Babies in the Snow

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 28, 1910

Babies in the Snow

ONE of the most curious customs of the Laplanders is their manner of taking the babies to church.

The mothers go regularly, even when they have wee, tiny babies. Sometimes they ride ten or fifteen miles in a sleigh drawn by reindeer. They all have warm clothes on, the baby in particular. Oftentimes it is wrapped in bear skins.

As soon as the family arrives at the little church, and the reindeer is secured, the father Lapp shovels a snug little bed of snow, and mother Lap wraps her baby snugly in skins and lays it down there. Then father Lapp piles the snow all around it, and the parents go into the church.

Over twenty or thirty of these babies lie out there in the snow around the church, and I never heard of one that was suffocated or frozen.

The snow does not make them cold; for when it covers a person all over, if he has clothing enough so that it will not melt and wet him, it will keep him warm. The little babies are not strong enough to knock the snow aside and get away, so they just lie there and go to sleep.

When church is out, the father goes to where the baby is, puts his hand down into the snow, pulls the baby out, and shakes off the snow; then the reindeer trots off, a great deal faster than a horse, and takes them all home again.—Baptist Standard.