Ottar 2.93, p.5  The reindeer has been part of Sámi culture and
identity for thousands of years. The word for reindeer in the
North Sámi dialect is boazu/bohccot (singular/plural). The
reindeer helped make it possible to push the frontiers of human
settlement to the north into less hospitable environments. With
regard to demographic traits and behavioral patterns the
reindeer of today are essentially the same as the wild reindeer
hunted during the late Stone Age in Fennoscandia (the
Scandinavian peninsula) after the glaciers began to recede some
ten thousand years ago. They are distinguished by their
tolerance and even preference for cold climates, and by their
gregarious nature. They are herbivorous, eating plants in the
summer and lichen under the snow in winter. They are usually
found together in numbers of fifteen or more, and at certain
times of the year in herds numbering into the thousands. They
are not dangerous to humans and were often quite easy to kill,
being extremely unwary at times. Both sexes c