NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA BABCOCK 157 



tives, offers us a map based on the use of slings and blowguns in which 

 the former are given an immense area of the Rocky Mountain country 

 and the Pacific coast; also extended in a very narrow fringe along 

 the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic as far as Hudson 

 River. Even allowing for some misreports and misunderstandings, 

 we cannot fail to see a progressive yielding of territory through the 

 centuries. Apparently the sling x is an archaic American weapon, 

 once of general prevalence, which has gradually given way to the bow 

 and vanished before the rifle, holding out best in isolated nooks, or 

 for special uses, or where favored by natural conditions. That it 

 was not found by Miles Standish at Plymouth and Narragansett by 

 no means makes its presence there improbable six hundred years 

 earlier. 



The great noisy body which was cast on the ground behind the 

 Norsemen is something quite unique in historic Indian warfare. 

 Higginson 2 suggested that it might be a harpoon with a bladder 

 float. Schoolcraft 3 more plausibly identified it with a traditional 

 but long obsolete form of giant club wielded by several men and said to 

 have been in use during the severe wars of the Ojibwa, fiercest and 

 most powerful of Algonquian tribes, as they moved westward to the 

 upper lakes. It was prepared by shrinking a deer s hide around a 

 large and heavy stone and on the end of a pole, to which it was bound. 

 Of course the crashing effect would be great. But it does not fully 

 correspond to the Skrellings monstrous and unheard of creation. 



The Skrellings raised up on poles a great ball-shaped body, almost the size 

 of a sheep s belly and nearly black in color, and this they hurled from the 

 poles upon the land above Karlsefni s followers and it made a frightful noise 

 where it fell. Whereat a great fear fell upon Karlsefni and all his men, for it 

 seemed to them that the troop of the Skrellings was rushing toward them from 

 every side. 



The nearest analogue would be a hand-grenade ; but Thorfinn could 

 not know of such a thing. Before the arrival of the next white men, 

 it was utterly forgotten. Whether truly reported in the saga or not, 

 it stands an unsolved mystery, having a very ancient look. 



Dr. Fiske accepted Schoolcraft s Ojibwa explanation as conclu 

 sive. Nevertheless, Mr. James Mooney, who has spent much time 

 among divers Indian tribes, tells me that he cannot make it agree 



1 For instances of former use in what is now Spanish-America consult 

 Herbert Spencer s Descriptive Sociology, part 2., the works of Brinton, Mark- 

 ham, H. H. Bancroft, and others already cited. 



2 T. W. Higginson and W. MacDonald : History of the United States. Edition 



IQ05, P- 39- 



3 H. R. Schoolcraft: American Indians, vol. I, p. 73. 



