REINDEER ARE WEALTH

Wanganui Chronicle, 23 December 1950, Page 11

REINDEER ARE WEALTH

By

Odon and Olivie Meeker

LAPLAND, CHRISTMAS EVE.— Santa Claus is called Joulupukki here, where he finds his reindeer. Everybody in Finnish Lapland, like Joulupukki, drives a reindeer. Joulupukki, himself lives on a moutain called Korvantuturi, which is not far from the Soviet frontier. In Lapland he drives his reindeer straight up to the door and rings the doorbell —instead of coming down the chimney. (Inside the Arctic circle it is only the devil who comes down the chimney). And out of his pack he takes toboggans, skates, or a new pair of skis, for small admirers who have outgrown their old ones. For Father Christmas’s annual circular tour from Korvatunturi, he has only to draw on the local supply of reindeer. Since almost all Lapps and Finns keep reindeer, and twentyfive thousand sometimes turn up at a single fall roundup, there is an adequate number. Lapland is still based firmly on a reindeer economy. A Lapp is reckoned in reindeer, and since he may own a herd of 3000, worth five million finmarks, his financial position is comparable to that, of a British captain of industry. DEER POWER Rangifer tarandus fennicus, the Christmas deer power, is about six feet three inches long and looks silly every year when his antlers fall off. Fortunately, they grow back by Noel. He is the only domesticated member of the deer family, and has been employed since Neolithic times. He can pull about two hundred and twenty pounds, or pack sixty-five. If he skids going downhill he can brake with his forefeet; when tired he lies down in harness until rest and food are provided. He can cover thirty-five or forty miles a day, usually in a series of long curves. A reindeer who follows a straight track has a high market value. The reindeer pulls a pulkka, a small sled with a single runner on its bottom. The general effect is that of someone riding around in an old slipper. Santa’s sleigh is closest to that of the eastern Skolt Lapps who employ a sort of troika with runners, pulled by three reindeer. Reindeer, naturally, are guided with reins. They do not use a bit. The Lapps, who came to Finland from the east, are nice to their reindeer, as well they should be. They sleep on reindeer skins, and wear reindeer hats, boots and mittens. They eat reindeer meat, and Lapp spoons are made from reindeer horn. Surgical sutures are made of reindeer sinews. The poor reindeer supplies the raw material for all his own harness except for one bit of metal. Reindeer milk is turned into cheese which is cut into cubes and put into Lappish coffee. The meat is always fresh in winter time since it is frozen solid, ready to be cut into paper-thin slices and fried in butter. Reindeer meat is often sold in London as venison. The certified Finnish gourmet may dally with saddle of reinr’fer at his banquet, but the great Lappish delicacies are the bone marrow and the tongue. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt tried the tongue when she turned up in the Arctic circle last summer and she said it was fine. LIVE ON MOSS. Lapland lives on reindeer, and the reindeer live on reindeer moss, which it scoops out of the snow with its fore feet. They can smell the moss under three feet, of snow. During the summer the deer cannot be kept together in herds because they rush off into the hills to escape the mos-

quitos and gad flies which lay their eggs under their skin and in their nostrils. In the fall round-ups, after the first snowfall, the deer are caught with the aid of skis, lassos and spitzes. The ears of young deer are notched with the registered mark of their owners, and for further identification the beast may have a family nameperhaps Pikku Soturi (Little Warrior) or Neata (Curvey Antlers). Government taxes are computed in the number of reindeer a man owns. The government, incidentally, is almost the only outfit which may know the extent of a man’s reindeer holdings—lo inquire of a Lapp how many reindeer he owns is a gaucheno equivalent to asking a stockbroker the extent of his bank account. Money doesn’t, mean much in Lapland. Rich Lapps live very much like poor Lapps, except that they like to spend money on clothes, and may buy a little extra snuff, aquavia, and French brandy (beer is useless since it freezes). But lhe favourite extravagance is coffee, and when on the social merry-go-round at Christmas, a Lapp may drink as many as forty or fifty cups a day. Lapp teeth decay very quickly on this regime because

the enamel cracks from the effects of scalding hot coffee drunk at near zero temperatures. LAPPISH COSTUME. The Lappish costume is tailored of black or dark blue barthea—the stuff from which tailcoats and smoking jackets are ordinarily made—with canary and scarlet trimmings around the edges and topped off with a tetrapeaker floppy affairs known as the Cap of the Four Winds. But barathea, like coffee, is rationed now in Finland, so that when the Lapps are at a loss to think up something to spend their money on, they just go out and bury it in the ground in a secret place in the forest, and carefully refrain from telling anyone—so that it will be sure to be lost. Lapps are short, swart, stooped but agile, with prominent foreheads, flatfish noses and timorous dispositions. They used to be noted as g.eat sorserers and warlocks who were able to stop ships under full sail. They could

also throw magic darts miles through the air at their enemies (one of the first guided missiles in Europe) and they believed in Thor and the Sun, and a host of demi-gods, demons, spectres, spooks and so on. Reindeer sacrifices were especially appreciated, and heaps of ten thousand antlers were sometimes dedicated to Storjunkaro, the lieutenant god in charge of e all fish, foxes, bear, wolves, reindeer and other game. Storjunkaro re|prubied a man dressed in a conservative black suit, except for his bird’s feet. NO LONGER NOMADIC. Those Lapps who aren’t nomadic now often make their houses out of Tate and Lyle sugar boxes (presumably they know all about Mr. Cube), but otherwise they haven’t changed a great deal since they came to Lapland about a thousand years ago. They are technically Christians, but offerings of reindeer horns still turn up for the old gods at the old places. Lapp babies are cradled in little pulkkalike affairs, and as soon as they are big enough to run about, the children play “reindeer.” For each new tooth, a child is given a real reindeer of his own to take care of. “He who intends

to marry looks out for a maid well stocked with reindeer . . . for a Laplander does not regard anything else, neither honesty nor beauty . . reported John Scheffer, Professor of Law and Rhetoric at Upsala University, who in 1674 wrote the first comprehensive account of Lapland. According to Scheffer, the suitor courts his beloved with roast reindeer tongue, and woos her with love songs: Kulnafataz, my reindeer, We have a long journey to go, , The moors are vast, And we must haste . . . Winged with impatient fire, My reindeer let us haste. Before he can claim the lady, however, the young man must extract permission not only from her parents but from all her relatives, all of whom demand gifts. This custom has died out recently, but Lapps still don't exchange presents at Christmas.