272 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



that the so-called " Skraellings " were all Eskimos. R. G. Hali- 

 burton ^ reviews the evidence produced by Rafn and others and 

 concludes that Hellulawl was North Labrador, Markland South 

 Labrador, and Vinland, Western Newfoundland. He is inclined to 

 think that the naming of Vinland may have been after the manner 

 in which Eric the Red named the ice-bound region, now known as 

 Greenland, there may have been a little I'omance in the stories of 

 these old Norsemen. He suggests that besides the Eskimo the 

 Norsemen in Newfoundland may have come across some of the 

 Naskapi Indians. Rafn- says "Now is to be told what lies op- 

 posite Greenland, out from the bay already mentioned. Furdu- 

 strandir is the name of a land. There are such hard frosts that it is 

 not habitable as far as known. South of it is Helluland, which is 

 called Skraelling's Land." If one will compare the description of the 

 scenery of Helluland, the flat stones, the action of the tides, the icy 

 hillocks, the low-wooded, sandy shores, with the account of Labrador 

 given by Kohlmeister and Kmoch^, who especially mention the flat, 

 slaty stones, the retreat of the tide, and the succession of low- wooded 

 coasts to the desert-like shores of the northern region, he cannot fail 

 to have at least a very strong presumption that Helluland was the 

 coast of Labrador, and was then as now iikraelliny s Land, Eskimo- 

 Land. The descrij)tions of the savages encountered by the Norsemen 

 accord better with the Eskimo than with any others of the North 

 American aborigines. Their outcries, theii- dress, their boats, their 

 brandishing their spears, etc., have been recorded by the Norsemen, 

 and the descriptions apply with equal force to the Eskimo of to day : 

 so that while we became acquainted with other natives of America 

 less than 400 years ago, the acquaintance of the historical European 

 with the Inuit of Greenland and Labrador must go back nearly five 

 centuries eai'lier That there were Eskimo in JJcwkland is evident from 

 the relation of Rafn, " Tha er siglthu af Vtnland, toku their suthrven 

 vethr, ok hitta tha Markland ok funnu thar Skraelinja 5 ; ok \ar 

 emu skeggjadjr ; konur voru 2, born too ;.... their nf^fndu mothur 

 sina vethilldi ok fdthur Uvaege."^ Here at once we recognize in 

 Uvaege (the man's name), the Uviya (my husband) of the present 



1. A Search in B. N. Amer. for lost colonies of Northmen, etc. Proc. R. Geog. Soc. 1885, p. 25-38. 



2. Antiq. Amer. p. 280. 



3. Jour, of a Voy. from Okkak on the coast of Labrador to Un^ava Bay, etc. Lond. 1814 



pp. 21, 53, 56, 50, 27. 



4. Antiq. Amer., p. 101. For Itibilik see Amer. Ethnol. Trans., vol. ii, 213. 



