Reindeer

ran'der, a genus of large deer, represented in America by the caribou. The antlers resemble those of the moose, but are more open and not so large. The reindeer is at home in Lapland where it has been domesticated and takes the place of horse and cow and sheep. Large herds are kept on the barrens, subsisting chiefly on lichens and reindeer moss which they find even under a deep snow. The milk, flesh, hides, and hair are important items in Lapp housekeeping, and are indeed the main dependence of a considerable population. The male is about four to six feet in height. It is stoutly built, and has a keen eye, a flying foot, and great endurance. A well bred reindeer will draw a man and sledge ten miles an hour for hours at a time over roads where naught else but a snowshoe could pass. The Laplander is able to name each animal in his herd, though, as Linnaeus remarks, "To distinguish one from another among such multitudes was beyond my comprehension, for they were like ants on an ant-hill." It is said that frozen carcasses of reindeer from Finland and Lapland now appear in the Berlin market each year.

In 1890, under the advice of the Rev. Sheldon Jackson, general agent of education in Alaska, the United States government introduced a herd of reindeer into Alaska. Native Lapp herders were brought with them in the hope of teaching the Indians of Alaska to rear flocks of this useful animal. Up to 1904 Congress had expended $157,000 in the importation and care of 1,280 animals. In October, 1908, the herds numbered 19,322 animals, fawns included. In 1909 Congress appropriated $15,000 for the care of reindeer. It is estimated that the moss region of Alaska is capable of sustaining 10,000,000 reindeer.

The hair of the reindeer, like that of the moose, is hollow and filled with air. A bag of it makes an excellent life preserver. The hollowness of the hair, however, renders it brittle and almost worthless for yarn. Stockings and blankets woven of reindeer hair have little durability. The reindeer of the world are distributed:

See Lapland; Alaska; Moose

eligion, a system of faith and worship. "A belief in spiritual things," says Tyler. The word is Latin, meaning a binding or obligation. Next to a desire for food and clothing, fair lands, and the wish to occupy routes of trade and to win national wealth, religion has played a leading part in the great migrations, wars, and conquests of mankind. The Crusades were, in the main, religious wars. The rapidity with which the Mohammedans overran a large part of the world can be explained only by reference to a zeal to spread their religious views.

Herbert Spencer is of the opinion that there are native tribes so low in the plane of intelligence that they have no religious views. This opinion is not accepted widely, however. Authorities are agreed, usually, that the most primitive people have at least a fear of certain places and of the spirits of the dead. They are afraid of a cave in which someone has died. They make an effort to please evil spirits that they may not be afflicted with disease or visited with disaster.

A very large part of the world's population worships ancestral spirits--the spirits of dead ancestors. Belief in an all-pervading deity is a distinct upward step in the scale of intelligence. In this respect Mohammedanism is to be classified with Christianity and Judaism, rather than with the followers of Confucius.

Separate articles may be found on the principal religions of the world, as well as the leading denominations of Christianity. Shintuism is the ancestral religion of Japan; Taoism, that of a large part of China. The following table is an intelligent estimate of the strength of the leading religions in 1905: