74 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IO7 



distance between Streamfirth and the land of the Unipeds, the former 

 was much too far from Hop to be compressed into such a narrow 

 space. Moreover, there is no reason why the voyagers should not have 

 thought that the high lands they saw at these three places were 

 connected even if the points of observation were far apart. It was 

 another way of saying that they now believed they were on the shores 

 of a continent, or at least one huge island, not in contact with a 

 series of relatively small islands. 



What is said of the inhabitants of America at this time, instead 

 of casting light upon the places visited by Leif and Karlsefni, further 

 mystifies us. Thus, according to the Saga of Eric the Red, the Skrel- 

 lings, as they are called, arrived in skin boats, otherwise not known 

 to have been used south of the Eskimo country except for the bull 

 boats in the Missouri region, and they were armed with slings. As 

 they came on they brandished "staves" and it is probable that these 

 were spear throwers. Slings and spear throwers again suggest 

 Eskimo rather than Indians, though this was far outside of the 

 country known to have been occupied by the former. On the other 

 hand, when Karlsefni went north from Streamfirth in search of 

 Thorhall, his party encountered a Uniped who killed Thorvald with 

 an arrow. The Flat Island Book, although it attributes Thorvald's 

 death to an attack by a considerable body of Skrellings in canoes, 

 confirms the fact that he was slain with an arrow and the attackers 

 were seemingly all armed with arrows, no other weapon being men- 

 tioned. We have already raised the question whether it is possible 

 that spear throwers were still being used in the south after bows 

 and arrows had been adopted in the north, presumably by the Eskimo. 

 Again, it is to be noted that, according to the Flat Island Book, the 

 Skrellings of Hop issued out of the woods and did not come in 

 canoes. Could it be possible that the Flat Island Book is correct in 

 this particular, and that an attack in skin canoes which actually took 

 place, as stated by this document, somewhere in the north has been 

 transferred to the south by the writer of the Saga? So far as the final 

 attack by the Skrellings is concerned, the Flat Island Book reflects 

 Indian strategy better than the Saga. Instead of making a frontal 

 attack, even if they had come in canoes, they would have landed at 

 some point back of the town during the night and made an assault 

 upon it early in the morning. The language of the Saga lends some 

 support to the idea that this actually took place. If the Skrellings of 

 Wineland used canoes, it is safe to infer that they were made of 

 bark and not of skin. The Skrelling taste for red cloth is markedly 



