The Lapps, by Björn Collinder. 252 pages, with frontispiece in color, 25 photographic plates, bibliography and index. New York: Princeton University Press for the American Scandinavian Foundation, 1949. Price, $3.75.

The professor of Finno-Ugric languages in the University of Uppsala has lived among the Lapps and written the most thorough description of them available today. This is almost the first book in English on the subject since Johannes Scheffer’s History of Lapland was published at Oxford in 1674. Lapland forms the northern crown of the Scandinavian peninsula; and its 30,000 inhabitants occupy parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Through their nomadic culture they have preserved the ways of their forefathers. We find here a multitude of facts concerning their costumes, tents, skis, dogs, herds of reindeer, ceremony of the bear hunt, family life, language, literature and art.

J.M.T.