Reindeer land! Surely the land of the far, far north in Norway and Sweden may be called reindeer land.
One man who traveled in that land tells of a strange sight he saw there. On snow ahead of him one day he saw something moving. It looked as if thousands of hares were playing in the snow. They seemed to jump, or leap, into the air and to come down in the same spot. But why should so many hares be there? And why did they move so strangely? The man went closer, and found that his hares were reindeer tails! Yes, just tails! And thousands of them! The bodies of the reindeer were buried in the snow and just the stubby tails stuck out. The reindeer had dug into the snow, throwing up a bank which hid their bodies from sight. They were eating the moss which they found under the snow and happily wagging their tails as they ate.
The reindeer are about the only animals that can get a living in those mountains where little grows except moss. And the people, called Lapps, who roam about with them get their living from the reindeer.
The Lapps are small people. The men and women are not much taller than most ten-year-old boys and girls. They have yellow skin, blue or gray eyes, and brown hair. They dress in the skins of the animals or in coarse cloth. They look very much like the Eskimos.
The word Lapps means people at land’s end. And that part of Norway and Sweden which lies at their very tops is called Lapland. Most of the Lapps wander about, following the reindeer. Wherever the reindeer find plenty of moss, the Lapps pitch their skin tents, or build themselves a hut of sod covered with brush. In those huts they and their wolf-like dogs live until the reindeer begin to wander farther away.
The Lapps and their dogs sleep together in the huts on beds which are heaps of brush covered with reindeer skins. Getting ready for bed is a simple task for these people. They merely take off their moccasins and lie down to sleep in their clothes. They wear the same clothes, too, for months and months and very seldom take a bath.
A kettle of reindeer meat is always boiling over coals on rocks in the center of the hut. The Lapps get food from the kettle whenever they feel hungry and eat it with spoons made of reindeer horn from rude bowls or plates of wood or bone.
Day and night some Lapp and his dogs watch the herd of reindeer as they wander on the mountains. A few reindeer are kept near the hut to furnish milk for the camp.
The reindeer not only furnish the skins for clothes and covers and milk and meat for food, they are also the Lapps’ horses. The Lapp children like to go sleigh riding behind a reindeer. But sometimes the ride is rough. The children may be thrown out into the snow. The reindeer wears but little harness, so the driver cannot hold him if he cares to run.
Several families of Lapps go every summer from Sweden across a body of water to a place in Norway where the moss on the mountains is very good. The reindeer swim across the water. The Lapps go in boats and join the reindeer on the other side.
One Lapp family that crosses the water from Sweden has built a hut of timber for its summer home in Norway. It is no larger than the skin or sod huts. Both the mother and the father have to stoop to enter the house. But the little Lapp girl and her dogs can run in and out easily.
But, even though the Lapps move about from place to place, the Lapp girls and boys go to school. The law of Sweden requires these children to go to school for six years. They begin their lessons when they are seven years old and go to school until they are thirteen. Each settlement has its own school. The schoolhouse is just another Lapp hut. In the summer the children study their lessons sitting on the ground in front of or in the hut. The teacher lives in the hut and moves when the camp moves. Many of the teachers are Lapps who have been educated to teach; but some of the teachers are Swedes or Norwegians.
The children must learn both the Lapp language and the Swedish language, if they live in Sweden. They learn both the Lapp language and the Norwegian, if they live in Norway. First they learn to read, write, and work with numbers. After they can read and write a little, they begin other lessons. They learn about the plants and animals of the north land. They learn how to raise and care for the reindeer. They are taught, too, how to care for their own bodies—how to bathe, brush their teeth, cook their food, and clean their huts. But they do not learn those lessons of cleanliness and care of the body well, because their mothers and fathers do not practise them in the homes. Perhaps in a few years when the Lapp children grow up they will be cleaner than their mothers and fathers are. At least that is what the teachers hope.
The Lapps make trinkets of reindeer horns and bone, moccasins of the skins and plaited grass, and dolls dressed as Lapp children dress. When the boats which carry tourists along the seas of Norway come near the camp, the Lapps go to meet the boats. They carry with them bags of the trinkets to sell to the people from other countries who are on the boats.
In Sweden many Lapps ride on the trains. Sometimes they carry boxes filled with trinkets which they have made. They put them in shops that sell such wares to visitors in Sweden. If you rode on a train across the northern part of Sweden, you would see many Lapps, and you would see their trinkets in the shops—bone letter-openers, fur moccasins, fur mittens, dolls dressed in fur.
Not all Lapps follow the reindeer. Some of them live in one place all the year and earn a living by fishing and farming. Their homes are not much better than the huts of the wandering mountain Lapps, but they dress much like their Norwegian and Swedish neighbors. These people are called Sea Lapps.