686 W. Thalbitzer 



Later tbe French emigrants got the same impression^). The house-passage has 

 undoubtedly been under the ground (as in the houses of the Alaskan Eskimo) 

 and the houses themselves have been dug into the ground so that they were 

 half underground (not uncommon in Greenland). 



It is very peculiar that the Icelanders spoke of the "kings" of the Skræ- 

 lings. The existence of such, however, is apparently confirmed by later authors 

 in their descriptions of the Eskimo near the Davis Straits, first in Frobisher 

 (1576)2), later in James Hall (in Greenland 1606) and de Poincy (1657 on Baf- 

 fin Land?)^). I feel inclined to consider this as due to misunderstanding of 

 the language and gesture of the natives^), only de Poincy's more correct des- 

 cription is a little more convincing, whether it appUes to the angakut or the 

 leading hunters. 



After the Icelanders the first rediscoverer of the regions round the Saint 

 Lawrence Gulf (Labrador, Newfoundland etc.) was the Genoese Giovanni Ga- 

 botto anglicized under the name of John Cabot. The report of his journey 

 (1497)^) contains the first brief description of the Micmac Indians, perhaps also 

 including the southernmost Eskimo. Here it is. 



"The inhabitants of this Island [Prima Vista or St. John] use to wear beasts 

 skinnes, and have them in as great estimation as we have our finest garments. 

 In their warres they use bowes, arrowes, pikes, darts, wooden clubs, and slings 

 (arcu, sagittis, hastis, spicuhs, clavis ligneis & fundis). The soile is barren in 

 some places & yeeldeth Kttle fruit, but is full of white beares, and stagges f arre 

 greater then ours. It yeeldeth plenty of fish, and those very great, as scales, 

 and those which commonly we call salmons; there are soles also above a yard 

 in length: but especially there is great abundance of that kinde of fish which 

 the Savages call baccalaos etc." '') — Cabot "declareth further that in many 

 places of these regions he saw great plentie of copper among the inhabitants" ''). 

 In Robert Fabian's Chronicle we further read concerning the same voyage of 

 Cabot: "This yeere also were brought unto the king three men taken in the 

 Newfound Island that before I spake of .... These were clothed in beasts skins 

 &did eate raw flesh, and spake such speach that no man could understand them 

 and in their demeanour like to bruite beastes etc."^). 



In Charlevoix's letters from the year 1721 we find a more complete des- 

 cription of the Eskimo of the same regions. In these days when V. Stefånsson 

 has again raised the question about the "blond Eskimo" it is of interest to note 

 that this ancient author emphasizes the fairness of the Eskimo near the Saint 

 Lawrence River. This pecuharity naturally only applies to some of the indivi- 

 duals, not all. 



"II est presque le seul (peuple) où les Hommes ayent de la Barbe, & ils l'ont 

 si épaisse jusqu'aux Yeux, qu'on a peine à découvrir quelques Traits de leur 



') Charlevoix (1744) [1721] p. 180 about the Eskimo of the Saint Lawrence Gulf: 

 "L'hyver ils se logent sous terre dans des espèces de Grottes, ou ils sont tous 

 les uns sur les autres." Likewise in the Relation des Jésuites (1659), p. 9. 



^) Frobisher, on his second voyage. Hakluyt (1904) p. 222. 



^j See the citation from de Poincj' p. 684. 



*) Thalbitzer (1912) pp. 6—7. 



S) Cabot's journey in Hakluyt (1904) vol. VII, p. 145 — 146. — AVith regard to the 

 early visits of the Basques who came to these waters to carry on the whale- 

 fishery I refer to my remarks on p. 487. 



•■') Baccalaos (a latin word) is according to the report of Peter Martyr of Angleria 

 (Hakluyt, 1. с p. 152) a fish "much like unto tunies" [tunnies]? 



') Peter Martyr, in Hakluyt (1904) VII, 



») Robert F^abian, 1. с p. 150, p. 155. 



