Page - 244 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 5244 author hastens to add in a Buffonian fashion that “all the different nations most probably descend from the same stock, as all nations mingle with one another, they procreate, and some of their offspring resembles the one, and others, the other nation.”113 The continued adherence of the Sámi to “pagan darkness”114 and their primitive mode of subsistence and “beastly existence”115 is another persistent feature of their representation in these works. Some au- thors elaborate on this by emphasizing the complete lack of agriculture and any other domestic animals than reindeer (which they utilize to full extent, including the drinking of their blood),116 their simple domiciles, and the domi- nant role of fishing and hunting.117 There are some important qualifications, too. One author asserts that while the Sámi are very ignorant and live among primitive conditions, “they are not as miserable as some people think,” because they are “nevertheless satisfied with their lot, and live peacefully with one another.”118 Elsewhere we learn that “they are regarded as ignorant, but an Eng- lish traveler says: human love and affection is taught to polished nations; but in Lapponia, it is also exercised”119—resembling, though on somewhat different grounds, Linnaeus’s judgment of the Sámi as noble savages who may have something to teach civilized nations.120 113 [György Fejér], Anthropologia vagy is az embe’r esmértetése (Buda: Királyi Magyar Univer- sitás, 1807), 152–53. For a similar analysis, see [Mihály Katona], Közönséges természeti Föld­ leirás (Pest: Trattner, 1824), 452. 114 István Vetsei P[ataki], Magyar Geografiája: Az Az; Ez egész világ négy részeinek, ugymint Europának, Asiának, Afrikának és Amerikának;’s bennek levő sokféle országok nemzetségek; azok eredetek, természetek, ’s nevezetesebb szokásainak, vallásainak, imperátorinak, királyi­ nak, s több egyéb elmét vidámito hasznos dolgainak méltó és rövid le­ irása […] (Carei: Károlyi Ferentz Typographiája, 1757), 225. 115 Bertalanffi, Világnak Két­ rendbéli ismerete, 649. 116 [Georg Christian Raff], Természethistoria a’ gyermekeknek (Veszprém: Számmer Mihály, 1799), 537–38. On the reception of Raff’s work in Hungary, see Ildikó Sz. Kristóf, “The Uses of Natural History: Georg C. Raff’s Naturgeschichte für Kinder (1778) in Its Multiple Trans- lations and Multiple Receptions,” in Le livre demeure: Studies in Book History in Honour of Alison Saunders, ed. Alison Adams, Philip Ford, and Stephen Rawles (Geneva: Droz, 2011), 309–33. 117 György Raff, Geografiája a’ gyengébbek elméjekhez alkalmaztatott, és magyarúl ki­ adattatott (Vác: Ambro Ferenc, 1791), 144. 118 Raff, Geografiája a’ gyengébbek elméjekhez alkalmaztatott, 144. It is noteworthy that Raff’s work usually refrains from presenting lifestyles (the other two exceptions being the Mus- covites and the Poles). 119 [János Ferenczy], Közönséges geographia, mellyben a’ Földnek mathematikai, természeti, és leg inkább politikai állapotja a’ leg ujabb változások után elő adatik (Pest: Eggenberger József, 1809), 153. 120 Koerner, Linnaeus, 56–81.