﻿NO. J 9 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA BABCOCK I4I 



this would be hardly practicable ; and there is not the least sign that 

 they came at all. If we consider the Skrellings to be Eskimo, we must 

 suppose Hop to be in Labrador or Newfoundland, where there are 

 no grapes and no balmy winters and where the coastal geography of 

 the sagas fails to apply. The Eskimo are all north of Hamilton Inlet 

 now. 



The earlier students of the subject were dominated by the idea 

 that " Skrelling " must mean Eskimo. Putting this with the evidence 

 for a warm Hop, they got some curious results. Thus Schoolcraft, 1 

 adding yet a little more in the way of assumption, declared that 

 successive conquests and revolutions in the Valley of Mexico sent 

 corresponding waves of mankind northeastward by way of Tampico, 

 till at last they drove out of New England the Skrellings whom the 

 Norsemen found there. This may be paired off with the Arthurian 

 conquest of Iceland, as a bit of theoretical ballooning. 



Dr. Fiske " no doubt presents the kernel of the matter in reminding 

 all that we do not assert the identity of Fuegians and Australians 

 by calling them savages. The meaning of the word (weaklings) 

 seems to have been about that among the Norsemen. 3 We find them 

 applying it not only to their Hop visitors, but to the men in " doublets " 

 found at a distant point, and to the bearded Marklander and his com- 

 panions, with no thought of ethnological distinctions, but in mere 

 facile disparagement. What else could be their view of the poor 

 people who had no ships nor woven fabrics, no jewels nor armor, no 

 live stock nor grain, nor steel weapons, nor good tools, nor money, nor 

 proper European clothing ; dusky people too, not pleasing in northern 

 eyes ? Such were contemptibly insignificant ; it was hardly worth 

 while to distinguish differences among them. 



Dr. Nansen may be right in thinking that the name (like that 

 of Finn for Laplanders and, as he points out, two other inferior 

 peoples) came to have an implication of mythical beings or of magic; 

 but the fact is irrelevant. 4 



The natives who visited them at Hop were their very first speci- 

 mens, and the Norsemen fitted the word to them in the spirit which 

 applies derogatory nicknames like injun, nigger, dago, and sheeney 

 to people despised by the utterer. It was then ready for any others 

 of like status, and might even be applied conjecturally, by a loose 



1 Schoolcraft : Indian Tribes of the United States. Drake's edition, vol. 6, 

 p. 84. 



2 J. Fiske: The Discovery of America, pp. 181-185. 

 3 Fr. Nansen: Eskimo Life. 



* In Northern Mists, vol. 2, pp 11-20. 



