Tax
The Birkarlar
The book says the people first chose a king from among themselves. Ladulaus, king of Sweden, about the year 1277, promised the government to whoever would bring them under the crown. The Birkarlar, their neighbours, took it on. From Ericus and Johannes Bure the book tells of one Birkarl whose wife covered him with snow on the road from Birkala. He counted fifteen as they passed, and killed them one by one. After that the rest submitted. This is the book’s story, not a conclusion of this page. The Birkarlar acknowledged the king of Sweden. Gustavus I took the charge from them, and the book says he was the first king to take the tribute himself and to assemble the people in winter. (Schefferus 1674)
The courts
On 10 October 1610 Charles IX ordered the governor Laurentius Laurentii to govern the Ume, Pite, and Lule lappmarks by Swedish law. The book counts three courts: Ångermanland; Ume, Pite, and Lule together; and Torne and Kemi together. Sentence was given in the king’s name by the governor, with a judge and a priest present. They were held at the fair times, and the book says that was now January and February. The ground for which the tax was paid was, in the book, a grant from the crown to take the profits, not goods to be divided among the heirs. (Schefferus 1674)
The tribute
At first the skins were paid by the Birkarlar, not by the Laplanders. Bure calls them grey squirrel skins, forty in a bundle. In the contract with Gustavus I, Lule and Pite paid eight bundles, 360 skins, and two marten skins. Torne paid the same. In 1528 the number was doubled. In 1602 Charles ordered every tenth reindeer and a tenth of the dried fish. In 1606, from the age of seventeen, the due was two bucks or three does, eight pounds of dried fish, every tenth fawn, and every tenth tun of fish. In the book’s own time a full tax was two patacoons, which the book calls a Skattadaler, and a half tax one. In skins, fifty squirrels, or a fox skin and a pair of shoes, or two pounds of dried fish, stood for one patacoon. The book says much of this tribute was allowed for the priests. A reindeer was counted at three dollars, and the tenths were taken from every hundred, not from each family. For the carriage they added a pair of shoes, which the book calls Haxapalka. Beyond the Torne mountains the book names Koutokeine, Aujouara, Teno, and Utziocki. They paid Denmark half the Swedish tax, for fishing and pasture, not as subjects. Enare in Kemi paid the same to Denmark, and a third to Muscovy. (Schefferus 1674)