Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 2, 1851).djvu/138

110 who demand tribute from them. In lieu of tribute-money, they pay skins and fish, for they have no other possessions. When they have paid their annual tribute, they boast that they owe no one anything, and that they are their own masters.

Although the Laplanders have no bread or salt, or other provocatives of the palate, and only live upon fish and game, they seem to be very prone to sensuality.

They are all very skilful bowmen; so that if they meet with any of the nobler kinds of game in the chase, they will kill it, by discharging their arrows at the snout, so that they may procure the skins entire and uninjured. When going out to hunt, they leave merchants and other foreigners, who are their guests, at home with their wives; and if upon their return they find the wife cheerful and more joyous than usual from the company of the guest, they make him some present; but if otherwise, they expel him with disgrace. Already they begin to lay aside their innate ferocity, and to show more courtesy in the company of foreigners, who travel thither for the sake of merchandize. They give free admission to merchants, who bring them clothes made of thick cloth, hatchets, needles, spoons, knives, cups, pottery, meal, and a variety of other things; so that now through feeding on cooked victuals they have become more civilized in their manners. The garments which they wear consist of the skins of various animals sewn together, and sometimes they come to Moscow in this kind of dress; a very few wear leggings and hats made of deer-skin. They use no gold or silver money, but confine themselves to simple barter; and as they know no other language than their own, they appear like dumb men amongst foreigners. They cover their huts with the bark of trees, but nowhere do they keep to any fixed habitation; but after they have taken what game and fish they can find in any one spot, they migrate elsewhere.