You can download this volume here - Electric Scotland

444
The Finn-Men
in thinking that straggling members of the Eskimo community in Davis
Straits occasionally crossed the North Atlantic in their skiffs, and came to
fish in Orkney waters. A very different opinion was held by the Rev.
John Brand, who visited Orkney and Shetland in the early summer of
1700, as one of a Special Commission dispatched thither by the General
Assembly of the Church of Scotland. Brand says :
* There are frequently Fin-men seen here upon the coasts, as one about a year
ago [1699] on Stronsa, and another within these few months on Westra, a gentleman
with many others in the isle looking on him nigh to the shore, but when any
endeavour to apprehend them, they flee away most swiftly ; which is very strange
that one man sitting in his little boat should come some hundreds of leagues from
their own coasts, as they reckon Finland to be from Orkney. It may be thought
wonderful how they live all that time, and are able to keep the sea so long. His
boat is made of seal skins, or some kind of leather ; he also hath a coat of leather
upon him, and he sitteth in the middle of his boat, with a little oar in his hand,
fishing with his lines. And when in a storm he seeth the high surge of a wave
approaching, he hath a way of sinking his boat, till the wave pass over, lest thereby
he should be overturned. The fishers here observe that these Fin-men or Finland-
Men by their coming drive away the fishes from the coasts. One of their boats
is kept as a rarity in the Physicians' Hall at Edinburgh.'
These last two statements are reminiscent of Wallace, whose book,
published in 1693, had probably been read by Brand. The latter writer
was unaware, however, that the Finnman's boat once preserved in the hall
of the Royal College of Physicians
of Edinburgh had been handed over by
1 that body to the College of Edinburgh in I696. As for the term * Finland-
Men,' that appears to have been his own invention, proceeding from his
assumption that Finland was the home of these kayak-men. It will be
seen that the Wallaces and Brand were equally ignorant as to the home of
the Finnmen. Davis Straits is suggested on the one hand, and Finland on
the other ; and there is little to be said for the soundness of either theory.
Undoubtedly the kayak-using people, who still occupy a large area in
the Arctic regions, are capable of making voyages of great length in a very
short space of time. Taking the precaution to place a jar of fresh water
and a store of salted or frozen fish in the hold of his tiny craft, an Eskimo
kayakker will set out on a voyage of several hundred miles. His store of
able to catch
provisions is seldom called into requisition, as he is generally
as much fresh fish as he wants, and he eats his fish raw from choice.
It is therefore not impossible that an Eskimo from Davis Straits, or from
East Greenland, could make his way by Iceland and the Faroes to Orkney.
But if not impossible, it is extremely unlikely. Still less tenable is the
assumption that this daring feat was of frequent occurrence during the last
twenty years of the seventeenth century. The objections to Finland as
the place of origin are less strong. The simplest explanation is furnished
by the history and the traditions of the Orkney and Shetland archipelagoes.
DAVID
1 This is testified to by an entry of 24th September, 1696, in the minute-book
of the Physicians' College.