Lupa looked ill, and the people remarked: "When the devil was old the devil a monk would be." She no longer went wandering about; she stood no more at her doorway looking out with those eyes as of one possessed. ”

“ Their language is on the one side allied to Cheremissian. On the other it shows a nearer approach to Finnish (Suomi) than the other Eastern languages of the family, but it has also constructions peculiar to itself.
The Lapps are found in Norway, Sweden and Finland. They call themselves Sabme, but are called Finns by the Norwegians. They are the shortest and most brachycephalic race in Europe. The majority are nomads who live by pasturing reindeer, and are known as Mountain Lapps, but Lapps. others have become more or less settled and live by hunting or fishing. ”

“ A great quantity of the loot taken from the settlers was recaptured, and many of the friendly natives held prisoners by the Hau-Haus escaped during the fight. Mr. Atherton and Wilfrid [Pg 317] had joined Rapata's men in their charge, and after the fight was over the former said: "Well, Wilfrid, it is a satisfaction to have got some natives with us at last who will fight. It seemed at first as if all the plucky natives had joined the enemy; but Rapata's men are first-rate fellows, though I wish that they had rather an easier name, for Ngatiporou is a crack-jaw word to pronounce." ”

“ They had a very large family, and to-day the whole earth is peopled with their children; those who do not live in Lapland are degenerates!”
A TYPICAL LAPP PEASANT.
From a Photograph.
Well, I went to Lapland, eager to see the semi-savages of whom I had heard so much. It is unnecessary to describe the earlier stages of my journey. Tromsö, Hammerfest, and Lyngseedt, though much frequented, are but large villages in the neighbourhood of which the nomad Lapps pasture their reindeer. ”