By Jack Campisi, Ph. D.
The Mashantucket Pequot Archives and Special Collections recently purchased a collection of Greenland Eskimo folktales entitled Kaladlit Okalluktualliait-Gronlandske Folkesagen (Legends From Greenland…). Written in Native Greenlandic (an Inuit-Inupiat language) and Danish, and laboriously printed on a hand press in Greenland, the four volume set contains Eskimo oral traditions collected by Hinrich Rink, a natural scientist who explored North Greenland beginning in 1848. Rink’s studies of glaciers formed a basis for the modern science of glaciology and in the course of his years of research, he became acquainted with a number of Eskimo communities and collected some of their oral traditions. In 1857, he returned to Greenland as its Danish Crown Inspector. Two years later he published the first of the four volumes of Kaladlit Okalluktualliait. Still deeply concerned with the social and cultural welfare of the Eskimos, Rink started publishing a newspaper in Greenlandic in 1861.
To illustrate the stories, Rink enlisted the talents of Aron of Kangeq, an Eskimo who was bedridden with tuberculosis. Having heard of Aron’s skill as an artist, Rink furnished him with paper, coloring pencils, and woodworking tools. The result was thirty superb illustrations of the stories of his people, including scenes of hunting sea mammals (see page 6) and aspects of social life. One scene depicts a fleet of umiaks loaded with families sailing amid multi-storied ice floes (below). The large open boats of skin stretched over wooden frames are propelled by men rowing, augmented by sails. Other illustrations show a man with a narwhal he has killed being greeted by his family on his return from the hunt; children playing; men building a kayak; men wrestling; and images from the spirit world.
Prominent among the illustrated stories are several dealing with the Norse, particularly conflicts between them and the Eskimo communities. The Danish scholar Inge Kleivan has written that “The main theme of the legends about the Norse is why and how the Eskimos exterminated the Norse.”1 Kleivan’s comment raises an interesting question: what became of the Vikings who settled Greenland toward the end of the tenth century?
Before attempting to answer this question, we need some understanding of the island’s geography and history. Greenland is the world’s largest island and one of its least hospitable, extending from 50º 40' north to 83º 39' north latitude and covering 839,782 square miles. Eighty-four percent the island is glacial and only a portion of the coastal areas are ice free for at least a part of the year. Off its western shore are (or at least were) rich fishing and whaling grounds. These resources, plus caribou, musk ox and an assortment of fur-bearing animals, brought the Eskimo to its shores approximately 4,000 years ago.
Some 3,000 years later, the Norse, led by Erik the Red, arrived in Greenland. Erik and his followers had left their native Norway around 970, after a number of murders had been attributed to him. Initially, they settled in Iceland, but they were a contentious bunch, engaging in such continuous conflict with their neighbors that they were soon banished for three years to a remote location in Iceland. Given the poor quality of the land available to him and the time provided by the banishment, Erik decided to search for a better place to live. Accordingly, he sailed west where he found and explored the southwest coast of Greenland, so named by him to encourage colonization. He returned to Iceland and around 985 led a fleet of 25 ships, fully loaded with colonists, cattle, tools and the rude furnishings needed to make the new land (new to them) home.
Only 14 ships survived the voyage, but others soon followed and within a few years the Norse had established two settlements along the southwest coast, where they built farms and raised sheep and cattle. The fjords provided sufficient hay to sustain their stock throughout the winter. The Norse supplemented their diet with fish, seals and caribou. In time the population was sufficient to support as many as 20 churches. Trade with their Norwegian-Danish homeland was important for it provided the Norse with a number of items not otherwise available. These included grains, salt, and iron. In exchange, the Norse provided furs, walrus and narwhal tusks and tons of dried cod, a staple of European diets.
The Norse did not limit their interests to the west coast of Greenland. Davis Strait, which separates Greenland from North America is but a few hundred miles wide, not a formidable barrier for the Norse. According to the sagas, Lief Erikson, the son of Erik the Red, carried on an extensive exploration from Baffin Island south to Newfoundland. Indeed, a Norse site dating to 1000 A.D. has been excavated at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. The Norse undoubtedly fished and hunted along the coast and cut timber to bring to their treeless settlements in Greenland.
Navigational skill, a knowledge of the vagaries of the northern seas handed down through the families, a stubborn determination and a bit of luck served these early Viking explorers. However, their opportunities would have been virtually non-existent had it not been for a factor beyond their control or understanding. The Norse expansion into the North Atlantic coincided with a major climate change – a warming trend begun at the end of the last glacial period, one that reached its zenith between A.D. 800 and 1200. The effect was to push the pack ice several hundred miles north, leaving the shores of Iceland and Greenland relatively open most of the year. The warmer summers and winters (still harsh by any standard) allowed for more abundant pastures and even an occasional crop of barley in Greenland.
However, by the early 1300s, climatic conditions changed drastically as the northern hemisphere entered the Little Ice Age (1300-1850). Pack ice moved south, and travel in the northern Atlantic became nearly impossible. Over the centuries contacts between the Norse and their Scandinavian kin became increasingly infrequent – and by the end of the fifteenth century apparently ceased. In the seventeenth century the Danish-Norwegian king, who possessed Greenland, sought to re-establish contact with the Norse settlements, to bring them back to the Christian fold and also to gain profits from whaling and fishing. By the early 1700s Denmark-Norway had established permanent settlements, and while they met and traded with the Eskimos, who now inhabited the coast, no Norse were to be found. What had become of the Norse?
In the best of times, survival for the Norse on Greenland was precarious. Even during the height of the warming period, a year or two of cold weather could bring on famine. Thus it is likely that with the onset of the Little Ice Age, which began in the 1200s A. D. in Greenland (a century before its effects were felt in Europe), the scales of survival quickly tipped against the Norse.
What became of them is still an enigma. “There are three ways to explain what happened to the Norse” writes the Danish scholar Inge Kleivan, “They died in Greenland, they emigrated, or they mixed with the Eskimos and were integrated into the Eskimo population.”2 There is no evidence to support the second explanation, and while the third has some plausibility, at least in individual cases, the first seems the most reasonable. Famine and disease may have contributed to their disappearance, but if we are to give credence to the Eskimo stories collected by Rink, the answer is that they were exterminated by their Eskimo adversaries.
In two of the stories the Eskimos instigated hostilities toward the Norse. In the first, an Eskimo killed a Norseman, and his kin, in response, attacked an Eskimo village, killing all its inhabitants except two brothers. “The Norse chieftain, Uunngortoq, chased them and killed the younger brother; but the elder one, Qasape, escaped.” In the second, an Eskimo girl caused problems between the groups. Again, while the Eskimos were responsible for the initial incident, the Norse retaliation was excessive, attacking an undefended Eskimo camp and killing all the women and children. As Kleivan points out:
In both cases an Eskimo is made responsible for the origin of the enmity between the two people, but the merciless attack by the Norse is meant to justify the counterattack by the Eskimos that exterminated the Norse. The sequels of both these introductory sections are variants of the same story. The Eskimos approached the Norse settlement in a boat that a shaman had made to look like ice in order not to arouse Norse suspicions. They surprised the Norse and set fire to their house. The Norse chief escaped but was chased and killed by an Eskimo who was particularly anxious to take revenge because a near relative of his had been killed and he had in addition seen the body being maltreated by the Norse.” 3
In another variation of the Eskimo attack, all the Norse are killed, except their leader, but it is not clear either why he survived or what became of him. A woodcut image by Aron of Kangeq at the top of page 5 illustrates the events described.
The four volumes present a rich panoply of Eskimo life before Norse and Danish intrusions and illustrate the successful adaptation of the Eskimo to a hostile climate. The volumes also are a linguistic treasure, preserving older forms of Greenlandic. As such, they are a welcomed addition to the library’s growing collection of Native language materials.
Footnotes:
1-3
Kleivan, Inge, 1984, “History of Norse Greenland.” Pp. 549 - 555 in Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 5 Arctic. William C. Sturtevant, general editor, Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
References:
Fagan, Brian, 2000, The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300 - 1850. New York: Basic Books.
Fitzhugh, William W., 1984, “Paleo-Indian Cultures of Greenland.” Pp. 528 - 539 in Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 5 Arctic. William C. Sturtevant, general editor, Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
Gad, Finn, 1984, “History of Colonial Greenland.” Pp. 556 - 576 in Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 5 Arctic. William C. Sturtevant, general editor, Washington: Smithsonian Institution.
Rink, Hinrich, editor 1859-1863, Kaladlit Okalluktualliait-Gronlandske Folkesagen (Legends From Greenland…) 4 volumes. Godthaab, Greenland: Inspectorate Press by L. Moller.
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