198 H. P. STEENSBY. 
even if Hamilton fjord now is to be considered as their southern boun- 
dary.t From a geographical point of view the five persons could have 
belonged to either the one or the other of these two nations, which both 
lived near the coast of Markland in Karlsefni’s time. : 
We must then have recourse to the information given later on by 
the two boys, about the culture and language of their nation. There is 
only one piece of information concerning their culture, and that is that 
there were no houses, but that the Skrælings, here near the coast, lived 
in caverns, or “abris” (Icelandic, and Norwegian “йеЦаг”). This could 
fully imply — as already remarked by Storm? — that they were Indians, 
since it is known from Cartier and others of the oldest travellers that 
Indians lived in caves or abris during their summer-stay to fish on the 
coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But it would be too rash to build upon 
this with security. 
The linguistic information consists of the four names. Storm? thought 
that they could not be Eskimo, but he tried to prove them to be Indian, 
most likely belonging to the ancient Newfoundland Beothuk-language. 
У. THaLBirzert, meanwhile, opposed this, as on the one hand he shows 
that Storm’s objections to the words being Eskimo were of little impor- 
tance, whilst on the other hand he points out that our knowledge of 
the Beothuk language is so extremely slight that it scarcely allows a 
sure comparison. Thalbitzer thinks on the contrary that the 4 words — 
Vethillde (Veetilldi), Uvæge (Vegi or Uvægi), Avalldamon and Valldidida 
(Avalldidida) — bear the impress of being Eskimo words or sentences, 
which have been written down and preserved in a somewhat misrepres- 
ented form. i 
From a geographical point of view there was not much likelihood 
of their being Newfoundland Indians. According to what is shown here 
about Wineland and Markland, one must expect these Skrælings to have 
been either Labrador Indians (Algonquins ?) who lived the greater part of 
the year in the interior of Labrador, or Eskimos. And if Thalbitzer's lin- 
guistic reasons are decisive, we can establish the fact that Karlsefni came 
into contact both with Indians and Eskimos on his Wineland-expedition. 
With this the saga brings to an end the account proper of the ex- 
pedition to Wineland. The following narrative of Bjarne Grimolfson, 
who with his vessel was blown off to the sea at Ireland, does not con- 
vey any new enlightenment of value for the treatment of the problems 
here dealt with. And the same may be said of the terminating part of 
the saga, which tells of the genealogy of Karlsefni and his wife. 
1 Cf. H. P. STEENsBy, Origin of the Eskimo Culture: ,,Meddelelser om Grøn- 
land”; Vol. 53. Copenhagen 1916, p. 82. 
21 iG pk oe 
31 ¢. р. 349-et seq. 
* М. THALBITZER, Skrelinger i Markland og Grønland, deres Sprog og Na- 
tionalitet; Videnskabernes Selskabs Forhandlinger. Copenhagen 1905. 
