Norsemen’s route from Greenland to Wineland. 189 
The repeated mention of their swinging with poles, the first time 
going with the sun, when the Norsemen got the impression of their 
being favourably disposed, whilst the last time going against the sun, 
when the Norsemen saw immediately that they were hostile, seems quite 
enigmatical. There is, however, something in the whole picture of sup- 
posed spear-swinging natives which admirably agrees with pictures 
given by later authors of Indian martial games, Indian war-dances 
and such like. Without daring to maintain the indisputable correct- 
ness of this comment, I will call to mind that when the Skrelings came 
the last time — and this time clearly with hostile design — they howled 
loudly and swung the poles (spears) against the sun, which — if we 
remember the topographical conditions at Hôp — evidently means 
the direction in which they moved, or towards the enemy they marched 
against. Possibly, on the former occasion, they held their spears in a 
sort of attitude of rest on their shoulders, and swung them backwards, 
or towards the west, in time with the rowers’ paddling. But the whole 
comment must, as a matter of course, be excessively hypothetical. 
It is evident that the Skrælings used stone axes, by reason of the 
flat stone that was found in the head of the killed Thorbrand Snorrason. 
The big “ball” probably answers to an implement mentioned by Н. В. 
SCHOOLCRAFT from the Ojibwas, and was most nearly a sort of enormous 
club, consisting of a big stone which was wound about with a deer-skin 
and hurled out from the end of a stick. One must grant Hoveaarp that 
he is right, and that this interpretation is much more probable than 
that the ball should be an implement comparable with the large bladder 
that is used by the Eskimo when hunting from the kayak. 
The weapons — namely the axe and the sling — are more indica- 
tive of Indian culture. To this can be added what attention has already 
been drawn to earlier, that the wish of the Skrelings to buy weapons 
(swords and spears are named) also is more remindful of Indians than of 
Eskimos. 
One could even be tempted to decide that these supposed Indians 
were Iroquois, as one knows from a later period that Iroquois tribes 
lived along the St. Lawrence from Lake Erie and Lake Ontario to the 
regions about Isle d’Orleans. During the first period of the French colo- 
nization the St. Lawrence was a high-way for the boat-fleets of the 
warlike Iroquois.! Meanwhile it is possible that the intermediate 
centuries witnessed considerable shifting of the tribes in these parts, 
1 In Cartier’s time it seems that the Iroquois, who without doubt have immi- 
grated to the St. Lawrence valley from the south and south-west along the 
lakes and rivers, had already taken the river valley into their possession, in 
any case as far as Isle d’Orleans, and perhaps even further to the north- 
east. Yet in the 17th century these regions, and especially the northern shore 
from the Three Rivers to Saguenay and further north, were mentioned as 
being occupied by the Algonquins (cf. Th. Waitz, Anthropologie der Natur- 
völker. Vol. 3. Leipzig 1862. р. 16—17). 
