Helgeland Sami
What is it you write now, my gossiping pen?
Have you quite forgotten the women and men
Who live in the mountains of Lappland?
Their homes are set up among hillocks and rocks,
They live in the mountains and keep there their flocks
On paths quite unknown to all others.
Yet have they a time in their calendar year
When they come among us; they likely appear
To trade and obtain their essentials.
The day is midsummer, St. John is the same;
Then gather the Lapps, with their reindeer quite tame,
To be at the Midsummer market.
Their wares are brought forward on backs of the deer;
They carry them gently and quite without fear
That any be lost or e'en damaged.
Lapps used to bring martens, and wolverines too,
But such have declined and are now but a few -
The forests of them are depleted.
With Lapps, as with others, the trade has decayed.
They find themselves tricked, caught in traps and betrayed;
To poverty many surrender.
The longer the world in its station does stand,
The harder conditions obtain aming men;
Its best days the world must have seen.
Now hides of the reindeer, some birch-bark indeed.
Some cases of feathers, some furs we may need,
Some boots and some furlined good mittens,
Some pockets of hide, very cleverly laid,
In color of alderbark commonly made --
Such wares they now bring to the market.
Their dresses they cover with glittering tin,
In brilliance like silver, or something akin;
It has to the eye some attraction.
But most of the women wear cloth rather coarse.
Our wadmal they have not in their mountain stores,
For sheep do not thrive in those regions.
The Lapps are a people of nature quite strange,
Of body quite short, and on short legs they range,
Not unlike the dwarfs, I am thinking.
One finds very seldom a Lapp of great frame
Unless some adultery clings to his name;
I say this without being certain.
Of eye they are sharp, and severe is the mien;
Of jaw they are long, and their features are lean;
Their faces are tawny and brownish.
They carry of whiskers no oversupply.
Their chins are as bare as the housewall hereby,
Or so I have found very many.
And should there be one with a whisker or two,
They grow out so straggly and scattered the few
That counting them would be no hardship.
Now, as to the cause, I have little to say;
It may be the cold, or it may be the way
Of living that makes them so tawny.
As houses or buildings or palaces go,
Six sticks, maybe eight, built their tenthouses low;
That is all the Lapps want for dwellings.
The sticks fit together as ribs for a tent;
Some hides make the cover - no parlor, I grant -
But in it the Lapp lives with pleasure.
He dwells in his tepee right happy indeed
The splendor of Persia or Pharao's steed
Would not make him better contented.
Such house, too, can travel as owner may wish;
Be hunting the rule or the season to fish,
The Lapp is without much encumbrance.
As tables or benches he has nothing more
Than branches of trees, maybe pine needle floor;
He finds there his mattress right handy.
The pillows and furs that must make up his bed
Will serve in the daytime as couch and as spread,
Since furniture he does not carry.
The tent's very center to firestead is turned,
Where sprucelogs and others are commonly burned
In daytime and night without ceasing.
On one side of fire the father makes bed,
On other the mother arranges her stead -
The children at feet of their parents.
Should fire go out in the bitter cold North
What would their frail building and bed then be worth?
They surely would perish from freezing.
The smoke is a problem that never relents;
Their eyes are affected in smoke-reeking tents,
And many must suffer from blindness.
Of thousand Lapp women, I dare say few
Will come to the age they most commonly do
Without some defect in their eyesight.
The Lapps also dress in peculiar ways;
What fathers have worn from the ancient days,
That custom they never surrender.
They never allow their old fashions to change;
Their bodices open, the women arrange
For ornaments, borders and laces
The sox and the trousers of men are one piece;
They lined are with deerskin, so no one will freeze -
Fit tightly round knees and round buttocks.
They wear their deer-slipper instead of a shoe;
Right nimbly they over a mountain can go,
Not heavier much than wool hoses.
To deerskin-sole fix they a soft upper part
And lace it round ankle with firmness and art
As hard as may still leave them comfort.
The outfit is aimed to give swiftness of foot.
The Lapp runs a day and an evening to boot
Without seeming tired or exhausted.
Should others make efforts such life to repeat,
They soon would be tired and faint from the heat,
And, wearied, would flatly surrender.
On festal days women wear silver-bells bright;
They lay them broad-doubled round hips and round thighs;
Such counts for the holiday splendor.
With brooches and rings they their breasts well adorn,
And chains of brass may the women not scorn,
If silver may prove to be lacking.
Since hemp is a ware they have seldom in store,
The tendons of deer will they work all the more -
From animals legs they will take them.
They tear them and get from them slenderest line;
They twist them and make of them thread very fine,
As good as you buy in great cities.
It truly is greatest of wonder to me,
Such excellent craftsmanship often to see;
Bare fingers and cheeks they are using.
They do well remind us that rational man
Should never make light of the means when they can
From nature itself be derived.
Now as for the Lapps and their goods in this life,
They suffer in all many wants and hard strife;
Yes, misery is their companion.
There are but a few have some hundreds of deer,
And those have used fraud who have thousands, I fear;
There is not great riches among them.
The greatest of treasures they know of, indeed,
Is deer of the finest and numerous breed -
The female of deer brings a dollar.
The male, called the ox, brings the double in price;
The herd must depend in a special wise
On breeds that bring greatest advantage.
The Lapp cannot count any higher than ten;
He calls it a "lokk" in his dealings with men -
No hundreds in his calculations.
When he thinks his riches are wondrously great,
Ten "lokks" he will number his mighty estate,
And reindeer make up all his kingdom.
The reindeer he milks, as the farmer his goat.
His cheeses are fat to the palate and throat;
He nurses the calves, new arrivals.
He cares for his deer, as the shepherd his sheep.
He butchers for meat, makes the winter it keep -
A salve he derives from the marrow.
The hardest of winters, the coldest of nights,
When wolves out of hunger attack them with might,
He guards his deer, faithful as ever.
He is in a quandry many a time;
The wolves will commit such a dastardly crime;
He knows not where danger be lurking.
He worries not most for himself but for deer;
The wolves will disturb them with killing and fear,
Will scatter them over the mountain.
If wolves cannot kill, they will chase deer away;
The owner is lost, he knows not where he may
His animals home again gather.
You ask what the Lapps in the main have to eat;
They live of the milk and the cheese, I repeat -
Most often they add to them water.
The meat of the reindeer is likewise their food;
When dried in the wind, they all think it is good -
In hollowed treetrunks they keep it.
With bow and with arrow they also obtain
The meat of such animals as they would fain
Be served at their everyday dinner.
The bear must right often surrender its life;
The Lapp parts him up with the shiniest knife,
While singing some ritual verses.
The Lapp thinks the bear has the finest of meat;
He eats it with joy but is very discreet -
He leaves not a speck on the platter.
The backbone and legbones he gathers with care
And buries them as a religious affair -
He sings, too, a song for the purpose.
He will not permit that the smallest of bones
Belonging to bears shall be broken on stones
Or anywise damaged among them.
What thoughts Lapps may have while performing such rite
At funeral of beasts, is a matter I quite
Refrain from opinion to utter.
It is to regret that the race of the Lapps
By heathenish fogs are more covered, perhaps,
Than anyone else in this country.
The pastors admonish in words and in threats,
But one must admit, much as one it regrets,
The Lapps go the way of their fathers.
I would that the tongue of the Lapps I might know
As well as Norwegian or Danish, and show
How much I would do for these people.
Then I might have hopes to right teach them the Word,
Convert them; but now we must trust to the Lord
And pray for his mercy upon them.
But what can the pastors, with all their concern,
Do once in a year, when to churches they come,
To worship in Christian tenple.
The Lapps take communion, we lay on our hands.
They come to God's table, as custom demands;
We know not what dwells in the spirit.
To God we must leave it, who all of them know,
To hudge if it is hypocritical show
Or worship reverence truly.
God scatters the seed in the mountains indeed;
He gives to the weak His own faith, in their need,
And governs the world to his glory.
One honor must go the Lapps and their race:
They never will steal - 'tis a virtue I praise -
In forests, on roads, or wherever.
The Lapps never fear that another will steal.
They carry no lock fortheir house or their meal,
Or any of all their possessions.
Their pantries in which they provisions do lay,
Are hollowed trees -- what is simpler, I pray?
Their "staves" do the Lapp-people call them.
There keep they their food safe, their meat and their cheese,
Their good reindeer ham and their ribs, as they please -
Such food will agree with their stomachs.
The people in northernly Norwegian parts
Maintain that in witchcraft and magical arts
The Lapps have a special knowledge.
They call it the "gann" and by it they control
The land and the sky and the animal fold;
Yes, magic they work on the people.
That they with the devil are clearly in pact,
They have to me shown both in word and in act;
I know it from own observation.
If humiliation or mockery come
To Lapps, and they level their curses at some,
Right often the misfortune happens.
If someone has stolen an object or two;
And you cannot guess who such evil would do,
The Lapp will discover the culprit.
He tells you the name of the sinner at once;
The guilty are driven to make their response
And bring back the objects they pilfered.
You ask that a mark on the thief may be left,
By which you may recognize vicious theft,
His craft finds it easiest matter.
He sends but a word to the Devil, his friend,
And Satan misfortune on someone will send;
An eye may the thief find is ruined.
If you are locked up by ungracious wind
And look for a change, so your trip may begin,
The Lapp will arrange such a bargain.
He uses his craft and his magic with speed;
Three knots on the handkerchief are all he needs -
He gives them to you for your keeping.
Untie but the one for a gentle, good breeze,
The sails will be filled, you make progress with ease;
But if you the second will loosen,
You pull in the canvas to barely half mast.
The third will send wind that will race you so fast
That pumps you will have to resort to.
If anxious to know on a certain one day
What trading in such and such places there may
Go on that will be to your interest,
In strange and far distantmost places I know
Of Lapps who have power these things to you show
By magical power and witchcraft.
He throws himself prostrate, the Lapp, as if dead
And falls in a swoon; you think life must have fled -
He shows neither breathing nor motion.
But when he at last does return to this life,
He tells of far countries, their ways and their strife,
And all he has seen in the spirit.
To warrant his words will be trusted and heard,
He takes what some stranger has owned, he avers -
Some token he brings from the distance.
Thus Satan bewitches the weak human mind
And makes it to Christ and the truth wholly blind -
A slave to their master, the devil.
The Lapp may well use his old "gann" from afar;
The flies of Beelzebub powerful are
And bite where the witchcraft determines.
They go to a man or they go to a beast,
Attacking the helpless deserving it least,
Spread terror wherever they wander.
To anger and peevishness lightly aroused,
The Lapp takes his vengeance in enemy's house
Sends "gann" to his enemy's premise.
But strange as this is, it much stranger is still
That magic that one uses others will kill -
One sends it, the other expels it.
Now someone will ask, how can such a thing go?
Can Satan fight Satan with mockery so
That devil by devil is driven?
It seems that the Christ contradicted such thought.
How can it then be that your verses are fraught
With contrary pagan ideas?
I answer you in my simplicity's state;
With Satan not all men can equally rate;
Some higher, some lower are counted.
The devil knows well how to make his own show;
His acts can have meanings that deeper can go
Than you, with your mind, can envision.
It seems that one devil another may hurt,
But all are for power and gain on this earth -
Old Sigvard was willingly fettered.
The deed is not heavy for Satan, be sure,
To boost a man's health and make life seem secure,
If souls further om may be taken.
Old Satan, as craftsman, is thousand times great.
He knows every secret in nature and state;
He works his experiments ever.
And he who all evil has brewed in our land,
Should he not know what all the secrets portend
Though hidden in herbs of our kingdom?
PETTER DASS PAGE