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also the time when they need help most and when the children have the best opportunity of practicing everything to do with their future way of life. Most often the result is that the child is unfit for all his work after the school period. It’s difficult for him to orient himself in the mountains. He doesn’t recognize the reindeer’s appearance to the high degree necessary, doesn’t have “lassohands ,” and so forth. But all that could probably be relearned if the passion for mountain life were only preserved, and here lies the heart of the matter: far too often, that’s what is lost. The young have gotten a taste of the farmer’s more comfortable and more respected life as opposed to the Lapps’more strenuous and disdained life. Many no longer return to the mountains, but stay down in the countryside living by casual labor.Then their parents sit up in the mountains mourning the children and their best labor force. Uneasily they see their old age approach. A Lapp calls himself “poor” when he loses his children. The most authentic of the young return, quite unchanged, and take up their old way of life. Yet the risk and the loss from so many years of schooling is too great for reindeer husbandry and Lapp culture to bear in the long run. The Lapp children could get the academic education they need through nomad schools in the mountains.9 No one can worry that their Christian education will suffer. The Laestadian clergy takes care of that, as well as all the many missionaries who travel constantly among the Lapps. V I was sewing my Lapp-style clothes and on Saturday was going to try part of my dress on, but that couldn’t happen in the tent, where you could be disturbed at any moment by visitors. So Inga decided we should go up to the forest.There, up on a flat boulder, the fitting took place with great hilarity. Inga, who didn’t believe that the changing from“ladies’ clothes” to Lapp dress worked to my advantage, sang, Diibmá don ledjet dego geasseloddi, dál don leat dego boares dorka. “Last year you were like a bird in summertime; this year you’re like an old inner fur.” The evening was light and warm, and it was Saturday. Inga was finished with her wood chopping and me with my sewing. We weren’t in a hurry, but strolled slowly and good-humoredly down through the forest. Suddenly Inga stopped, listened, and whispered quickly, “It’s Jouna and Heikki, coming up for wood—now they’ve heard us.” With the Lapps in the High Mountains We heard soft cajoling voices, and far off we saw two red tassels appear through the birches. (Young people in the mountains try to seize the chance to court when they meet outdoors. Since their play is very physical, a real wrestling match, the tent with its many onlookers is definitely not the most desirable place.) Inga stood still a second, then she bounded noiselessly behind the nearest tree to hide. She looked slantwise up at me with a big smile. Her white teeth gleamed in the green darkness under the tree. Her wide eyes shone. Now the coaxing voices sounded closer.“Come on,” Inga whispered, and with a couple of easy jumps she was hidden in the bushes. She ducked down and made herself small as a young rabbit that hides in tall grass. She held her breath and listened for her pursuers, but not a sound betrayed her hiding place. They lost her trail and gave up the search. When they were gone, Inga got up and tiptoed in her soft shoes between the birches. Soon we were at the edge of the forest, out in the sunlight, and a moment afterward home in the tent. Up in the forest Jouna and Heikki felled trees so that the axes rang. We smiled a small secret smile together and went into the tent with its fire and steaming stew pot. As young as Inga was, she already had a wristwatch!—that is to say, a suitor. When a young man fancies a girl, he gives her little gifts—betrothal gifts or gihli—which consist mainly of scarves, often of silk; pretty aprons; a silver spoon (always in the old-fashioned Lappish style, with a short handle, which goldsmiths in towns nearby make especially for...
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