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The day's work being done we lighted a fire, cooked a piece of reindeer meat for our supper, and made coffee. Jakob, as usual, had some dried fish skin with him to clarify the coffee. After our meal we went into our snow houses, and taking off my Lapp grass and stockings, I laid them inside of my kapta on my chest to dry the dampness out of them during the night. Then I got into my bag.
Before going to sleep they sang psalms and hymns, praising God for the blessings of the day. Then they dressed themselves for the night, putting on over the garments they wore during the day a long reindeer kapta, a sort of nightshirt reaching below the feet. More reindeer skins were put over the skins on which we were seated.
In the winter they wear a long outside coat called a kap'ta. It reaches below the knees. It is made of reindeer skin with the hair left on. Under the kapta they wear warm clothes made of wool. Their shoes are also made of reindeer skin. They wear two pairs of thick woolen stockings. When they put on the stockings, they wrap their feet in dry grass. Then they put on their shoes.
The women were all busy; one was weaving shoe-bands of bright colors, red predominating; another was just finishing a "kapta," and a third one was putting a lining of red flannel over the seams upon a tiny pair of reindeer-skin shoes for a child; the girls were sewing some undergarments. Wasara's father's first name was Pehr, he was a fine-looking Lapp, about seventy years old.
They are long blouses reaching down to the knee or below, made of reindeer skins, with fur attached; with a narrow aperture for the head to pass through, and fitting closely round the neck. Plural form. Singular, "kapta." One of the kaptor was much larger than the other, for in case of intense cold one is worn beneath the other with the fur inside, and the outside one with the fur outside.
The Finlanders do not dress like the Laplanders when they are at home; it is only when they travel that they wear the kapta or pesh. The men wear long overcoats, lined with woolly sheepskin. The women's dress is composed of a body of black cloth, with skirt of thick homespun wool. Their long and heavy jackets are also lined with sheepskin inside, and they wear hoods.
The blood was in full circulation and I felt fine, for it was such a long time since I had taken a real bath that I had almost forgotten that there was such a thing. How nice it was to put clean underwear on. How comfortable it felt. I put on a new pair of reindeer trousers, that were lent to me and that had never been worn before, and a new "kapta."
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