“ wont to eat the greater part of the offerings themfelves; fo
“ alfo did the Laplanders in facrificing to their idols—they con-
“ fumed the fleih themfelves, leaving nothing to their divinities
“ but the bare bones: it was the men who were the cooks among
“ the J ew s j f o alfo it is the men, not the women, who are the
I cooks among the Laplanders. Some of the Jewiih laws re-
“ fpedting the phyiical condition of women were anciently ob-
“ ferved alfo by the Laplanders.”
The miffionary obferves, that there are many coincidences in
the manners and modes of life of the Laplanders and the ancient
Scythians. The garments of the Laplanders, like thofe of the
Scythians, confift in the fkins of wild beafts. ■ The Scythians, like
the Laplanders, negleding agriculture, had no fixed habitations,
but wandered about with their wives and children from place to
place, and derived their fubfiftence from their herds of cattle.
Our author alfo remarks very ftriking affinities between the languages
of ancient Scythia and L apland: for example, thunder,
which the Scythians called terami, the Laplanders exprefs by
tiermes.
The miffionary has nothing to objedt to the general opinion
th a t the Laplanders were originally of the fame race with the
Swedifh Finns or Finlanders; an opinion founded on a ftriking
fimilitude of names and other circumilances. But, after granting
th a t the Laplanders and Finns may probably have been once the
fame people, and that the marks of difcrimination now exifting
between them may have been gradually brought on by the courfe
o f ages, he thinks himfelf juftified in comprehending under the
name of Laplanders all the people dwelling upon the coaffs of
Finland and Norland, who lead a paftoral life, like the other inhabitants
of Norway, as well as thofe families which wander about
front mountain to mountain with their rein-deer.
W ith refpedl to the point in queftion, namely, the defcent of
the Laplanders from the Scythians, afterwards called Tartars, the
Bifhop o f Drontheim, in his Annotations, obferves, that the Finns,
the neareft anceftors o f the Laplanders, are mentioned by Ptolomy,
the geographer, and by the Roman hiftorian Tacitus, whofe de-
fcription of the Finns, the Bifhop might have added, is applicable
in the moil ftriking and important inftances, to the mountain
Laplanders, and the fhepherds of Norland and Finmark of the
prefent day.
The Bifhop, while he confiders the Laplanders and Finlanders
as originally the Finns or the Finni of Ptolomy and Tacitus, iup-
pofes the Finns themfelves to be defcended from the Scythians or
Tartars, and from th a t tribe or nation of Tartars known by the
name of Samoeids. The Norwegian, Swedifh, and Ruffian L ap landers,
he holds to be the fame people.
The Finlanders, or Finniih Laplanders, are offended, Bifhop
Gunner tells us, at being called Laplanders. This he accounts
for with Scheffer, by fuppofing Jap to be a term of reproach.*
* The Laplanders feem to have been known to Herodotus and other ancient
writers, who have given them the names of Cynocephali, Troglodytes and Pygmies.
It is fuppofed that their prefent name was given to them by the Swedes,
who made thefirftand principal conqueft of their country. It is faid to be de-
Vol. II. U rived