19 



With respect to the Skraelings in these lands, Storm has 

 tried to prove that they were not Eskimo, but Indian tribes 

 that the old discoverers came across. His arguments, how- 

 ever, do not seem to me to be quite convincing, especially 

 because the information given by the sagas about these natives 

 is too scanty and too general to serve as a certain basis for 

 any identification whatever. They might have been Eskimo as 

 well as Indians; if the latter, then a tribe not known at present, 

 which used skin-boats for rowing out on the open sea. For it 

 is scarcely as insignificant a feature as Storm would make it 

 out to be, when it is related in the saga that these Skrælings 

 used skin-boats (huökeipar), just as at present the Eskimo and 

 no other people do. This point is too characteristic to be 

 accidental or erroneous. There is really most reason to assume 

 that the Eskimo are meant, especially since it seems certain 

 that they have formerly dwelt farther south on the eastern 

 coast of America than they do now. Now they are not found 

 south of 47° N. lat. (Hamilton Inlet in Labrador)*}. 



Read, for instance. Baron de Lahontan, the emigrant's 



description of his travels, dating from about the year 1700, where 



he tells about the Eskimo in Canada, and you will already find 



them farther south on the map. I shall quote a part of this 



book, which gives a good idea of the way in which the French 



settlers looked upon the w ild natives **) : 



De l'autre côté du Fleuve (Saint Laurent) on voit la 

 grande terre de Labrador ou des Eskimaux, qui sont des 



Peuples si féroces qu'on n'a Jamais im les humaniser 



Les Danois sont les premiers qui l'ont découverte ; elle est 



both independently of each other came to the result 49° N. lat. as the 

 extreme northern limit to which the eykt and dagmal -positions could 

 refer (cf. Fischer u. s. p. 100). 



*) cf. F. Rüssel and H. M. Huxley: "A Comparative Study of the Physical 

 Structure of the Labrador Eskimos and the New England Indians" 

 (Proc. Amer. Assoc, for the Adv. of Science, Vol. 48, 1899). 



'*) Baron de Lahontan: "Mémoires de l'Amérique septentrionale". 1703. 

 Vol. II, p. 9 ff. 



2* 



