In Northern Mists Volume Ii Part 5

Everything points in the same direction, that the Skraelings of Wineland, Markland and Greenland were regarded as a kind of fairy people. Nor can this surprise us when we consider that even the Lapps of Finmark, who lived so near to and were so well known by the Norwegians, were regarded as a half-supernatural people, and had various magical properties attributed to them.

[Sidenote: The oldest authorities on the Skraelings]

From the statement quoted earlier from Are Frode's islendingabok (circa 1130) it appears that the Skraelings, or Eskimo, had been in South Greenland before Eric the Red and his men, and that the latter found dwelling-sites and other traces of them, from which they could tell that the same kind of people had been there who "inhabited Wineland and whom the Greenlanders call Skraelings ('Vinland hefer bygt oc Gronlendingar calla Scraelinga')." These words of Are have generally been understood to imply that he did not know of any meeting of Nors.e.m.e.n and Skraelings in Greenland, but only in Wineland, and that consequently it must have been after his time that the Nors.e.m.e.n encountered the Eskimo in Greenland. I am unable to read Are's meaning in this way. He uses the present tense: "calla," and what one "calls Skraelings" must presumably be a people one knows, and not one that one's ancestors had met with more than a hundred years ago. In that case we should rather expect it to be those ancestors who "called" them by this nickname.[60] I have already suggested (p. 16) the possibility of a connection between this statement and the view of the Skraelings as trolls; but we have besides a remarkable parallel to Are's whole account of the first coming of the Icelanders to Greenland and the natives there in his account of the Norwegians' first settlement of Iceland, where he says that there were Christian men before they came, "whom the Norwegians call ('calla') Papar" (i.e., priests). They left behind them traces "from which it could be seen that they were Irish men."

From these words it might be concluded, with as much justification as from the statement about the traces of Skraelings, that the newcomers did not come in contact with the earlier people; but in the latter case this is incredible, and moreover conflicts with Are's own words in the pa.s.sages immediately preceding, according to which the Christians left _after_ the heathen Nors.e.m.e.n arrived. Three kinds of traces are mentioned in each case: the Papar left Irish books, bells and croziers; the Skraelings left dwelling-places, fragments of boats, and stone implements. This may have somewhat the look of a turn of style in the sober Are, who thought it of more value to lay stress on visible signs of this kind than to give a possibly less trustworthy statement about the people themselves. We must also bear in mind how terse and condensed the form of the islendingabok is. I therefore read Are's words as though he meant to say something like the following: "As early as Eric's first voyage to Greenland they found at once dwelling-places both in the Eastern and Western Settlements, and fragments of boats, and stone implements, so that from this it can be seen that over the whole of that region there had been present the same kind of people who also live in Wineland, and who are the same as those the Greenlanders call Skraelings." Nothing is said about the waste districts of Greenland, where the Skraelings especially lived, and it is only in pa.s.sing that Wineland is mentioned in this one pa.s.sage. Are's islendingabok cannot therefore be used as evidence that the Nors.e.m.e.n had not yet met with the Skraelings of Greenland in Are's time. As he expressly says that they found "manna vistir baee austr oc vestr a lande" (human dwelling-places both east and west in the land--i.e., both in the Eastern and Western Settlements), this, too, shows that the stay of the Eskimo in south Greenland cannot have been merely a short and cursory summer visit; but there must have been many of them who stayed there a long time, for otherwise they would hardly have left remains so conspicuous and distributed over so wide an area as to be mentioned with such emphasis as this.

That Eskimo were living on the south coast of Greenland when the Icelanders arrived there may also possibly be concluded from the mention, in the list of fjords of the Eastern Settlement in Bjorn Jonsson's "Vetus chorographia," of an "utibliks fjord" [Gronl. hist.

Mind., iii. p. 228; F. Jonsson, 1899, p. 319], which does not sound Norwegian and may recall the Eskimo "Itiblik," a tongue of land. As Finnur Jonsson [1899, p. 276] points out, the name of the fjord in Arngrim Jonsson's copy of the same list is "Makleiksfjorr," and both names may be misreadings of a man's name ending in "-leikr," from which the fjord was called (in the same way as Eiriks-fjorr, etc.); but as "utiblik" has such a p.r.o.nounced Eskimo sound, it appears to me more probable that "Makleik-" may have arisen through a misreading of this name, which was incomprehensible to Arngrim Jonsson and may have been indistinctly written, rather than that both names should be corruptions, of what? In that case it would afford strong evidence, not only that there were Eskimo in the Eastern Settlement when the Icelanders established themselves there, but also that they had intercourse with them.

The "Historia Norwegiae" (thirteenth century) shows that a hundred years later the Skraelings of Greenland were known in Norway, and perhaps it is because they there seemed stranger that the Norwegian author mentions them. He says [Storm, 1880, pp. 76, 205]:

"On the other side of the Greenlanders towards the north [i.e., on the northern west coast of Greenland] there have been found by hunters certain small people whom they call Skraelings; when these are struck while alive by weapons, their wounds turn white without blood, but when they are dead the blood scarcely stops running. But they have a complete lack of the metal iron; they use the tusks of marine animals ['dentibus cetimes,' here walrus and narwhale tusks] for missiles and sharp stones for knives."

The curiously correct mention of the Skraelings' weapons must be derived from a well-informed source, and the statement established the fact that the Nors.e.m.e.n met with the Eskimo of Greenland at any rate in the thirteenth century, while at the same time it may imply that at that time the Skraelings were not generally seen in the settlements of Greenland. The statement as to their wounds, although connected with myth, may further point to there having been conflicts between them and the Norse hunters, who in Viking fas.h.i.+on dealt with them with a heavy hand; but at the same time it discloses the view of the Skraelings as troll-like beings (see p.

17).

A valuable piece of evidence of the Nors.e.m.e.n having early had intercourse with the Skraelings in Greenland is a little carved walrus, of walrus-ivory, which was found during excavations on the site of a house in Bergen, and which appears to be of Eskimo workmans.h.i.+p.[61] Unfortunately the age of the find has not been determined, nor has it been recorded at what depth it lay; but as it was amongst the deepest finds "right down in the very foundations," and so far as can be made out from the description much deeper than "a burnt layer, which lay under the remains of the fire of 1413," this walrus may be of the twelfth, or at the latest of the thirteenth, century. It might, no doubt, have been accidentally found by Greenlanders in a grave or dwelling-site of Skraelings, and afterwards accidentally found on the site of this house in Bergen; but this is a.s.suming a good many accidents, and it is most natural to suppose that the Greenlanders obtained it from the Skraelings themselves, and that it is thus an evidence of intercourse with the latter at that time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Carved walrus of Eskimo work, of the twelfth century (?); found on the site of a house in Bergen (after Koren-Wiberg, 1908)]

[Sidenote: Silence about Skraelings in Icelandic literature]

[Sidenote: Allusions to Skraelings in Icelandic literature]

It is striking that the Skraelings are scarcely ever mentioned in the descriptions of the Nors.e.m.e.n in Greenland in the Icelandic saga literature, and that it is only in one or two places that Greenland Skraelings are mentioned in pa.s.sing in Icelandic narratives; but at the same time there are detailed descriptions of both peaceful and warlike encounters with the Skraelings in Wineland, and also in Markland (see vol.

i. pp. 327, ff.). This is like what we found in Are Frode. The explanation must be that, while the saga-teller could bring out the distant Skraelings of Wineland in large bodies and as dangerous opponents, quite worthy of mention even for n.o.bles, the harmless and timorous Skraelings of Greenland were too well known to be used as interesting material; they were met with in small, scattered bands, and could be maltreated without any particular danger. They belonged to the commonplace, and commonplace was what a saga-writer had to avoid above all; it is for the same reason that we scarcely hear anything about the Greenlanders' and other Nors.e.m.e.n's whaling and sealing and their expeditions for this purpose (e.g., to Nordrsetur); only here and there a few words are let fall about these things, which to us would be of so much greater value than all the tales of fighting and slaughter. But as regards the Skraelings of Greenland there was the additional circ.u.mstance that they were heathens; consequently intercourse with them was forbidden by the laws of the Church, and it was therefore best to say nothing about it. Besides, they were always regarded in Iceland as fairies or trolls, and, as we have said, their name was translated by "pygmaei," and it has been the same with them as with huldre-folk and goblins, who as a rule are not mentioned in the sagas either in Iceland or Norway, though of course they were believed in, and there can have been no lack of "authentic" stories about them. In several pa.s.sages of Icelandic literature the Skraelings are alluded to as trolls; to kill them was perhaps meritorious, but it was nothing to boast about.

In the Floamanna-saga it is related that Thorgils Orrabeinsfostre, on his wonderful voyage along the east coast of Greenland, one morning saw a large sea-monster stranded in a creek, and two troll-hags (in skin-kirtles) were tying up big bundles of it; he rushed up, and as one of them was lifting her bundle he cut off her hand so that her burden fell, and she ran away. They may be regarded as Eskimo. It is true that this saga is so full of marvels and inventions (cf. vol. i. p. 281) that we cannot attribute much historical value to it, but it shows nevertheless the way in which they were looked upon. In another pa.s.sage of this description Thorgils saw two "women," which must mean the same. It is stated that "they vanished in an instant" ("aer hurfu skjott"), just like the underground beings. In the description of the voyage of Bjorn Einarsson Jorsalafarer (given in Bjorn Jonsson's Annals of Greenland) it is related that when in 1385 the same Bjorn (together with three other vessels) on his way to Iceland was driven out of his course to Greenland, and had to stay there till 1387, he rescued on a skerry two "trolls," a young brother and sister, who stayed with him the whole time [Gronl. hist.

Mind., iii. p. 438]. These, then, were Skraelings in the Eastern Settlement; but the designation troll is here used as a matter of course, although nothing troll-like is related of them.

It may further be mentioned that in legendary tales and in many of the fanciful sagas we hear of trolls in Greenland, who may originally have been derived from the Skraelings, but who have acquired more of the troll- or giant-nature of fairy-tale. In the tale of the s.h.i.+pwreck of the Icelandic chief Bjorn Thorleifsson and his wife on the coast of Greenland,[62] the two were saved by a troll man and a hag who each took one of them in panniers on their shoulders and carried them to the homestead enclosure at Gardar. In the "attr af Jokli Buasyni"

Jokul is wrecked in the fjord "ollum Lengri" on the east coast of Greenland, which was peopled by trolls and giants, and where a friendly troll woman helps him to slay King Skramr, etc. [Gronl. hist.

Mind., iii. p. 521]. It will be seen that here there is nothing left of the Skraelings' nature, but the usual Norse ideas of trolls and giants predominate.

The most important records of Skraelings in Greenland in older times, in addition to the works named above and the islendingabok, are: the "Icelandic Annals," where they are mentioned in one year, 1379, besides the allusion to the voyage from Nordrsetur in 1267 (cf. vol.

i. p. 308), Ivar Bardsson's description of Greenland [Gronl. hist.

Mind., iii. p. 259], and finally Gisle Oddsson's Annals, where they are called "the people of America" [Gronl. hist. Mind., iii. p. 459; G. Storm, 1890a, p. 355].

As the Nors.e.m.e.n, at all events during early days in Greenland, were to a great extent dependent on keeping cattle, as they had been in Iceland, they must have stayed a good deal at their homesteads within the fjords; while the Eskimo, being engaged in fis.h.i.+ng and sealing, kept to the outer coast. And even if the latter, after the arrival of the Icelanders in the country, had lived scattered along the southern part of the coast, there may thus have been little contact between them and the Nors.e.m.e.n.

From the statements cited earlier (vol. i. pp. 308, f.) about the Nordrsetur expeditions we may conclude that the Greenlanders came across Skraelings in those northern districts. It is true that the expression "Skraelingja vistir" has usually been interpreted as Skraeling sites or abandoned dwelling-places; but in this account a distinction is made between "Skraelingja vistir" and "Skraelingja vistir fornligar." The latter are old dwelling-places that have been abandoned, while the former must be dwelling-places still in use. In the account of the voyage to the north, about 1267, we read that at the farthest north there were found some old Skraeling dwelling-places ("vistir fornligar"), while farther south, on some islands, were found some "Skraelingja vistir"--that is, inhabited ones. In agreement with this it is also stated of the men who came from the north in 1266 that

"they saw no 'Skraelingja vistir' except in [i.e., farther north than in] Kroksfjardarheidr, and therefore it is thought that they [the Skraelings] must by that way have the shortest distance to travel wherever they come from. From this one can hear [adds Bjorn Jonsson]

how carefully the Greenlanders took note of the Skraelings' places of abode at that time."

It is clear enough that this refers to dwelling-places in use and not to old sites, for this is absolutely proved by the expression that "they have the shortest distance to travel..."; and we thus see that the Skraelings were found in and in the neighbourhood of Kroksfjord,[63] but on the other hand not in the extreme north, where only old sites left by them were found;[64] and from this the conclusion was drawn that they could not come from the north, but by the route through Kroksfjord, wherever their original home may have been. As they cannot well have come from inland, nor from out at sea either, this statement may give one the impression of something semi-supernatural. It is significant that the Skraelings themselves are not spoken of here either; this may be due to the fact that there was nothing remarkable in meeting with them; what, on the other hand, was interesting was their distribution in the unknown regions farther north.

It was remarked in an earlier chapter (vol. i. p. 297) that the runic stone, found north of Upernivik, shows that Nors.e.m.e.n were there in the month of April, perhaps about 1300, and possibly it may also point to intercourse with the Eskimo. It was further mentioned (vol. i. p. 308) that the finding in 1266 "out at sea" of pieces of driftwood shaped with "small axes" (stone axes ?) and adzes (i.e., the Eskimo form of axe), and with wedges of bone imbedded in them, shows that there were Eskimo on the east coast of Greenland at that time. It is true that nothing is said as to what part of the sea the driftwood was found in; but from the context it must have been between the west coast of Greenland and Iceland; so that in any case it was within the region of the East Greenland current, and it cannot very well be supposed that these pieces of driftwood came from anywhere but the east coast of Greenland, unless indeed they should have come all the way from Bering Strait or Alaska. The way in which they are spoken of shows that they were regarded as something out of the common, which was not due to Nors.e.m.e.n.

[Sidenote: Allusions to Eskimo in European literature]

The brevity of Icelandic literature in all that concerns the Skraelings is again striking when we compare it with the information about the Eskimo that appears in the maps and literature of Europe in the fifteenth century. Claudius Clavus in his description of the North (before the middle of the fifteenth century) speaks of Pygmies ("Pigmei") in the country to the north-east of Greenland; they were one cubit high, and had boats of hide, both short and long (i.e., kayaks and women's boats), some of which were hanging in the cathedral at Trondhjem (see further on this subject under the mention of Claudius Clavus). He further speaks of "the infidel Karelians," who "constantly descend upon Greenland in great armies."[65] The name may be derived, as shown by Bjornbo and Petersen, from the Karelians to the north-east of Norway on older maps and have been transferred to the west, and it may then perhaps also have been confused with the name of Skraeling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Eskimo playing ball with a stuffed seal. Woodcut from Greenland ill.u.s.trating a fairy-tale, drawn and engraved by a native]

Michel Beheim, who travelled in Norway in 1450, gives in his poem about the journey [Vangensten, 1908, p. 18] a mythical description of the Skraelings ("schrelinge"), who are only three "spans" high, but are nevertheless dangerous opponents both on sea and land. They live in caves which they dig out in the mountains, make s.h.i.+ps of hides, eat raw meat and raw fish, and drink blood with it. This points to his having found in Norway ideas about the Skraelings as supernatural beings of a similar kind to those already mentioned.

In a letter to Pope Nicholas V. (1447-1455) it is related [cf. G.

Storm, 1899]: "And when one travels west [from Norway] towards the mountains of this country [Greenland], there dwell there Pygmies in the shape of little men, only a cubit high. When they see human beings they collect and hide themselves in the caves of the country like a swarm of ants. One cannot conquer them; for they do not wait until they are attacked. They live on raw meat and boiled fish." This resembles what is said about the Pygmies in Clavus, but as additional information is given here, it is probable that both Clavus and the author of this letter, and perhaps also Beheim, have derived their statements from older sources, perhaps of the fourteenth century, which either were Norwegian or had obtained information from Norway.

The description of the Pygmies and how they fly on the approach of strangers points to knowledge of the Eskimo and their habits. The idea about caves is, perhaps, more likely to be connected with pixies and fairies, who lived in mounds and caves (cf. pp. 15, 76); but reports of the half-underground Eskimo houses may also have had something to do with it. It is possible that the common source may be the lost work of the English author Nicholas of Lynn, who travelled in Norway in the fourteenth century (cf. chapter xii. on Martin Behaim's globe).

Archbishop Erik Walkendorf (in his description of Finmark of about 1520) has a similar allusion to the Eskimo, which may well have the same origin. He transfers them to the north-north-west of Finmark, like the Pygmies on Claudius Clavus' map. He says: "Finmark has on its north-north-west a people of short and small stature, namely a cubit and a half, who are commonly called 'Skraelinger'; they are an unwarlike people, for fifteen of them do not dare to approach one Christian or Russian either for combat or parley. They live in underground houses, so that one can neither examine them nor capture them. They wors.h.i.+p G.o.ds" [Walkendorf, 1902, p. 12].[66]

We thus see that while Icelandic literature, subsequent to Are Frode, affords scarcely any information about the Greenland Skraelings themselves, it is a Norwegian author, as early as the thirteenth century, who makes the first statements about them and their culture; and a Danish author of the fifteenth century, whose statements may originally have been derived from Norway (like those in the letter to the Pope and in Walkendorf), mentions no other inhabitants of Greenland but the Eskimo (Pygmies and Karelians);[67] but they are still referred to as semi-mythical and troll-like beings.

The explanation must doubtless be sought in a fundamental difference in the point of view. To the Icelandic authors, brought up as they were in saga-writing (and for the most part priests), the life and struggles of their ancestors in Greenland were the only important thing, while ethnographical interest in the primitive people of the country, the heathen, troll-like Skraelings, was foreign to them. To this must be added the reasons already pointed out (p. 81). In Norway, on the other hand, kins.h.i.+p with the Icelandic Nors.e.m.e.n in Greenland was more distant, and interest in the strange, outlandish Skraelings was correspondingly greater.

Here also different intellectual a.s.sociations, and intercourse with a variety of nationalities, caused on the whole a greater awakening of the ethnographical sense.

[Sidenote: Silence of the "King's Mirror" about the Skraelings]

A remarkable exception is the "King's Mirror" (circa 1250), which makes no mention of the Skraelings, although a good deal of s.p.a.ce is devoted to Greenland and the Greenlanders. But this, as it happens, throws light upon the curious silence on the Skraelings in Icelandic literature. From the "Historia Norwegiae," which seems to have been written approximately at the same time as or soon after the "King's Mirror" (perhaps between 1260 and 1264), it appears, as we have said, that the Greenland Skraelings were known in Norway at that time; and in that case it is incredible that the well-informed author of the "King's Mirror," who shows such intimate knowledge of conditions in Greenland, should not have heard of them. If he, nevertheless, does not allude to them, it appears that this must be for a similar reason to that which caused them to be so little mentioned in Icelandic literature. That the Skraelings should have been spoken of in a missing portion of the "King's Mirror," which perhaps was never finished by the author, is improbable, as the account of Greenland and its natural conditions seems to be concluded.[68]

Concerning the "King's Mirror" as a whole one ought to be cautious in drawing conclusions from its silence on various subjects; from its mentioning whales in the Iceland sea and seals in Greenland but not in Norway one might conclude that neither whale nor seal occurred in Norway; and the same is the case with the aurora borealis, which is only mentioned in Greenland.

[Sidenote: Summary of the allusions to Skraelings in Greenland]

If we attempt to sum up what we may conclude from the historical sources as to the Eskimo or Skraelings of Greenland during the first centuries of the Norse settlement there, something like the following is the result: When Eric the Red arrived in Greenland he found everywhere along the west coast traces left by the Skraelings, but whether and to what extent he met with the people themselves we do not hear. The probability is that the primitive people retired from those parts of the coast, the Eastern and Western Settlements, where the warlike and violent Nors.e.m.e.n established themselves; while they continued to live in the "wastes" to the north. The Historia Norwegiae (besides the accounts of the voyages to the north from Nordrsetur in 1266 and 1267) shows that the Nors.e.m.e.n met with them there, but at the same time speaks of immediate fighting. The mythical tale of Thorgils Orrabeinsfostre (p. 81) also points in the latter direction, as does the myth in Eric the Red's Saga of the Greenlanders in Markland stealing Skraeling children. We have further the stories in Claudius Clavus and Olaus Magnus of hide-boats and Eskimo (Pygmies) that were captured at sea. This points to the Nors.e.m.e.n of that early time having looked upon the Skraelings as legitimate spoil, wherever they met them. Doubtless upon occasion the latter may have offered resistance or taken revenge, as may be shown by the statement in the Icelandic Annals of the "harrying" in 1379; but as a rule they certainly fled, as is their usual habit. I have myself seen on the east coast of Greenland how the Eskimo take to their heels and leave their dwellings on the unexpected appearance of strangers, and this has been the common experience of other travellers in former and recent times. It is not likely that the ancient Nors.e.m.e.n, when they came upon a dwelling-place thus suddenly abandoned, had any hesitation about appropriating whatever might be useful to them; unless indeed a superst.i.tious fear of these heathen "trolls" restrained them from doing so. It is therefore natural that the Skraelings avoided that part of Greenland where the Nors.e.m.e.n lived in large numbers. But where they came in contact we may suppose that friendly relations sometimes arose between Eskimo and European at that time, as has been the case since; nor can the Nors.e.m.e.n of those days have been so inhuman as to make this impossible; and gradually as time went by the relations between them probably became altogether changed, as will be discussed in the next chapter, particularly when imports from outside ceased and the Nors.e.m.e.n were reduced to living wholly on the products of the country; they then had much to learn from the Eskimo culture, which in these surroundings was superior.

In course of time the Eskimo of North Greenland grew in numbers, partly by natural increase--which may have been constant there, where their catches were a.s.sured for the greater part of the year, and they were free from famine and ravaging diseases--and partly perhaps through a fresh gradual immigration from the north. They therefore slowly spread farther to the south, and gradually the whole of the southern west coast received a denser Eskimo population, probably after the Nors.e.m.e.n of the Western and Eastern Settlements had declined in prosperity and numbers, so that they no longer appeared so formidable, and at the same time they undoubtedly behaved in a more peaceful and friendly fas.h.i.+on, in proportion as their communication with Europe fell off, and their imaginary superiority to the Skraelings proved to be more and more illusory.

[Sidenote: The Skraelings of Wineland]

We have still to speak of the Skraelings whom the Greenlanders, according to the sagas, are said to have met with in Wineland. G. Storm [1887]

maintained that they must have been Indians, which of course seems natural if we suppose, with him, that the Greenlanders reached southern Nova Scotia; but in recent years several authors have endeavoured to show that they were nevertheless Eskimo.[69] From what has been made out above as to the romantic character of these sagas it may seem a waste of time to discuss a question like this, since we have nothing certain to go by; especially when, as already mentioned, the name of Skraeling may originally have been used of the pixies who were thought to dwell in the Irish fairyland, the land of the "sid," which was called Wineland. But even if this origin of the name be correct, it does not prevent later encounters with the natives of America (besides those of Greenland) having contributed to make the Skraelings of Wineland more realistic, and given them features belonging to actual experience.

The description of them in these "romance-sagas" may thus be considered of value, in so far as it may represent the common impression of the natives of the western countries, with whom the Greenlanders may have had more intercourse than appears from these tales; but even so we cannot in any case draw any conclusions from it with regard to the distribution of Indians or Eskimo on the east coast of America at that period. If it could really be established, as it cannot, that the Wineland Skraelings of the saga were Eskimo, then this alone would lead to the conclusion that the Greenlanders on their voyages had not been so far south as Nova Scotia, but at the farthest had probably reached the north of Newfoundland. If the authors mentioned have thought themselves justified in concluding that the Greenlanders found Eskimo in Nova Scotia, because the natives of Wineland are called Skraelings and are consequently a.s.sumed to be the same people with the some culture as those in Greenland, they cannot have been fully alive to the difficulty involved in its being impossible for the Skraelings of Nova Scotia, with its entirely different natural conditions, to have had the same arctic whaling and sealing culture as the Skraelings of Greenland, even if they belonged to the same race. For we should then have to believe that they had reached Nova Scotia from the north with their culture, which was adapted for arctic conditions. They would have to have dislodged the tribes of Indians who inhabited these southern regions before their arrival, although they possessed a culture which under the local conditions was inferior, and were doubtless also inferior in warlike qualities. In addition, these Eskimo with their Eskimo culture in Nova Scotia must have completely disappeared again before the country was rediscovered 500 years later, when it was solely inhabited by Indian tribes. We are asked to accept these various improbabilities chiefly because the word "Skraeling"--which, it most be remembered, was not originally an ethnographical name, but meant dwarf or pixy--is used of the people both in Wineland and Greenland, because the word "keiplabrot" is used by Are Frode (see vol. i. p. 260), and because in two pa.s.sages of Eric the Red's Saga, written down about 300 years after the "events," the word "hukeipr" is used of the Skraelings'

boats in Wineland, while in four pa.s.sages they are called "skip"

(i.e., vessel), and in another merely "keipana." It appears to me that this is attributing to the ancient Icelanders an ethnographical interest which Icelandic literature proves to have been just what they lacked (see above, pp. 80, ff.). In any case there is no justification for regarding these tardily recorded traditions as ethnographical essays, every word of which has a scientific meaning; and for that they contain far too many obviously mythical features. It is not apparent that any of the authors mentioned has decided of what kind of hide the Skraelings in southern Nova Scotia, or even farther south ("where no snow fell"), should have made their hide-boats.

Opportunities of supporting themselves by sealing cannot have existed on these Southern coasts. The species of seal which form the Eskimo's indispensable condition of life farther north are no longer found. The only species of seal which occurs frequently on the coast of Nova Scotia is, as Professor Robert Collett informs me, the grey seal (Halichrus grypus), which is also found on the coast of Norway and is caught, amongst other places, on the Fro Islands. But this seal cannot have been present in sufficiently large numbers in southern Nova Scotia or farther south to fulfil the requirements of the ordinary Eskimo sealing culture. They must therefore have adopted hunting on land as their chief means of subsistence, like the Indians; but what then becomes of the similarity in culture between the Skraelings of Greenland and Wineland, which is just what should distinguish them from the Indians? The very foundation of the theory thus disappears.

Professor Y. Nielsen [1905, pp. 32, f.] maintains that the Skraelings of Nova Scotia need only have had "transport boats" or "women's boats"

of hides, and that "what is there related of them does not even contain a hint that they might have used kayaks." This makes the theory even more improbable. If these Skraelings were without kayaks, which are and must be the very first condition of Eskimo sealing culture on an open sea-coast, then they cannot have had seal-skins for women's boats or clothes or tents either. They must then have covered these boats with the hides of land animals; but what? True, it is known that certain Indian tribes used to cover their canoes with double buffalo hides, a fact which the authors mentioned cannot have remarked, since they regard hide-boats as decisive evidence of Eskimo culture; moreover, the Irish still cover their coracles with ox-hides; but neither buffaloes nor oxen were to be found in Nova Scotia; are we, then, to suppose that the natives used deer-skin? The whole line of argument than leads us from one improbability to another, as we might expect, seeing it is built up on so flimsy a foundation.

The Greenlanders may well have called the Indians' birch-bark canoes "keipr" or "keipull" (a little boat); but it is still more probable that as the details of the tradition became gradually obliterated in course of time, the designation of the Skraeling boat came to be that which was used for the only boats known in later times to be peculiar to the Skraelings, namely, the hide-boats of Greenland. In addition to this, hide-boats were also known from Ireland, while the making of boats of birch-bark was altogether strange to the Icelanders. Besides, if we are to attach so much importance to a single word, "hukeipr,"

which plays no part in the narrative, what are we to do with the Skraelings' catapults ("valslongur") and their black b.a.l.l.s which made such a hideous noise that they put to flight Karlsevne and his men?--these are really important features of the description, to say nothing of the glamour. If these, like many other incidents of the saga, are taken from altogether different quarters of the world, it is scarcely unreasonable to suppose that a word like "hukeipr" is borrowed from Greenland and from Irish legend.

The names which according to the saga were communicated by the two Skraeling children captured in Markland, and which are supposed to have lived in oral tradition for over 250 years, have no greater claim to serious consideration. Everything else that these children are said to have related is demonstrably incorrect; the tale of Hvitramanna-land is a myth from Ireland (cf. pp. 42, ff.); the statement attributed to them that in their country people lived in caves is improbable and obviously derived from elsewhere (cf. p. 19);[70] is it, then, likely that the names attributed to them should be any more genuine? W.

Thalbitzer [1905, pp. 190, ff.] explains these names as misunderstood Eskimo sentences, and supposes them to mean: _Vaetilldi_, "but do wait a moment"; _Vaegi_, "wait a moment"; _Avalldamon_, "towards the uttermost"; _Avaldidida_, "the uttermost, do you mean?" As we are told that the two Skraeling boys learned Icelandic, Thalbitzer must suppose the men to have misinterpreted these sentences as names during the homeward voyage from Markland to Greenland, and then he must make the Skraelings die shortly afterwards, before the misunderstanding could be explained. After that these meaningless names must have lived in practically unaltered form in oral tradition for several hundred years, until they were put into writing at the close of the thirteenth century. It appears to me that such explanations of the words as are attempted on p. 20 have a greater show of probability. In addition, as pointed out in the same place, the "bearded" Skraeling and their "sinking into the earth" are mythical features which are a.s.sociated with these Skraelings.

While the points that have been mentioned are incapable of proving anything about Eskimo, there are other features in the saga's description of the Skraelings of Wineland which would rather lead us to think of the Indians: that they should attack so suddenly in large numbers without any cause being mentioned seems altogether unlike the Eskimo, but would apply better to warlike Indians. We are told that the Skraelings attacked with loud cries; this is usual in Indian warfare, but seems less like the Eskimo. During the fight with the Skraelings Thorbrand Snorrason was found dead with a "h.e.l.l.u.s.tein" in his head. Whether this means a flat stone or a stone axe (as Storm has translated it [1887, 1899]), it is in any case not a typical Eskimo weapon; while a stone axe used as a missile might be Indian. But, as stated above, there is too much romance and myth about the whole tale of the Wineland voyages to allow of any certain value being attached to such details. I have already (p. 23) maintained that the description of hostilities with the natives, in which the Greenlanders were worsted, cannot be derived from Greenland, but may be due to something actually experienced. In that case this, too, points rather to the Indians.[71]