In Northern Mists Volume Ii Part 6

William Thalbitzer [1904, pp. 20, f.] has adduced, as a possible evidence of the more southerly extension of the Eskimo in former times, the fact that the name "Nipisiguit," of a little river in New Brunswick (46 40' N. lat.), bears a strong resemblance to the Eskimo place-name "Nepisat" in Greenland, and he also mentions another place-name, "Tadoussak," which has a very Eskimo look. But in order to form any opinion we should have to know the language of the extinct Indian tribes of these parts, as well as the original forms of the names given. They are now only known from certain old maps; but we cannot tell how they got on to those maps.

[Sidenote: Ultimate fate of the Eskimo]

The Eskimo are one of the few races of hunters on the earth who with their peculiar culture have still been able to hold their own fairly well in spite of contact with European civilisation; the reason for this is partly that they live so far out of the way that the contact has been more or less cursory, partly also, as far as Greenland is concerned, that they have been treated with more or less care, and it has been sought to protect them against harmful European influences. In spite of this it has not been possible to prevent their declining and becoming more and more impoverished. The increase of their population in recent years might doubtless give a contrary impression; but here other factors have to be reckoned with. When the Eskimo first came in contact with European culture, it was, as will be shown in the next chapter, their own culture which in these surroundings gained the upper hand as soon as communication with Europe was cut off. This would happen again if European and Eskimo could be left to themselves, entirely cut off from the outer world. But as this is impossible, the Eskimo culture is doomed to succ.u.mb slowly to our trivial, all-conquering European civilisation.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XI

THE DECLINE OF THE NORSE SETTLEMENTS IN GREENLAND

[Sidenote: Decline of the Greenland settlements]

The Eastern and Western Settlements in Greenland seem, as we have said, to have grown rapidly immediately after the discovery of the country and the first settlement there. Their flouris.h.i.+ng period was in the eleventh, twelfth, and part of the thirteenth centuries; but in the fourteenth they seem to have declined rapidly; notices of them become briefer and briefer, until they cease altogether after 1410, and in the course of the following hundred years the Norse population seems to have disappeared entirely. The causes of this decline were many.[72] It has been thought that it was chiefly due to an immigration into Greenland on a large scale of Eskimo, who gradually overpowered and exterminated the Nors.e.m.e.n; but, as will be shown later, there is no ground for believing this; even if hostile encounters took place between them, these cannot have been of great importance.

In the first place the decline must be attributed to changes in the relations with Norway. From the "King's Mirror" (cf. vol. i. p. 277), amongst other authorities, we see that the Greenlanders doubtless had to manage to some extent without such European wares as flour and bread; they lived mainly by sealing and fis.h.i.+ng, and also by keeping cattle, which gave them milk and cheese. But there were many necessary things, such as iron for implements and weapons, and to some extent even wood[73] for larger boats and s.h.i.+ps, which had to be obtained from Europe, besides the encouragement and support which were afforded in many ways by communication with the outer world. This was not of small moment to people who lived in isolation under such hard conditions, at the extreme limit at which a European culture was possible; it wanted little to turn the scale.

It is therefore easy to understand that as soon as communication with the mother country declined, the conditions of life in Greenland became so unattractive that those who had the chance removed elsewhere, and doubtless in most cases to Norway.

[Sidenote: Decline in reproduction]

But at the same time there was certainly a physiological factor involved.

For the healthy nourishment of a European cereals (hydro-carbons) are necessary, and there can be no doubt that a prolonged exclusive diet of meat and fat will in the case of most Europeans reduce the vital force, and not least the powers of reproduction. This agrees with my own experience and observation under various conditions, as, for instance, during ten consecutive months' exclusive diet of meat and fat. It is also confirmed by physiological experiments on omnivorous animals. The Greenlanders were reduced to living by sealing, fis.h.i.+ng, and keeping cattle; milk, with its sugar of milk, was their chief subst.i.tute for the hydro-carbons in cereals; besides this, they no doubt collected crowberries, angelica and other vegetables; but even during the short summer this cannot have been sufficient to counterbalance the want of flour. It is therefore probable that their powers of reproduction underwent a marked decrease, and they became a people of small fecundity.

The Eskimo have had thousands of years for adapting themselves through natural selection to their monotonous flesh-diet, since those among them who were best fitted for it had the better chance of producing offspring; there is certainly a great difference between individuals in this respect; some of us are by nature more vegetarian, while others are more carnivorous. It is therefore natural that the present-day Eskimo should be better suited for this diet; but it is none the less striking that the rate of productiveness among them is also low.

As, then, the Greenlanders' communications with Norway fell off more and more, their imports of corn and flour finally ceased altogether. Their cattle-keeping must then have declined as well, since they would have little opportunity of renewing their stock or getting other kinds of supplies, when bad years intervened and the greater part of the stock had to be slaughtered or died of hunger. Consequently the people became still more dependent on sealing; and thereby the cattle must have been neglected. In this way their diet would become even less varied, since milk would be lacking, and their reproduction would be further restricted.

Add to this that their average proficiency in sealing, at first in any case, was doubtless not to be compared with that of the Eskimo, and that they were without salt for preserving their catch, which therefore had to be dried or frozen. They were thus not able to lay up a large provision, and were always more and more dependent on occasional catches. It is easy to understand that their power of resistance was not great, when bad seasons for sealing occurred, or when they were ravaged by disease, and it is not surprising if the population decreased.

[Sidenote: Cessation of communication with Europe]

The cessation of the communication of Greenland with Iceland and Norway came about in the following way: between 1247 and 1261, during the reign of Hkon Hkonsson, Greenland voluntarily became subject to the Norwegian crown, whilst before this it had been a free State like Iceland. In 1294, trade with the tributary countries of Norway, Greenland among them, was declared a sort of royal monopoly or privilege, which the king could farm out to Norwegian subjects. The result of this was that only the king's s.h.i.+ps--and of these there was as a rule only one, called "Knarren," for the Greenland traffic--were permitted to sail there for the purposes of trade,[74] and this was the beginning of the end. Even before that time communication with Greenland was rare. Thus we read in the "King's Mirror"

that people seldom went there. But now, when the royal trading s.h.i.+p was practically the only one that made the voyage, things were to be much worse. Frequently several years were occupied on one trip. As some time elapsed also between each voyage, it will be understood that, at the best, the communication was not lively. But when it occasionally happened that "Knarren" was wrecked, things were still worse. That the communication may have been defective as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century is seen from a letter from Bishop Arne, of Bergen, to Bishop Tord in Greenland, of June 22, 1308, wherein it is taken for granted that the death of King Eric nine years before, in 1299, was not yet known in Greenland. In the middle of the fourteenth century, for instance, "Knarren" returned to Bergen in 1346 safe and sound and with a very great quant.i.ty of goods; but perhaps did not sail again until 1355, and we hear nothing of her return before 1363 (?). In 1366 we hear that "Knarren" was again fitted out; but she was wrecked north of Bergen in the following year, probably on the outward voyage. In the year following a new trading s.h.i.+p must actually have arrived with the new bishop, Alf; but it is stated that Greenland had then been without a bishop for nineteen years. In 1369 the Greenland s.h.i.+p seems again to have been sunk off Norway.[75]

It looks as if these voyages of "Knarren" became rarer and rarer, until at the beginning of the fifteenth century (1410) they presumably ceased altogether; in any case, we hear no more of them. Even though the Greenland traffic may have paid, it cost money to fit out "Knarren," and when there was so much doing in other quarters, it was not always easy to procure the necessary funds. Another reason for the decline was the growing influence and power of the Hanseatic League over trade and navigation in Norway. Together with the Victualien Brethren and the adherents of the captive King Albrekt of Sweden, the Leaguers took and sacked Bergen in 1393. In 1428 the town was again taken by the Hanseatic League. It may easily be understood that events of this kind had a disturbing and perhaps entirely paralysing effect on the Greenland traffic, which had its headquarters in this town. Moreover, Norway had before this been much weakened by the Black Death, which visited the country in 1349. It raged with special virulence in Bergen; but there is no notice of the disease having spread to Greenland; perhaps that country was spared through "Knarren" not having sailed there before 1355, and probably no other s.h.i.+p having made the voyage in the interval. In 1392 there was again a severe pestilence throughout Norway, and many people died. In that year too a great many s.h.i.+ps were wrecked. There were thus a number of misfortunes at that time, and the people of Norway had enough to occupy them in their own affairs. Another circ.u.mstance unfavourable to the communication with Greenland was the union of Norway with Denmark, and for a time with Sweden. The seat of government was thereby removed to Copenhagen, and interest in Norway, and especially in its so-called tributary countries, was further greatly diminished by the larger claims of Denmark and Sweden.

It is reasonable to suppose that under such conditions the settlements in Greenland, which were almost entirely cut off, must have decayed; comparatively few, perhaps, were able to get a pa.s.sage, and left the country by degrees; but the people declined in numbers; they adopted an entirely Eskimo mode of living, and mixed with the Eskimo, who perhaps at the same time spread southwards in greater numbers along the west coast of Greenland. It was remarked in the last chapter that the Nors.e.m.e.n, when they arrived in the country, evidently looked down upon the stone-age, troll-like Skraelings, whom they could hunt and ill-use with impunity; with their iron weapons, their warlike propensities, and their larger vessels, they may perhaps have been able to maintain this imaginary superiority in the early days, so long as they still had some kind of supplies from abroad. But it is obvious that these relations must have been fundamentally changed when this communication gradually ceased, and they were reduced, without any support from Europe, to make the best of the country's resources; then the real superiority of the Eskimo in these surroundings a.s.serted its full rights, and the Greenlanders had to begin to look upon them in a very different light. It is therefore perfectly natural that from this very fourteenth century a fundamental change in the relations between Nors.e.m.e.n and Skraelings set in. And that such was the case seems to result in many ways from the meagre information we possess.

[Sidenote: Gisle Oddsson's annals on the decline of the Greenlanders]

In the Annals of Bishop Gisle Oddsson, written in Iceland in Latin before 1637, we read under the year 1342 [G. Storm, 1890a, pp. 355, f.; Gronl.

hist. Mind., iii. p. 459]:

"The inhabitants of Greenland voluntarily forsook the true faith and the religion of the Christians, and after having abandoned all good morals and true virtues turned to the people of America ('ad Americae populos se converterunt'); some also think that Greenland lies very near to the western lands of the world. From this it came about that the Christians began to refrain from the voyage to Greenland."

It is not known from whence Gisle Oddsson took this statement. As the expression "the people of America" ("Americae populi") is a curious one, and as the statements in the bishop's annals following that quoted above are entirely myths and inventions taken from Lyschander's "Gronlands Chronica" (but originally derived from Saxo and Adam of Bremen), Storm regarded the whole account as spurious and lacking any mediaeval authority.

Interpreting, curiously enough, "ad Americae populos se converterunt" to mean that the Greenlanders had emigrated to America, Storm supposes that this may be a hypothesis "formed to explain the disappearance from Greenland of the old Norwegian-Icelandic colony." But the meaning of the pa.s.sage can scarcely be interpreted otherwise than as translated above, that the Greenlanders had forsaken Christianity, given up good morals and virtues, and had been converted to the belief and customs of the American people (i.e., the Skraelings). The people of America must be a strained expression the bishop has used to denote the heathen Skraelings (who inhabited Greenland and the American lands) in contradistinction to the Christian Europeans. Greenland was frequently regarded in Iceland in those times as a part of America (cf. the map, p. 7). Hans Egede, for example, thought the natives of Greenland were "Americans." In other words, the statement simply means that in 1342 a report came that the Greenlanders were a.s.sociating amicably with the heathen Skraelings (which was forbidden by the ecclesiastical law of that time), and had begun to adopt their mode of life; which, in fact, is extremely probable.

The question is, then, from whence Gisle Oddsson may have derived this, which is not known from any other source. Storm thought it out of the question that it was taken from Lyschander (from whom the same annals have borrowed so much else); but we cannot be so sure of this. After having related the volcanic eruption and disasters in Iceland in 1340 (also recorded by Gisle Oddsson), Lyschander continues:

"Norway and Sweden and Greenland also They were hereafter well able to perceive That such things boded ill to them.

These kingdoms they came into the hands of the Dane, And Greenland went astray on the strand, Not long after these times."

Whatever may be meant by this strained, obscure expression about Greenland (is "strand" a misprint for "stand"--"went astray in its condition" ?), it might at any rate be interpreted to mean that its inhabitants had been converted (gone astray) to a heathen religion (the people of America); "not long after these times" (i.e., after 1340) may thus have been made into 1342. But the mention of a definite date--which, it may be remarked, would suit very well for the time when the Greenlanders pa.s.sed into Eskimo in larger numbers, at any rate in the Western Settlement (cf. Ivar Bardsson's description, see below, p. 108)--may possibly indicate that some ancient authority or other is really the foundation for the statement, and perhaps also for the lines quoted from Lyschander. Finn Magnussen [Gronl. hist. Mind., iii. p. 459] thinks that Gisle Oddsson may have derived much information from the archives and library of Skalholdt cathedral, which was burnt in 1630.

[Sidenote: Conversion of the Greenlanders into Eskimo]

Whether genuine or not, this statement may correctly describe the fate of the Greenland settlements. Deserted by the mother country, and left to their own resources, the Greenlanders were forced to adopt the Eskimo mode of life, and became absorbed in them. This took place first in the more northerly and more thinly populated Western Settlement, and later in the Eastern Settlement as well. The Eskimo with their kayaks and their sealing appliances were the superiors of the Greenlanders in sealing (as appears from the account of Bjorn Jorsalafarer), and their mode of life was better suited to the conditions of Greenland; it is therefore incredible that their culture should not gain the upper hand in an encounter, under conditions otherwise equal, with that of Europeans, even though there were certain things that they might learn of the Europeans, especially the use of iron.[76] Furthermore, the Greenlanders' stock of cattle, goats and sheep had, as we have seen (p. 97), greatly declined owing to the long severance from Europe, and for this reason also they were obliged to adopt more of the Eskimo way of life. But then their places of residence within the fjords, far from the sealing-grounds, were no longer advantageous, and by degrees they entirely adopted the Eskimo's more migratory life along the outer coast. Then, again, the Eskimo women were probably no less attractive to the Northerners of that time than they are to those of the present day, and thus much mixture of blood gradually resulted. The children came to speak the Eskimo language, and took at once to a wholly Eskimo way of life, just as at the present day the children of Danes and Eskimo in Greenland do. As the Nors.e.m.e.n at that time must also have been very inferior to the Eskimo in numbers, they must by degrees have become Eskimo both physically and mentally; and when the country was rediscovered in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were only Eskimo there, while all traces of the Norwegian-Greenland culture seemed to have disappeared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ruins of church at Kakortok in the Eastern Settlement (after Th. Groth)]

Let us suppose that we could repeat the experiment and plant a number of European sealers in Baffin Land, for instance, with their women, together with a greater number of Eskimo, and then cut off all communication with the civilised world. Can we have any doubt as to the kind of culture we should find there if we could come back after two hundred years? All the inhabitants would be Eskimo, and we should find few traces of European culture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Salmon-fis.h.i.+ng in Vazdal by Ketils-fjord in the Eastern Settlement (see map, vol. i. p. 265), where the "birch forest" is as high as 20 ft. From a photograph by Dr. T. N. Krabbe (A. S. Jensen, 1910)]

[Sidenote: Norse traces among the Greenland Eskimo]

It would doubtless seem reasonable to expect that the descendants of the ancient Nors.e.m.e.n of Greenland and of the Eskimo with whom they became absorbed should have shown signs in their external appearance of this descent, when discovered in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but unfortunately we have no descriptions of them from that time which allow of any conclusions being drawn on the subject. It is true that Hans Egede says [1741, p. 66] that the Eskimo of Greenland "have broad faces and thick lips, are flat-nosed and of a brownish complexion; though some of them are quite handsome and white"; but nothing definite can be concluded from this, and in the period after Egede's arrival the natives on the west coast became so mixed that it is now hopeless to look for any of the original race. It is, however, remarkable that Graah found in 1829-1831 Eskimo on the east coast of Greenland, many of whom struck him as resembling Scandinavians in appearance--a fact which he sought to explain by European sailors having perhaps been wrecked there.

But if it is now difficult to prove in this way the partially Norse descent of the natives on the southern west coast of Greenland, it is to be expected that there should be many vestiges in their myths and fairy-tales which would give evidence of this. And this is precisely what we find. In an earlier work [1891, pp. 207, ff.; Engl. ed., pp. 248, ff.]

I think I have pointed out numerous features in their tales that bear a resemblance to the Norse mythical world, and that must have been derived from thence; and many more might be adduced. The similarities are sufficiently numerous to bear witness to a quite intimate intellectual contact, and are in full agreement with what we should expect. But it may seem strange that their religious ideas did not show more Christian influence, especially when we see that even so late as 1407 Christianity was powerful enough in the Eastern Settlement for a man to be burnt for having seduced another's wife by witchcraft. There are, however, many features in their conceptions of another world, of which Egede speaks, which appear to be necessarily of Christian origin; we must suppose, too, that Christian education was at a very low ebb in Greenland at the close of the fourteenth century, and soon ceased altogether.

[Sidenote: Norse words in the Eskimo language]

Only a few words in the language of the Greenland Eskimo on the southern west coast have been shown to be of Norse origin. Hans Egede himself pointed out the following: "kona" (== wife, Old Norse kona), "sava" or "savak" (== sheep, O.N. saur, gen. saua), "nisa" or "nisak" (== porpoise, O.N. hnisa), "kuanek" (== angelica, O.N. hvonn, plur. hvannir).

Some of these words recur in Labrador Eskimo, but may have been introduced by the Moravian missionaries from Greenland. We may also mention the name the Eskimo of southern Greenland apply to themselves, "karalek" or "kalalek," which may come from the word Skraeling (which in Eskimo would become "sakalalek"). This, as the Eskimo told Egede, was the name the ancient Nors.e.m.e.n had called them by; otherwise the Eskimo call themselves "inuit" (== human beings); and curiously enough "kalalek" is not used by the Eskimo of northern Greenland; on the other hand, it is known to the Labrador Eskimo, but may have been brought by the missionaries, although the latter a.s.serted that it was known when they came. It is perhaps of more importance that, according to H. Rink, a similar word ("kallaluik,"

"katlalik" or "kallaaluch," for chief or shaman) occurs in the dialects of Alaska.

[Sidenote: Complaints of apostasy in notices of Greenland]

Through all the notices of Greenland and its condition, especially those from religious sources, there runs after the fourteenth century a cry of apostasy, which is ominous of this mixture of the Nors.e.m.e.n with the Skraelings: we see it in the doubtful statement from 1342 about their conversion to "the people of America"; a little later, according to Ivar Bardsson's account (see p. 108), the heathen Skraelings were predominant in the Western Settlement; furthermore, the trading s.h.i.+p was fitted out in 1355 to prevent the "falling away" of Christianity [Gronl. hist. Mind., iii. p. 122]; Bjorn Einarsson's account (see below, p. 112) concludes with the statement that when he was there (1386) "the bishop of Gardar was lately dead, and an old priest ... performed all the episcopal ordinations" [Gronl. hist. Mind., iii. p. 438]; after that time no bishop came to Greenland; and finally the papal letter of 1492-93 describes the Greenlanders as a people abandoned by bishop and priest, for which reason most of them had fallen from the Christian faith, although they still preserved a memory of the Christian church service (see later).[77] This may all point in the same direction: that the Nors.e.m.e.n in Greenland became more and more absorbed by the Eskimo.

[Sidenote: War of extermination improbable]

Of course there may have been occasional hostile encounters between the Eskimo and Nors.e.m.e.n in Greenland, especially as the latter, as pointed out in the last chapter, must frequently have acted with a heavy hand when they had the power. But that the Eskimo should have carried on a regular war of extermination, which resulted in the complete destruction first of the Western and then of the Eastern Settlement, as has been generally a.s.sumed until quite recently--this is incredible to any one who knows the Eskimo and considers what their conditions of life were. Where should they have developed this warlike propensity which was afterwards foreign to them, and where should they have had training in the art of war? This idea of the destruction of the settlements by hostilities is the result mainly of three statements about Greenland, of which one is very improbable and on many points impossible, another deals possibly with an actual attack, and the third is demonstrably false. We must here examine these notices a little more closely.

[Sidenote: Ivar Bardsson on the Western Settlement]

In 1341 Bishop Hakon of Bergen sent a priest, Ivar Bardsson, to Greenland.

He was for a number of years steward of the bishop's residence at Gardar, and is said also to have visited the Western Settlement. We do not know for certain how long he was in Greenland, but in 1364 he again appears in Norway [cf. G. Storm, 1887, p. 74]. There exists in Danish a description of the fjords, more especially of the Eastern Settlement, which, according to its own words, must to a great extent be derived from oral communications of this Ivar (see below). These must originally have been taken down by another Norwegian, in Norwegian, and were thence translated into Danish [cf. F. Jonsson, 1899, p. 279]. There is thus a double possibility that the third-hand version we possess may contain many errors and misconceptions, of which, in fact, it bears evident marks. After speaking of the fjords in the Eastern Settlement, it says of the Western Settlement and of the journey thither:[78]

"Item from the Eastern Settlement to the Western is a dozen sea-leagues and all is uninhabited, and there in the Western Settlement stands a great church which is called Stensness Church; this church was for a time a cathedral and the see of a bishop.[79]

Now the Skraelings possess the whole Western Settlement; there are indeed horses, goats, cattle and sheep, all wild, and no people either Christian or heathen.

"Item all this that is said above was told us by Iffuer bort [or Bardsen], a Greenlander, who was steward of the bishop's residence at Gardum in Greenland for many years, that he had seen all this and he was one of those who were chosen by the 'lagmand' to go to the Western Settlement against the Skraelings to expel the Skraelings from the Western Settlement, and when they came there they found no man, either Christian or heathen, but some wild cattle and sheep, and ate of the wild cattle, and took as much as the s.h.i.+ps could carry and sailed with it home [i.e., to the Eastern Settlement], and the said Iffuer was among them.