Ethnographical collections from Ea.st Greenland. (j91 



ESKIMO AND NORSEMEN IN SOUTH GREENLAND 



The history of the immigration of the Eskimo to Greenland and their meet- 

 ing with the Icelandic colonists in the southern regions has often been discussed 

 and has roused great interest because it stands in connection with the discovery 

 of America and the North American archæology. Furthermore these immigra- 

 tions have taken place in the marginal zone of humanity towards the north, 

 where the human character and strength was put to the test under extreme 

 climatic conditions. And this part of America lies closer to us than any other. 

 If by archæological, historical and anthropological investigations we might suc- 

 ceed in dispersing some of the mist enshrouding the earliest approach of the 

 Scandinavians to these regions much would be gained. 



From the historical point of view we know from the Icelandic sources (Ari 

 hinn froöi), that the first foreigners coming to Greenland from Iceland under 

 Eirikr the Red in the year 985 found Eskimo houses and implements "'eastwards 

 as well as westwards" in the southern West Greenland but met no living people^). 

 From the archæological investigations we know that what the Icelanders meant 

 by east and Avest in reaHty was south-east and north-west on Greenland's west 

 coast. Eirikr settled down in Eiriksfjord so called after him, which on the basis 

 of archæological discoveries has been identified with certainty as the TunuLLiar- 

 fik Fjord of the present Greenlanders at 61° N. Lat. just north of Julianehaab^). 

 As the first European settlers in this region have thus evidently found distinct 

 and numerous traces, that the Eskimo, in the Icelandic language called the Skræ- 

 hngs, had already previously wandered there, this means that a group of mi- 

 grating Eskimo have already before 985 reached South Greenland, settled down 

 there for a time and set off again, probably southwards along the coast. The 

 Skrælings themselves were not seen by the Icelanders and seem on the whole 

 not to have appeared on the parts of the coast which the Icelanders took possession 

 of [Eystribygö and Vestribygd) and where they stayed during the first centuries 

 after the period of settlement, otherwise their presence would have been men- 

 tioned in Speculum reg. or some other of the Norwegian-Icelandic primary sources. 

 The expedition in 1266 going nothwards along the west coast was the first to 

 return with information that fresh traces of the Skrælings had been observed 

 (cf. p. 487). Shortly after we hear from Historia Norwegiae that the Icelanders 

 in the northern or central Greenland have had sanguinary encounters with the 

 Skrælings, ''this people who instead of iron weapons used ivory points and stone- 

 knives". Here in the north they thus met a later group of immigrant Eskimo, 

 with whom they competed in hunting the animals of the sea and in the saving 

 of drift-timber. More than 100 years passed ere this people reached down to 

 the Icelander's northernmost colony in Vestribygö, in all probability tempted 

 by the increasing quantity of game, especially of reindeer, possibly also by the 

 Icelander's iron or other objects of use or luxury from Europe. 



But at the same time the east coast and the islands lying nearest to Cape 

 Farvel have probably been inhabited by Eskimo, possibly the descendants of 

 the same tribe the traces of which had been observed by Eirikr the Red some- 

 what further north on the west coast. I think it most probable that the two 

 Icelandic colonies during the whole period of settlement have in reahty been 

 surrounded by Eskimo both northwards and southwards, though however in the 

 first century without knowing anything of them. Between the northern and 

 southern (eastern) group of Eskimo there has been no connection. 



^) Here and in the following I partly build on my previous account of "Data 



about the East Eskimo" (1904) pp. 1.")— 48. 

 2) Finnur Jonsson (1899) p. 284. 



44* 



