Dolls From Lapland

       My little Lapland mistress is sitting as near as ever she can get to the stove, for it is terribly cold, colder than you can even possibly imagine. And on her lap I sit with, dressed just as she is; I am a little miniature of my girl caretaker, Gerda. We are quite alone, for father is a fisherman and is often away for many days together, while Gerda, her mother, and I live buried beneath many feet of snow in our warm little house.

        Our home is right within the Arctic Circle, and the whole of life is very simple indeed compared with the houses and high rises of people who live in big cities far away. We are the shortest race in of Western Europe, but very we are very strong indeed, and many of us live to a great old age, in spite of the hard life and intense cold. The women and girls are almost always shorter than the men, and Gerda, when she is quite grown up, will not probably be much more than 4 feet tall, with very short arms and legs and tiny feet.

       When you first looked at me or my mistress Gerda, I expect you would be very puzzled as to whether we were boys or girls, for in many ways we are a topsy-turvy land, and there is so little difference between the boys' and the girls' dress, that it is difficult to tell one from another when we dress for such cold weather. We all wear trousers, boots, and gaiters, but sometimes a woman or girl wears a few beads as an ornament, while they generally have a heavier wrapping round the head.

       Our dresses are very plain, but there is generally a pointed piece of fur, cut from the head or tail of an animal, that forms a tab to finish the bottom of the front of the coat. I do not know what we should do without our warm, close-fitting hoods, for though I am only a dolly I can tell how cold it is, and poor Gerda would soon have her ears and nose frozen off if they were not thus protected. Do you notice how the women always stuff their trousers into the tops of their big boots?

       In winter everyone wears fur clothes, and in summer white cotton or wool. Gerda's father, as I said, is a fisherman, so that we live near the sea in a low hut made of turf, with a few stakes to hold up the roof. We do not have any windows, because they would let in the cold in winter.

       Everywhere there are dogs and reindeer, the latter being especially useful to us, for while alive we use them for riding and drawing the sleds‚ just as you have horses‚ and when dead, they give us skins for clothes. Much of my own clothing is made from reindeer skins, and if we are very short of food a reindeer is killed and eaten. Another purpose that the reindeer serves to the Laplander is providing him with milk, though this is quite different in taste to that given by the cow.

      If you had never been in my country before, you would have a great surprise when the winter came, for then we all shut ourselves in the hut, and Gerda plays with me most of the day; for at one time in the year it is just one long night, and it is always dark. To make up for this, we have a similar time in the summer, when it is just one long day and never gets dark.

       If one of your English dollies came to live with us in our country, it would take her a whole year to get used to our topsy-turvy ways and happenings, and one of the marvels that she would see is the Northern Lights. These are a strangely brilliant glow that comes and lingers in the sky, until it turns the night almost into day. But I must not stay to tell you any more, for Gerda is calling me to go to bed, and I hope she will wrap me up very warm, for it is cold.

The Sami people are the caregivers to animals of the North.