﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA — BABCOCK 151 



naturally understand open boats, which were all that they had ever 

 seen — except in ill-understood fragments on the Greenland shore. 

 It is not merely, however, that kayaks would be decked over; they 

 are more of a garment or personal appendage than a mere vehicle 

 for water transit. " As a rule each hunter makes his kayak for 

 himself, and it is fitted to the man's size just like a garment," ' 

 the central " kayak-ring " being a boat-combing and a man's water- 

 tight belt in one. The world does not present anything else quite 

 like this Eskimo invention, and few of that race on open waters are 

 without it. 



If we consider the Skrellings (" weaklings ") of Hop to be Indians, 

 the above items offer no difficulty. They went naked or nearly so, 

 because the weather was mild, as at Nauset, except in the depth of 

 winter. They did not use a harpoon and float, nor carve spirited 

 animal figures in bone, because the former did not belong to the 

 customs nor the latter to the tendencies and capabilities of their race. 

 Probably they had never seen anything so Arctic and un-Indian as 

 a dog-sled or a kayak. But what can be said for an old-time Eskimo 

 in Labrador without any of these things ? Yet Professor Fernald, for 

 example, seems to think that the Hop Skrellings were Eskimo and 

 that Wineland was in Labrador. 



The brandishing of staves (paddles ?) in the direction of the sun's 

 course to show amity, or reversely by way of defiance, cannot be called 

 indicative of either people. Norse folklore would predispose the 

 observers to illusion on such points — witness the direful Moon 2 of 

 Wierd which traveled in the latter fashion about the hall of Frodis- 

 water before the eyes of living men and women doomed to ghostly 

 hauntings or to death. The normal circuit would bear the contrary 

 and conciliatory meaning. Of course Thorfinn and Snorri interpreted 

 these movements by the facial expression, the tones, and other indica- 

 tions of the mood of the approaching men. Finding themselves 

 understood, the latter would emphasize and repeat the gesture, even 

 if it were at first accidental, or would naturally reverse it to convey 

 a contrary message. But after all the signs may also have been 

 customary with them exactly as seen, for these might suggest them- 

 selves by the contrast of natural and unnatural in any mind. They 

 tell us nothing. 



The native boats came three times, with dramatically presented 

 climax. First " nine skin canoes " drawn by mere curiosity ; secondly, 



1 Fr. Nansen : Eskimo Life, p. 46. 



2 Eyrbyggja Saga. Morris's and Magnusson's translation. 

 11 



