Having run thro the mens emploiments, the womens are next to be considered. Two trades are most peculiar to them, as doing the work of Taylors and Shoomakers, for they make and mend all the Clothes, Shoes, Boots and Gloves; and they have a third the making all those things that join the Rain-deer to the sledg, as collars, traces, &c. in order to which they learn subservient arts, as making thred, which is commonly of Rain-deers nerves, because they have no flax: of this sort I have some by me. Olaus Magnus saith ad indumentorum usum, for the making of shirts, which made Lomenius believe the women wove this thred into cloth, who I perceive in his short description of Lapland, hath very closely followed his words more then his sense. In the making of their thred, which is of about 3 ells long, the extent of the Rain-deers nerves, they first cleanse the nerves, then having cut off all the hard parts, they dry, and hatchell them, and lastly mollify them with fishes fat. Besides this they spin wool for swadling clothes, and Hares fur, with which they knit caps, as in other parts of Europe they do stockins with four knitting needles, which art the Germans call stricken. These Caps are as soft as Swans down, and extremly warm. In the same manner they make Gloves, which are very beneficiall to them in the cold. The work of their fillets is very curious, for they put in them many figures, as you may see at the end of the foregoing Chapter, at the figure I. The fourth trade is their covering thred with tin, which first they draw into wire by pulling it thro little holes in horn with their teeth, which holes they fill half up with bone, that the tin may be flat on one side, and fitter to be put on thred. The picture of a woman drawing wire you have in the next page. Then they put it upon the nerves by the help of a spindle, which doth so twist them together that they seem all tin, and when they have done, they wind it about their head or foot, least it should entangle and be spoiled. And this is their way of making thred of tin, as in Lastly they have nothing that appears in sight, but it is hereby made very commendable and ingenious. I have by me men and womens scrips, pin-cases, sheaths for knives, very curiously wrought. Of all which, that I might not seem to give too a large commendation of them, I have put the Pictures in the foregoing page. |