ESKIMO AND SKRÆLING
[Sidenote: Distribution]
Of all the races of the earth that of the Eskimo is the one that has
established itself farthest north. His world is that of sea-ice and cold,
for which nature had not intended human beings. In his slow, stubborn
fight against the powers of winter he has learnt better than any other how
to turn these to account, and in these regions, along the ice-bound
shores, he developed his peculiar culture, with its ingenious appliances,
long before the beginning of history. As men of the white race pushed
northward to the "highest latitudes" they found traces of this remarkable
people, who had already been there in times long past; and it is only in
the last few decades that any one has succeeded in penetrating farther
north than the Eskimo, partly by learning from him or enlisting his help.
In these regions, which are his own, his culture was superior to that of
the white race, and from no other people has the arctic navigator learnt
so much.
[Illustration: Distribution of the Eskimo (after W. Thalbitzer, 1904)]
The north coast of America and the islands to the north of it, from Bering
Strait to the east coast of Greenland, is the territory of the Eskimo.
The map (below) shows his present distribution and the districts where
older traces of him have been found. Within these limits the Eskimo must
have developed into what they now are. In their anthropological
race-characteristics, in their sealing- and whaling-culture, and in their
language they are very different from all other known peoples, both in
America and Asia, and we must suppose that for long ages, ever since they
began to fit themselves for their life along the frozen shores, they have
lived apart, separated from others, perhaps for a long time as a small
tribe. They all belong to the same race; the cerebral formation, for
instance, of all real Eskimo from Alaska to Greenland is remarkably
homogeneous; but in the far west they may have been mixed with Indians and
others, and in Greenland they are now mixed with Europeans. They are
pronouncedly dolichocephalic; but have short, broad faces, and by their
features and appearance are easily distinguished from other neighbouring
peoples. Small, slanting eyes; the nose small and flat, narrow between the
eyes and broad below; cheeks broad, prominent and round; the forehead
narrowing comparatively above; the lower part of the face broad and
powerful; black, straight hair. The colour of the skin is a pale brown.
The Eskimo are not, as is often supposed, a small people on an average;
they are rather of middle height, often powerful, and sometimes quite
tall, although they are a good deal shorter, and weaker in appearance,
than average Scandinavians. In appearance, and perhaps also in language,
they come nearest to some of the North American Indian tribes.
[Sidenote: Original home]
From whence they originally came, and where they developed into Eskimo, is
uncertain. The central point of the Eskimo culture is their seal-hunting,
especially with the harpoon, sometimes from the kayak in open water and
sometimes from the ice. We cannot believe that this sealing, especially
with the kayak, was first developed in the central part of the regions
they now inhabit; there the conditions of life would have been too severe,
and they would not have been able to support themselves until their
sealing-culture had attained a certain development. Just as in Europe we
met with the "Finnish" sea-fishing on a coast that was connected with
milder coasts farther south, where seamanship was able first to develop,
so we must expect that the Eskimo culture began on coasts with similar
conditions, and these must be looked for either in Labrador or on Bering
Strait.
As the coasts of Labrador and Hudson Bay are ice-bound for a great part of
the year, it is not likely that traffic by sea began there at any very
early time; and consequently no particularly favourable conditions existed
there for an early development of seamanship. Nor is this the case to any
great extent on the east coast of North America farther south, which, with
the exception of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, has little protection from the
sea, and offers few facilities for coastal traffic.[53] Nor has it
produced any other maritime people or any similar fishing-culture. Again,
if the Eskimo culture had arisen there, it would be impossible to
understand how they learned to use dogs as draught-animals. It is
otherwise on the northern west coast of North America, which is indented
by fjords and has many outlying islands, with protected channels between
them and the land. Here seamanship might be naturally developed and form
the necessary basis for a higher sealing-culture like that of the Eskimo.
In addition there is abundance of marine animals which afforded excellent
conditions for hunting. Here too we have many different peoples with
maritime habits: on the one side the Eskimo northwards along the coast of
Alaska; on the other side the Aleutians on the islands extending out to
sea, besides Indian tribes along the coast of southern Alaska and British
Columbia. Until, therefore, research has produced sufficient evidence for
a different view, it must seem most natural that in these favourable
regions with a rich supply of marine animals of all kinds we must look for
the cradle of the culture that was to render the Eskimo capable of
distributing themselves over the whole Arctic world of America. To this
must be added that in these regions, by intercourse with people on the
Asiatic side of Bering Strait, the seafaring Eskimo may have learnt the
use of the dog as a draught-animal, which is an Asiatic, and not an
American invention, and which is also of great importance to the whole
life and distribution of the Eskimo in the ice-bound regions. We cannot
here pursue further the inquiry into the still open question of the origin
of the Eskimo and the development of their culture.[54]
[Illustration: Kayak-fishers and a women's boat ("umiak"). Woodcut from
Greenland, drawn and engraved by a native]
[Sidenote: Earlier distribution]
One might get the impression from the map, which shows where older traces
of the Eskimo have been found, that they were more numerous and more
widely distributed in former times. This is probably a mistake. They are
hunters and fishermen who are entirely dependent on the supply of game,
and who therefore frequently become nomadic and search for fishing-grounds
where they think the prospects are good. Sometimes they settle in a good
district for a considerable time, and then they may move again; but
sometimes, if exceptionally severe winters chance to come, they may
succumb to famine or scurvy. But everywhere they leave behind them their
peculiar sites of houses and tents and other traces, and thus these must
always be found over larger areas than are actually inhabited by the
Eskimo themselves. It might be objected that on the American Arctic
Islands they no longer live so far north as older traces of them are
found; thus Sverdrup found many relics of Eskimo in the new countries
discovered by him, especially along the sound by Axel Heiberg Land. But
these people may, for instance, have migrated eastward to Greenland. If we
suppose the reverse to be the case, that the most northerly Eskimo tribe
now known, on Smith Sound, had moved westward to Sverdrup's new islands or
to the Parry Islands, then we should have found numerous traces of them in
the districts about Smith Sound and Cape York, and might thus have
concluded that the Eskimo were formerly more widely distributed towards
the north-east.
[Sidenote: Period of immigration into Greenland]
How early the Eskimo appeared, and came to the most northern regions, we
have as yet no means of determining. All we can say is that, as they are
so distinct in physical structure, language and culture from all other
known races of men, with the exception of the Aleutians, we must assume
that they have lived for a very long period in the northern regions apart
from other peoples. It would be of special interest here if we could form
any opinion as to the date of their immigration into Greenland. It has
become almost a historical dogma that this immigration on a larger scale
did not take place until long after the Norwegian Icelanders had settled
in the country, and that it was chiefly the hordes of Eskimo coming from
the north that put an end, first to the Western Settlement, and then to
the Eastern. But this is in every respect misleading, and conflicts with
what may be concluded with certainty from several facts; moreover, the
whole Eskimo way of life and dependence on sealing and fishing forbids
their migration in hordes; they must travel in small scattered groups in
order to find enough game to support themselves and their families, and
are obliged to make frequent halts for sealing. They will therefore never
be able to undertake any migration on a large scale.
There can be no doubt that the Eskimo arrived in Greenland ages before the
Norwegian Icelanders. The rich finds referred to, amongst others, by Dr.
H. Rink [1857, vol. ii.], of Eskimo whaling and sealing weapons and
implements of stone from deep deposits in North Greenland show that the
Eskimo were living there far back in prehistoric times.[55] They must
originally have come by the route to the north of Baffin Bay across Smith
Sound, and must have had at the time of their first immigration much the
same culture in the main as now, since otherwise they would not have been
able to support themselves in these northern regions.[56] Their means of
transport were the kayak and the women's boat in open water, and the
dog-sledge on the ice. Their whaling and sealing were conducted in kayaks
in summer, but with dog-sledges in winter, when they hunted the seal at
its breathing-holes in the ice, the walrus, narwhale and white whale in
the open leads, and pursued the bear with their dogs. In winter they
usually keep to one place, living in houses of stone, or snow, but in
summer they wander about with their boats and tents of hides to the best
places for kayak fishing. In this way they came southward from Smith Sound
along the west coast of Greenland to the districts about Umanak-fjord,
Disco Bay, and south to the present Holstensborg (the tract between 72°
and 68° N. lat.). Here they found an excellent supply of seal, walrus,
small-whale and fish, there was catching from kayaks in summer and on the
ice in winter; altogether rarely favourable conditions for their
accustomed life, and it is therefore natural that they settled here in
large numbers.[57] Some went farther south along the coast; but they no
longer found there the same conditions of life as before, the ice was for
the most part absent, the walrus became rare, seal-hunting became more
difficult in the open sea, and winter fishing from the kayak was not very
safe. Southern Greenland therefore had no great attraction, so long as
there was room enough farther north. When they came round Cape Farewell to
the east coast they found the conditions more what they were used to,
although the sealing and whaling were not so good as on the northern west
coast.
[Sidenote: Routes of immigration]
It has been assumed by several inquirers that the Eskimo immigrated to
Greenland by two routes. One branch is supposed to have come southward
along the west coast from Smith Sound, as suggested above, while the
other branch went northward from Smith Sound and Kane Basin along the
coast, where relics of Eskimo are found as far north as 82° N. lat.
They thus gradually worked their way round the north of Greenland and
turned southward again along the east coast. The Eskimo who formerly
lived on the northern east coast, and whom Clavering found there in
1823, are supposed to have come by that route and possibly also the
tribe that still lives at Angmagsalik. But in the opinion of some they
may have travelled farther south, right round Cape Farewell, and have
populated the south-west coast as far north as Ny-Herrnhut by
Godthaab. The Dane Schultz-Lorentzen [1904, p. 289][58] thinks that
support may be found for this theory of the southern immigration from
the east coast in the sharp line of demarcation that exists between
the dialect spoken by the Eskimo in Godthaab and northward along the
whole west coast, and that spoken to the south and on the east coast;
furthermore, there are other points of difference: in the build and
fitting together of the kayaks, in the use of partitions between the
family compartments on the couches in houses and tents, etc. Although
in an earlier work [1891, pp. 8, f.; Engl. ed. pp. 12, ff.] I put
forward reasons that are opposed to such an immigration round the
north of Greenland, I must admit that there is much in favour of the
Eskimo who formerly lived on the northern east coast having come that
way; on the other hand, it does not appear to me very likely that this
should have been the case with the Eskimo of the southern east coast
and of the west coast. The difference alluded to, at Godthaab, may be
accounted for by a later immigration from the north to the northern
west coast, which did not come any farther south than this. That the
boundary-line between the two kinds of Eskimo should be so sharp just
between Ny-Herrnhut and Godthaab, which lie close together on the same
peninsula, is easily explained by the fact of the former settlement
having always belonged to the recently abandoned German Moravian
mission, while the latter was the seat of Egede's and the later Danish
mission. There is always the essential objection to be made against
the Eskimo having migrated to the southern east coast round the north
of Greenland, that the conditions of life for Eskimo, who live
principally by sealing and whaling, were poor on the north coast of
Greenland, where there are no seals worth mentioning and few bears;
and they can scarcely have got enough musk-oxen to support themselves.
Their diffusion to the east coast could not have gone on rapidly. In
the ice-bound regions they may have forgotten the use of the kayak, as
the Eskimo of Smith Sound had done until thirty years ago, when they
became acquainted with it again through a chance immigration from the
west. In any case their practice in building and using kayaks must
have greatly fallen off. But when the Eskimo came southward on the
east coast they again had use for both the kayak for sealing and the
women's boat for travelling, and it is scarcely likely that the craft
they produced after such a break in the development should be so near
to the women's boats and handsome kayaks of the northern west coast as
we now find them; unless, indeed, we are to suppose that they improved
them again through contact with the Eskimo of the northern west coast,
but in that case the whole theory appears somewhat strained.
[Sidenote: Meeting of Eskimo and Europeans]
We will now look at what the known historical authorities have to tell us
about the Eskimo in Greenland during the early days of the Norse
settlement. I have already stated (pp. 12, ff.) that the Norse name
"Skræling" for Eskimo must originally have been used as a designation of
fairies or mythical creatures. Furthermore, there is much that would imply
that when the Icelanders first met with the Eskimo in Greenland they
looked upon them as fairies; they therefore called them "trolls," an
ancient common name for various sorts of supernatural beings. This view
persisted more or less in after times. Every European who has suddenly
encountered Eskimo in the ice-covered wastes of Greenland, without ever
having seen them before, will easily understand that they must have made
such an impression on people who had the slightest tendency to
superstition. The mighty natural surroundings, with huge glaciers,
floating icebergs and drifting ice-floes, all on a vaster scale than
anything they had seen before, might in themselves furnish additional food
for superstition. Such an idea must from the very beginning have
influenced the relations between the Norsemen and the natives, and is
capable of explaining much that is curious in the mention of them, or
rather the lack of mention of them, in the sagas, since they were
supernatural beings of whom it was best to say nothing.
[Sidenote: The fairy nature of the Skrælings]
In connection with what has been said earlier (pp. 12, ff.) as to the
Skrælings being regarded as fairies (of whom the name was originally
used), it may be adduced that, as Storm pointed out, the word was always
translated in Latin by "Pygmæi" in the Middle Ages (cf. above, p. 12). But
the Pygmies were precisely "short, undergrown people of supernatural
aspect"--that is, like fairies--and the Middle Ages inherited the belief
in them from the Greeks and Romans, and, as Moltke Moe has pointed out,
the northern Pygmies (Βόρειοι Πυγμαῖοι) were already spoken of in
classical times as inhabiting the regions about Thule. But authors like
Apollodorus and Strabo denied their existence, and consigned them,
together with Dog-headed, One-eyed, One-footed, Mouthless, and other
similar beings, to the ranks of fabulous creatures in which classical
tradition was so rich. Through St. Augustine the enumeration of these
creatures reached Isidore; and from him the knowledge of the Pygmies was
disseminated over the whole of mediæval Europe--partly in the same sense,
that of a more or less fabulous people from the uttermost parts of the
earth; and partly in the sense of a fairy people [cf. the demons in the
form of Pygmies in the "Imram Brenaind," see above, p. 10]. Supported by
popular belief in various countries, the latter meaning soon became
general. Of this Moltke Moe gives a remarkable example from the Welshman
Walter Mapes (latter half of the twelfth century), who in his curious
collection of anecdotes, etc. (called "De nugis curialium"), has a tale
of a prehistoric king of the Britons called Herla.[59]
To him came a fairy- or elf-king, "rex pygmæorum," with a huge head,
thick hair and big eyes; the pygmy-king foretells to King Herla
something that is to happen, and when this is fulfilled King Herla
promises as a mark of gratitude to be present at his wedding. The
moment the pygmy-king turns his back he vanishes. Herla comes to the
wedding of the fairy-king. Entering a vast cave he comes through
darkness to the banqueting-hall inside the mountain, lighted by a
multitude of lamps, where he is splendidly entertained. When he
returns, believing he has been away for three days, he discovers that
he has been absent for several hundred years.
This is a typical elf-myth, with many of the features characteristic of
elves and fairies: the low stature, the big, hairy head with large eyes,
the gift of prophecy, and the power of making themselves invisible in an
instant, their dwelling in caves and mountains far from the light of day,
the way thither through darkness and mist, the rapid disappearance of time
in the fairy world, etc. But we recognise most of these, and even more
fairy features, precisely in the Icelandic descriptions of the Skrælings
in Wineland, Markland and Greenland, as appears from what is said about
them on pp. 12, ff.; and when, for instance, ugly hair ("ilt hár") and big
eyes are expressly attributed to the Skrælings, this applies neither to
Indians nor Eskimo, but it applies exactly to fairies. Further, we may
point to the Skrælings of Markland being governed by kings (cf. p. 20),
which again does not apply either to Indians or to Eskimo, while the elves
and huldre-folk have kings. It was mentioned earlier (p. 20) that the name
"Vætilldi" or "Vethilldi" may be Vætthildr, compounded of the word "vættr"
or "vettr" (fairy).
Everything points in the same direction, that the Skrælings 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 Skrælings]
From the statement quoted earlier from Are Frode's Íslendingabók (circa
1130) it appears that the Skrælings, 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 Skrælings ('Vinland hefer bygt oc Grönlendingar
calla Scrælinga')." These words of Are have generally been understood to
imply that he did not know of any meeting of Norsemen and Skrælings in
Greenland, but only in Wineland, and that consequently it must have been
after his time that the Norsemen 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 Skrælings" 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
Skrælings 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 Skrælings, 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 passages
immediately preceding, according to which the Christians left _after_ the
heathen Norsemen arrived. Three kinds of traces are mentioned in each
case: the Papar left Irish books, bells and croziers; the Skrælings 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 Íslendingabók
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 Skrælings." Nothing is said about the waste districts of
Greenland, where the Skrælings especially lived, and it is only in passing
that Wineland is mentioned in this one passage. Are's Íslendingabók cannot
therefore be used as evidence that the Norsemen had not yet met with the
Skrælings of Greenland in Are's time. As he expressly says that they found
"manna vistir bæþe austr oc vestr á 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 Björn
Jónsson's "Vetus chorographia," of an "Ütibliks fjord" [Grönl. hist.
Mind., iii. p. 228; F. Jónsson, 1899, p. 319], which does not sound
Norwegian and may recall the Eskimo "Itiblik," a tongue of land. As
Finnur Jónsson [1899, p. 276] points out, the name of the fjord in
Arngrim Jónsson's copy of the same list is "Makleiksfjörðr," 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-fjörðr, etc.);
but as "Ütiblik" has such a pronounced Eskimo sound, it appears to me
more probable that "Makleik-" may have arisen through a misreading of
this name, which was incomprehensible to Arngrim Jónsson 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 Norwegiæ" (thirteenth century) shows that a hundred years
later the Skrælings 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 Skrælings; 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 Skrælings' weapons must be derived
from a well-informed source, and the statement established the fact that
the Norsemen 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 Skrælings 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 fashion dealt with them with a heavy hand; but at the same
time it discloses the view of the Skrælings as troll-like beings (see p.
17).
A valuable piece of evidence of the Norsemen having early had intercourse
with the Skrælings 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 workmanship.[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 Skrælings, and afterwards
accidentally found on the site of this house in Bergen; but this is
assuming a good many accidents, and it is most natural to suppose that the
Greenlanders obtained it from the Skrælings themselves, and that it is
thus an evidence of intercourse with the latter at that time.
[Illustration: 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 Skrælings in Icelandic literature]
[Sidenote: Allusions to Skrælings in Icelandic literature]
It is striking that the Skrælings are scarcely ever mentioned in the
descriptions of the Norsemen in Greenland in the Icelandic saga
literature, and that it is only in one or two places that Greenland
Skrælings are mentioned in passing in Icelandic narratives; but at the
same time there are detailed descriptions of both peaceful and warlike
encounters with the Skrælings 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 Skrælings
of Wineland in large bodies and as dangerous opponents, quite worthy of
mention even for nobles, the harmless and timorous Skrælings 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 Norsemen'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 Skrælings of Greenland there
was the additional circumstance 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 "pygmæi," 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
passages of Icelandic literature the Skrælings 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 passage of this
description Thorgils saw two "women," which must mean the same. It is
stated that "they vanished in an instant" ("þær hurfu skjótt"), just like
the underground beings. In the description of the voyage of Björn
Einarsson Jorsalafarer (given in Björn Jónsson's Annals of Greenland) it
is related that when in 1385 the same Björn (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 [Grönl. hist.
Mind., iii. p. 438]. These, then, were Skrælings 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 Skrælings, but who have acquired more of the
troll- or giant-nature of fairy-tale. In the tale of the shipwreck of
the Icelandic chief Björn 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 "Þáttr af Jökli Búasyni"
Jökul is wrecked in the fjord "Öllum 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 Skrámr, etc. [Grönl. hist.
Mind., iii. p. 521]. It will be seen that here there is nothing left
of the Skrælings' nature, but the usual Norse ideas of trolls and
giants predominate.
The most important records of Skrælings in Greenland in older times,
in addition to the works named above and the Íslendingabók, 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 Bárdsson's description of Greenland [Grönl. hist.
Mind., iii. p. 259], and finally Gisle Oddsson's Annals, where they
are called "the people of America" [Grönl. hist. Mind., iii. p. 459;
G. Storm, 1890a, p. 355].
As the Norsemen, 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 fishing 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 Norsemen.
From the statements cited earlier (vol. i. pp. 308, f.) about the
Nordrsetur expeditions we may conclude that the Greenlanders came across
Skrælings in those northern districts. It is true that the expression
"Skrælingja vistir" has usually been interpreted as Skræling sites or
abandoned dwelling-places; but in this account a distinction is made
between "Skrælingja vistir" and "Skrælingja 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
Skræling dwelling-places ("vistir fornligar"), while farther south, on
some islands, were found some "Skrælingja 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 'Skrælingja vistir' except in [i.e., farther north than
in] Kroksfjardarheidr, and therefore it is thought that they [the
Skrælings] must by that way have the shortest distance to travel
wherever they come from. From this one can hear [adds Björn Jónsson]
how carefully the Greenlanders took note of the Skrælings' 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 Skrælings
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 Skrælings
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 Norsemen 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 Norsemen.
[Sidenote: Allusions to Eskimo in European literature]
The brevity of Icelandic literature in all that concerns the Skrælings 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 Björnbo 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 Skræling.
[Illustration: Eskimo playing ball with a stuffed seal. Woodcut from
Greenland illustrating 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 Skrælings ("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 ships of hides, eat
raw meat and raw fish, and drink blood with it. This points to his
having found in Norway ideas about the Skrælings 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 'Skrælinger'; 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 worship gods" [Walkendorf, 1902, p. 12].[66]
We thus see that while Icelandic literature, subsequent to Are Frode,
affords scarcely any information about the Greenland Skrælings 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 Skrælings, was foreign to them. To this must be added
the reasons already pointed out (p. 81). In Norway, on the other hand,
kinship with the Icelandic Norsemen in Greenland was more distant, and
interest in the strange, outlandish Skrælings was correspondingly greater.
Here also different intellectual associations, 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 Skrælings]
A remarkable exception is the "King's Mirror" (circa 1250), which makes no
mention of the Skrælings, although a good deal of space is devoted to
Greenland and the Greenlanders. But this, as it happens, throws light upon
the curious silence on the Skrælings in Icelandic literature. From the
"Historia Norwegiæ," 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 Skrælings 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 Skrælings 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 Skrælings in Greenland]
If we attempt to sum up what we may conclude from the historical sources
as to the Eskimo or Skrælings 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 Skrælings, 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 Norsemen established
themselves; while they continued to live in the "wastes" to the north. The
Historia Norwegiæ (besides the accounts of the voyages to the north from
Nordrsetur in 1266 and 1267) shows that the Norsemen 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 Skræling 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 Norsemen of that early time having looked upon the
Skrælings 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 Norsemen, when they came
upon a dwelling-place thus suddenly abandoned, had any hesitation about
appropriating whatever might be useful to them; unless indeed a
superstitious fear of these heathen "trolls" restrained them from doing
so. It is therefore natural that the Skrælings avoided that part of
Greenland where the Norsemen 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
Norsemen 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 Norsemen 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 assured 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 Norsemen 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 fashion, in proportion as their
communication with Europe fell off, and their imaginary superiority to the
Skrælings proved to be more and more illusory.
[Sidenote: The Skrælings of Wineland]
We have still to speak of the Skrælings 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 Skræling may originally
have been used of the pixies who were thought to dwell in the Irish
fairyland, the land of the "síd," 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 Skrælings 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 Skrælings 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 Skrælings and are consequently assumed 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 Skrælings of Nova Scotia, with its entirely
different natural conditions, to have had the same arctic whaling and
sealing culture as the Skrælings 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 "Skræling"--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 passages of Eric the Red's Saga, written down about 300 years
after the "events," the word "huðkeipr" is used of the Skrælings'
boats in Wineland, while in four passages 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 Skrælings 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
(Halichœrus 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 Skrælings 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 Skrælings
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 Skrælings 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 Skræling boat came to be that
which was used for the only boats known in later times to be peculiar
to the Skrælings, 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, "huðkeipr,"
which plays no part in the narrative, what are we to do with the
Skrælings' catapults ("valslǫngur") and their black balls 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 "huðkeipr" is
borrowed from Greenland and from Irish legend.
The names which according to the saga were communicated by the two
Skræling 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 Hvítramanna-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: _Vætilldi_, "but do wait
a moment"; _Vægi_, "wait a moment"; _Avalldamon_, "towards the
uttermost"; _Avaldidida_, "the uttermost, do you mean?" As we are told
that the two Skræling 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
Skrælings 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" Skræling and their
"sinking into the earth" are mythical features which are associated
with these Skrælings.
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 Skrælings 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 Skrælings attacked with loud cries; this is usual in Indian
warfare, but seems less like the Eskimo. During the fight with the
Skrælings Thorbrand Snorrason was found dead with a "hellustein" 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]
William Thalbitzer [1904, pp. 20, f.] has adduced, as a possible
evidence of the more southerly extension of the Eskimo in former
times, the fact that the name "Nipisiguit," of a little river in New
Brunswick (46° 40' N. lat.), bears a strong resemblance to the Eskimo
place-name "Nepisät" in Greenland, and he also mentions another
place-name, "Tadoussak," which has a very Eskimo look. But in order to
form any opinion we should have to know the language of the extinct
Indian tribes of these parts, as well as the original forms of the
names given. They are now only known from certain old maps; but we
cannot tell how they got on to those maps.
[Sidenote: Ultimate fate of the Eskimo]
The Eskimo are one of the few races of hunters on the earth who with their
peculiar culture have still been able to hold their own fairly well in
spite of contact with European civilisation; the reason for this is partly
that they live so far out of the way that the contact has been more or
less cursory, partly also, as far as Greenland is concerned, that they
have been treated with more or less care, and it has been sought to
protect them against harmful European influences. In spite of this it has
not been possible to prevent their declining and becoming more and more
impoverished. The increase of their population in recent years might
doubtless give a contrary impression; but here other factors have to be
reckoned with. When the Eskimo first came in contact with European
culture, it was, as will be shown in the next chapter, their own culture
which in these surroundings gained the upper hand as soon as communication
with Europe was cut off. This would happen again if European and Eskimo
could be left to themselves, entirely cut off from the outer world. But as
this is impossible, the Eskimo culture is doomed to succumb slowly to our
trivial, all-conquering European civilisation.
[Illustration]