See Hornell, East Carelia and Kola Lakmark, 1921, Kihlman Pflanzenbiologische Studien aus Russisch Lappland, Helsingfors, 5890.
(X.) The people known as "Lapps," i.e., nomads, which is the name the Swedes gave them, call themselves Samelats. They were in occupation of their present territory when first mentioned in history, having come like the Ugro-Finns, and, for the matter of that, the Slays, as colonizers rather than as conquerors. The first reliable identification of them is in Procopius (Goth ii. 15) where the "Skritiphinoi" exhibit certain customs characteristic of the Lapps. Brachycephalic, with high cheek bones, flat noses and chestnut hair, they are racially, linguistically and by their demon ology almost as closely allied to the Karelians as these in their turn are to the Finns. By the form of their crania a Mongolian tribe, they have been driven to the furthest north by successive migra tions of kindred Ugro-Finns, as of Goths and Slays, but cherish the memory of the hospitable southern lands traversed in their pristine wanderings.
They incurred the ordinary fate. of a primitive people who, driven off the main arteries of civilization, remained isolated huntsmen and fishermen, with the reindeer as the only domestic animal (apart from the dog) capable of withstanding the severity of the climate. This fact precluded town settlements, even in the loth century, because the reindeer feeds on lichens and mosses and requires an extensive pasturage. Consequently there was little cohesion among this people; they spread over a wide area, and, without knowledge of the use of iron, fell a prey to powerful neighbours: to Norsemen in the gth century, thereafter to the Karelians, and, in the i i th century, to the princes of Novgorod. In 1326, by a treaty between Norway and Russia, the supremacy of the former was recognized as far east as Voljo, beyond Kanda laksha on the White sea, of the latter as far as Lyngen and mai self. After the disruption of the Kalmar Union (1523), Sweden began to assert its rights until, in 1595, by the Treaty of Teusina, the Lapps between eastern Bothnia and Varanger became subjects of the king of Sweden. In this capacity occurred their one inter
vention in the affairs of Europe, when they formed part of the armies of Gustavus Adolphus. By the peace of Knarod (1613) this king gave up the Swedish claim to Finmark ; in 1751, mutual renunciations brought the relations of Swedish and Norwegian (Danish) Lapland to their present (1928) position. In 1809, Alexander I. of Russia obtained the cession of Finland, and added to it the whole of Finnish Lapland to the east of the Muonio and the Kongama. At the dissolution of the union between Nor way and Sweden, in 1905, the migratory rights and pasturage privileges of the Lapps were respected in the desert lands between these two countries, which arrangement was confirmed in Feb. 1917 by a congress held between Norwegian and Finnish Lapps.
Of the many masters which the Lapps have had to bear, the Swedes and Russians left the strongest imprint, forcing upon them their respective creeds; the Russians through St. Tryphon, the Greek Orthodox religion, the Swedes, through Gustavus Adolphus, the Lutheran faith. In their wake came exploiters who farmed the Lapps and even owned them. In such circumstances the philan thropic legislation of a later age could do little to arrest the gradual decline of the population, which was largely absorbed by neigh bouring races and assumed Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Russian family names.
In Sweden, the railway leading to the famous mining town of Gellivare and in Russia the Murman railway making for the ice free port of Alexandrovsk (completed during the World War) opened up tracts of country hitherto almost inaccessible. In Sweden the Lapps have abandoned their nomadic habits; in the Kola peninsula they still live by fishing and fur-trapping.