Part 7

Such is the episode in the narrative of ancient explorations of the North American shores by voyagers from Greenland, in which Mr. Phillips was gratified by the startling conformity, as it seemed to him, of the name of Haki, with the Harkussen of his runes; though, it must be admitted, the identity is far from complete. If, however, there were no doubt as to the inscription being a genuine example of Northern runes, the failure to refer them to Hake, or any other specific member of an exploring party, would be of little moment. Here, at any rate, was evidence which, if rightly interpreted, was calculated to suggest a reconsideration of the old localisation of Vinland in the state of Rhode Island; and to this other evidence pointed even more clearly. Reassured, accordingly, by a study of the map, which shows the comparatively trifling distance traversed by the assumed voyagers from Greenland, when compared with that from their remote European fatherland, Mr. Phillips submitted his interpretation to the American Philosophical Society “as worthy of consideration, if not absolutely convincing.” To the topographer of the maritime coasts of Canada, a genuine runic inscription which proved that Norse voyagers from Greenland did actually land on the shores of Nova Scotia, in A.D. 1007, and leave there a literate record of their visit, would be peculiarly acceptable. But whatever be the significance of the Yarmouth inscription, it fails to satisfy such requirements. It neither accords with the style, or usual formula of runic inscriptions; nor, as will be seen from the accompanying facsimile, is it graven in any variation of the familiar characters of the Scandinavian futhork. The fascinating temptation has to be set aside; and the Hake or Harkussen of its modern interpreter must take rank with the illusory Thorfinn discovered by the Rhode Island antiquaries on their famed Dighton Rock, which still stands by the banks of the Taunton river.

It is indeed vain for us to hope for evidence of the same definite kind as that which establishes beyond question the presence of the Northmen on the sites of their long-settled colonies in Greenland. Their visits to the Canadian seaboard were transitory; and any attempt at settlement there failed. Yet without the definite memorials of the old Norse colonists recovered in the present century on the sites of their Greenland settlements, it would probably have proved vain to identify them now. The coast of Nova Scotia is indented with inlets, and estuaries of creeks and rivers, suggesting some vague resemblance to the Hóp, or creek of the old Sagas. Whether any one of them presents adequate features for identification with the descriptions furnished in their accounts has yet to be ascertained. But there is every motive to stimulate us to a careful survey of the coast in search of any probable site of the Vinland of the old Northmen. Slight as are the details available for such a purpose, they are not without some specific definiteness, which the Rhode Island antiquaries turned to account, not without a warning to us in their too confident assumption of results. Dr. E. B. Tylor, in his address to the section of anthropology at the Montreal meeting of the British Association, after referring to the Icelandic records of the explorations of the hardy sea-rovers from Greenland, as too consistent to be refused belief as to the main facts, thus proceeded: “They sailed some way down the American coast. But where are we to look for the most southerly points which the Sagas mention as reached in Vineland? Where was Keel-ness where Thorvald’s ship ran aground, and Cross-ness where he was buried when he died by the Skræling’s arrow? Rafn, in the _Antiquitates Americanæ_, confidently maps out these places about the promontory of Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, and this has been repeated since from book to book. I must plead guilty to having cited Rafn’s map before now, but when with reference to the present meeting I consulted our learned editor of Scandinavian records at Oxford, Mr. Gudbrand Vigfusson, and afterwards went through the original passages in the Sagas with Mr. York Powell, I am bound to say that the voyages of the Northmen ought to be reduced to more moderate limits. It appears that they crossed from Greenland to Labrador (Helluland), and thence sailing more or less south and west, in two stretches of two days each, they came to a place near where wild grapes grew, whence they called the country Vineland. This would, therefore, seem to have been somewhere about the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and it would be an interesting object for a yachting cruise to try down from the east coast of Labrador a fair four days’ sail of a Viking ship, and identify, if possible, the sound between the island and the ness, the river running out of the lake into the sea, the long stretches of sand, and the other local features mentioned in the Sagas.” A fresh stimulus is thus furnished to Canadian yachtsmen to combine historical exploration with a summer’s coasting trip, and go in search of the lost Vinland. The description of the locality that furnished the data from which the members of the Rhode Island Historical Society satisfied themselves as to the identity of their more southern site on the Pacasset river, has to be kept in view in any renewed inquiry. At the same time it must not be overlooked that the oldest and most trustworthy narrative, in the Saga of Eric the Red, with the credited, and probably genuine story of the voyage of Karlsefne, are expanded, in the Grænlendingathàttr, into five voyages, with their incidents recast with modifications and additions. The expedition of Leif Ericson, and his accidental discovery of Vinland, and the subsequent attempt at colonisation of Karlsefne, in company with Thorvald and Freydisa, are the only adventures accredited by the oldest tradition. In the latter narrative it is stated that “they sailed for a long time, until they came at last to a river which flowed down from the land into a lake, and so into the sea. There were great bars at the mouth of the river, so that it could only be entered at the height of the flood tide. Karlsefn and his men sailed into the mouth of the river, and called it Hóp,” _i.e._ a land-locked bay. “They found self-sown wheat fields wherever there were hollows, and where there was hilly ground there were vines.” Subsequent descriptions are obviously based on this account. But to whatever extent the description of the locality where Thorvald, the brother of Leif Ericson, was killed by a Skræling may have been suggested by that narrative, the localities are different. It was apparently in the spring of A.D. 1004 that Karlsefne set out on his colonising expedition. The voyagers sailed along Furdustrandir, a long, low sandy coast, till they came to where the land was indented with creeks and inlets. There they steered into the Straumsfjord, to a spot where Karlsefne and his companions spent the winter of A.D. 1005; and where, therefore, we may assume the observations to have been made that determined the length of the day in Vinland at the winter solstice. The narrative of noteworthy incidents is accompanied with topographical details that have to be kept in view in any attempt at recovering traces of the locality. There, if it could be identified, we have to look for a promontory answering to the Krossanes, or promontory of the crosses: the spot where Thorvald was buried; and as would seem to be implied, where a cross was set up at the grave mound. The style of such a sepulchral memorial of the Northmen at a little later date is very familiar to us. The discovery on some hitherto unheeded spot of the Nova-Scotian coast of a bautastein, graven like those recovered on the sites of the old Greenland colony, would be an invaluable historical record. It might be expected to read somewhat in this fashion: _Leif sunr Erikr rautha raisti krus thana eftir Thorvald brothur sina_. But there is slight ground for imagining that the transient visitors from Greenland to the Canadian shores left any more lasting memorial of the tragic event that reappears in successive versions of the narrative of their presence there, than a wooden grave-post, or uninscribed headstone.

One other element in the characteristic features of the strange land visited by the Greenland explorers is the native population, and this has a specific interest in other respects, in addition to its bearing on the determination of a Nova-Scotian site for “Vineland the Good.” They are designated Skrælings (Skrælingjar), and as in this the Greenland voyagers applied the same name to the natives of Vinland as to the Greenland Eskimo, it has been assumed that both were of the same race. But the term “skræling” is still used in Norway to express the idea of decrepitude, or physical inferiority; and probably was used with no more definite significance than our own word “savage.” The account given in the Saga of the approach of the Skrælings would sufficiently accord with that of a Micmac flotilla of canoes. Their first appearance is thus described: “While looking about one morning, they observed a great number of canoes. On exhibiting friendly signals the canoes approached nearer to them, and the natives in them looked with astonishment at those they met there. These people were sallow-coloured and ill-looking, had ugly heads of hair, large eyes and broad cheeks.” The term _skræling_ has usually been interpreted “dwarf,” and so seemed to confirm the idea of the natives having been Eskimo; but, as already stated, the word, as still used in Norway, might mean no more than the inferiority of any savage race. As to the description of their features and complexion, that would apply equally well to the red Indian or the Eskimo, and so far as the eyes are spoken of, rather to the former than the latter. More importance may be attached to the term _hudhkeipr_ applied to their canoes, which is more applicable to the kayak, or skin-boat, than to the birch-bark canoe of the Indian; but the word was probably loosely used as applicable to any savage substitute for a keel, or built boat.

This question of the identification of the Skrælings, or natives, whether of Nova Scotia or New England, is one of considerable ethnographic significance. The speculations relative to the possible relationship of the Eskimo to the post-glacial cave-dwellers of the Dordogne valley, and their consequent direct descent from palæolithic European man, confer a value on any definite evidence bearing on their movements in intermediate centuries. On the other hand, the approximate correspondence of the Huron-Iroquois of Canada and the state of New York to the Eskimo in the dolichocephalic type of skull common to both, gives an interest to any evidence of the early presence of the latter to the south of the St. Lawrence. In their western migrations the Eskimo attract the attention of the ethnographer as the one definite ethnic link between America and Asia. They are met with, as detached and wandering tribes, across the whole continent, from Greenland to Behring Strait. Nevertheless, they appear to be the occupants of a diminishing rather than an expanding area. This would accord with the idea of their area extending over the Canadian maritime provinces, and along the New England coast, in the eleventh century; and possibly as indicating the early home, from which they were being driven northward by the Huron-Iroquois or other assailants, rather than implying an overflow from their Arctic habitat. Seal hunting on the coast of Newfoundland, and fishing on its banks and along the shores of Nova Scotia, would even now involve no radical change in the habits of the Eskimo. It was with this hyperborean race that the Scandinavian colonists of Greenland came in contact 800 years ago, and by them that they were exterminated at a later date. If it could be proved that the Skrælings of the eleventh century, found by the Northmen on the American mainland, were Eskimo, it would furnish the most conclusive evidence that the red Indians—whether Micmac, Millicet, or Hurons,—are recent intruders there.

In any process of aggression of the native American race on the older area of the Eskimo, some intermixture of blood would naturally follow. The slaughter of the males in battle, and the capture of women and children, everywhere leads to a like result; and this seems the simplest solution of the problem of the southern brachycephalic, and the northern dolichocephalic type of head among native American races. When the sites of the ancient colonies of Greenland were rediscovered and visited by the Danes, they imagined they could recognise in the physiognomy of some of the Eskimo who still people the shores of Davis Straits, traces of admixture between the old native and the Scandinavian or Icelandic blood. Of the Greenland colonies the Eskimo had perpetuated many traditions, referring to the colonists under the native name of _Kablunet_. But of the language that had been spoken among them for centuries, the fact is highly significant that the word _Kona_, used by them as a synonym for woman, is the only clearly recognised trace. This is worthy of note, in considering the distinctive character of the Eskimo language, and its comparison with the Indian languages of the North American continent. It has the feature common to nearly all the native languages of the continent north of the Mexican Gulf in the composite character of its words; so that an Eskimo verb may furnish the equivalent to a whole sentence in other tongues. But what is specially noteworthy is that, while the Huron-Iroquois, the Algonkin, and other Indian families of languages have multiplied widely dissimilar dialects, Dr. Henry Rink has shown that the Eskimo dialects of Greenland or Labrador differ slightly from those of Behring Strait; and the congeners of the American Eskimo, who have overflowed into the Aleutian Islands, and taken possession of the north-eastern region of Asia, perpetuate there nearly allied dialects of the parent tongue.[8] The Alaskan and the Tshugazzi peninsulas are in part peopled by Eskimo; the Konegan of Kudjak Island belong to the same stock; and all the dialects spoken in the Aleutian Islands, the supposed highway from Asia to America, betray in like manner the closest affinities to the Arctic Mongolidæ of the New World. They thus appear not only to be contributions from the New World to the Old, but to be of recent introduction there. If the cave-dwellers of Europe’s palæolithic era found their way as has been suggested, in some vastly remote age, either by an eastern or a western route to the later home of the Arctic Eskimo, it is in comparatively modern centuries that the tide of migration has set westward across the Behring Strait, and by the Aleutian Islands, into Asia.

The reference to the Skrælings in the first friendly intercourse of Thorfinn Karlsefne and his companions with the natives, and their subsequent hostile attitude, ending in the death of Thorvald Ericson, has given occasion to this digression. But the question thus suggested is one of no secondary interest. If we could certainly determine their ethnical character the fact would be of great significance; and coupled with any well-grounded determination of the locality where the fatal incident occurred, would have important bearings on American ethnology. The description of the sallow, or more correctly, swarthy coloured, natives with large eyes, broad cheek-bones, shaggy hair, and forbidding countenances is furnished in the Saga, and then the narrative thus proceeds: “After the Skrælings had gazed at them for a while, they rowed away again to the south-west past the cape. Karlsefne and his company had erected their dwelling-houses a little above the bay, and there they spent the winter. No snow fell, and the cattle found their food in the open field. One morning early, in the beginning of 1008, they descried a number of canoes coming from the south-west past the cape. Karlsefne having held up the white shield as a friendly signal, they drew nigh and immediately commenced bartering. These people chose in preference red cloth, and gave furs and squirrel skins in exchange. They would fain also have bought swords and spears, but these Karlsefne and Snorre prohibited their people from selling to them. In exchange for a skin entirely gray the Skrælings took a piece of cloth of a span in breadth, and bound it round their heads. Their barter was carried on in this way for some time. The Northmen then found that their cloth was beginning to grow scarce, whereupon they cut it up in smaller pieces, not broader than a finger’s breadth, yet the Skrælings gave as much for these smaller pieces as they had formerly given for the larger ones, or even more. Karlsefne also caused the women to bear out milk soup, and the Skrælings relishing the taste of it, they desired to buy it in preference to everything else, so they wound up their traffic by carrying away their bargains in their bellies. Whilst this traffic was going on it happened that a bull, which Karlsefne had brought along with him, came out of the wood and bellowed loudly. At this the Skrælings got terrified and rushed to their canoes, and rowed away southwards. About this time Gudrida, Karlsefne’s wife, gave birth to a son, who received the name of Snorre. In the beginning of the following winter the Skrælings came again in much greater numbers; they showed symptoms of hostility, setting up loud yells. Karlsefne caused the red shield to be borne against them, whereupon they advanced against each other, and a battle commenced. There was a galling discharge of missiles. The Skrælings had a sort of war sling. They elevated on a pole a tremendously large ball, almost the size of a sheep’s stomach, and of a bluish colour; this they swung from the pole over Karlsefne’s people, and it descended with a fearful crash. This struck terror into the Northmen, and they fled along the river.”

It was thus apparent that in spite of the attractions of the forest-clad land, with its tempting vines, there was little prospect of peaceful possession. The experience of these first colonisers differed in no degree from that of the later pioneers of Nova Scotia or New England. Freydisa, the natural daughter of Eric, whom Thorvald had wedded, is described as taunting the men for their cowardice in giving way before such miserable caitiffs as the Skrælings or savage natives, and vowing, if she had only a weapon, she would show better fight. “She accordingly followed them into the wood. There she encountered a dead body. It was Thorbrand Snorrason. A flat stone was sticking fast in his head. His naked sword lay by his side. This she took up, and prepared to defend herself. She uncovered her breasts and dashed them against the naked sword. At this sight the Skrælings became terrified, and ran off to their canoes. Karlsefne and the rest now came up to her and praised her courage. But Karlsefne and his people became aware that, although the country held out many advantages, still the life that they would have to lead here would be one of constant alarm from the hostile attacks of the natives. They therefore made preparations for departure with the resolution of returning to their own country.” To us the attractions of a Nova-Scotian settlement might seem worth encountering a good many such assaults rather than retreat to the ice-bound shores of Greenland. But it was “their own country”; their relatives were there. Nor to the hardy Northmen did its climate, or that of Iceland, present the forbidding aspect which it would to us. So they returned to Brattalid, carrying back with them an evil report of the land; and, as it seems, also bringing with them specimens of its natives. For, on their homeward voyage, they proceeded round Kialarnes, and then were driven to the nort-west. “The land lay to larboard of them. There were thick forests in all directions as far as they could see, with scarcely any open space. They considered the hills at Hope and those which they now saw as forming part of one continuous range. They spent the third winter at Streamfirth. Karlsefne’s son Snorre was now three years of age. When they sailed from Vinland they had southerly wind, and came to Markland, where they met with five Skrælings. They caught two of them (two boys), whom they carried away along with them, and taught them the Norse language, and baptized them; these children said that their mother was called Vethilldi and their father Uvaege. They said that the Skrælings were ruled by chieftains (kings), one of whom was called Avalldamon, and the other Valdidida; that there were no houses in the country, but that the people dwelled in holes and caverns.”

Thus ended the abortive enterprise of Thorfinn and his company to found, in the eleventh century, a colony of Northmen on the American mainland. The account the survivors brought back told indeed of umbrageous woodland and the tempting vine. But the forest was haunted by the fierce Skrælings, and its coasts open to assault from their canoes. To the race that wrested Normandy from the Carlovingian Frank, and established its jarldoms in Orkney, Caithness, and Northumbria, such a foe might well be deemed contemptible. But the degenerate Franks, and the Angles of Northumbria, tempted the Norse marauder with costly spoils; and only after repeated successful expeditions awakened the desire to settle in the land and make there new homes. Alike to explorers seeking for themselves a home, and to adventurers coveting the victors’ spoils, the Vinland of the Northmen offered no adequate temptation, and so its traditions faded out of memory, or were recalled only as the legend of a fabulous age. At the meeting of the British Association at Montreal in 1884 Mr. R. G. Halliburton read a paper entitled “A Search in British North America for lost Colonies of Northmen and Portuguese.” Documents were quoted by him showing that from A.D. 1500 to 1570 commissions were regularly issued to the Corte Reals and their successors. Cape Breton was colonised by them in 1521; and when Portugal became annexed to Spain in 1680, and Terra Nova passed with it to her rule, she sent colonists to settle there. The site which they occupied, Mr. Halliburton traced to Spanish Harbour (Sydney), Cape Breton, and this he claimed to be the earliest European settlement in North America. For, as for the Northmen’s reputed explorations and attempt at settlement, his verdict is thus briefly summed up: “When we can discover Greenland’s verdant mountains we can also hope to find the vine-clad hills of Vineland the Good.” That, however, is too summary a dismissal of evidence which, if vague, is to every appearance based on authorities as seemingly authentic and trustworthy as those on which many details of the history of early centuries rest. It would manifestly be unwise to discountenance further inquiry by any such sweeping scepticism, or to discourage the hope that local research may yet be rewarded by evidence confirmatory of the reputed visit of Thorfinn and his fellow-explorers to some recognisable point on the Nova-Scotian coast.