The Lost Atlantis and Other Ethnographic Studies. Sir Daniel Wilson
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