IN NORTHERN MISTS 



in southern Nova Scotia or farther south to fulfil the requirements of the or- 

 dinary Eskimo sealing culture. They must therefore have adopted hunting 

 on land as their chief means of subsistence, like the Indians; but what then 

 becomes of the similarity in culture between the Skraelings of Greenland and 

 Wineland, which is just what should distinguish them from the Indians? The 

 very foundation of the theory thus disappears. Professor Y. Nielsen [1905, 

 pp. 32 f.] maintains that the Skraelings of Nova Scotia need only have had 

 " transport boats " or " women's boats " of hides, and that " what is there re- 

 lated of them does not even contain a hint that they might have used kay- 

 aks." This makes the theory even more improbable. If these Skraelings were 

 without kayaks, which are and must be the very first condition of Eskimo seal- 

 ing 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 cer- 

 tain 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 thus leads us from one improbability to another, as 

 we might expect, seeing it is built up on so flimsy a foundation. 



The Greenlanders may well have called the Indians' birch-bark canoes 

 " keipr " or " keipull " (a little boat) ; but it is still more probable that as the 

 details of the tradition became gradually obliterated in course of time, the 

 designation of the Skraeling boat came to be that which was used for the only 

 boats known in later times to be peculiar of the Skraelings, namely, the hide- 

 boats of Greenland. In addition to this, hide-boats were also known from 

 Ireland, while the making of boats of birch-bark was altogether strange to the 

 Icelanders. Besides, if we are to attach so much importance to a single word, 

 " huSkeipr," which plays no part in the narrative, what are we to do with the 

 Skraelings' catapults (" valslpngur ") 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 

 " huSkeipr " is borrowed from Greenland and from Irish legend. 



The names which according to the saga were communicated by the two 

 Skraeling children captured in Markland, and which are supposed to have lived 

 in oral tradition for over 250 years, have no greater claim to serious considera- 

 tion. Everything else that these children are said to have related is demon- 

 strably incorrect; the tale of Hvitramanna-land is a myth from Ireland (cf. 

 pp. 42 f.) ; the statement attributed to them that in their country people lived 

 in caves is improbable and obviously derived from elsewhere (cf. p. 19) ; 1 is 



1 As so much weight has been attached to single words in order to prove 

 the similarity of culture between the Skraelings in Wineland and Markland 

 92 



