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Updated: May 15, 2025
Until it is able to walk it is kept in what is called a komse, a kind of cradle made of strips of wood covered with leather, and just large enough to take the baby. The little creature is rolled up in sheepskin and put into the cradle, which is then stuffed with moss, and the leather covering laced securely all around, so that only the baby's face is seen.
I looked in, and to my great astonishment saw a Lapp baby in each. They were Lapp cradles, called "katkem" or "komse." They were made of a single piece of wood and were about two and a half feet long by fifteen or eighteen inches wide. In one was such a sweet Lapp baby, a dear little girl, with her eyes wide open. As I looked at her she smiled. In the other was a big fat boy, fast asleep.
A thong of leather stretches from head to foot of the komse, which the mother can thus sling on her shoulder when going about, and by this thong the baby can be hung up to a tent-pole or to the branch of a tree if its mother is busy. But as often as not the komses are just stuck up on end in the snow or against a rock while work is going on.
To protect its head the komse is provided with a wooden hood, like most cradles, and there is generally a shawl, which can be thrown over the whole thing in severe weather; in fact, when the baby has been properly done up in its komse, it might go by parcel post without coming to much harm.
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