User:Generalissima/Skræling

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A rewrite attempt of Skræling.

Etymology[edit]

Skrælíng (plural Skrælingjar) is most likely related to the Old Norse word skrá, meaning "dried skin", in reference to the animal pelts worn by arctic peoples.[1] Danish linguist William Thalbitzer speculated that skræling might have been derived from the Old Norse verb skrækja, meaning "bawl, shout, or yell".[2]

"Kalaallit", the name of the largest group of Greenlandic Inuit, is probably derived from skræling. In 1750, Paul Egede wrote that the Greenlandic Inuit described themselves as Inuit among themselves, but described themselves as Kalaallit when speaking to non-Inuit, stating that this was the term used by Norse settlers.[2]

Greenland[edit]

Two indigenous cultures, the Dorset and Thule, also referred to as the Tuniit and Proto-Inuit, were present at various points in Greenland during the period of Norse settlement from the late 10th to early 15th centuries. Dorset settlement was limited to the northwesternmost reaches of the island, disappearing in the 14th century following an extended period of Thule settlement across the western coast.[3] Although the two had significant cultural and material differences, the Norse applied the term Skræling to both of these groups.

Background[edit]

The earliest cultural groupings in the eastern North American Arctic were the Pre-Dorset c. 3200 BCE, followed by the Independence I and Saqqaq cultures in Greenland.[4] The early Dorset culture settled in portions of Ellesmere Island and Greenland, but the island was fully abandoned by c. 1 CE.[5] The island would remain unoccupied until the late 700s or early 800s CE, when a cluster of Late Dorset groups occupied both sides of the Nares Strait.[6][7] Small populations of Dorset were the only inhabitants of Greenland prior to Norse settlement. 10-40 Dorset families lived around Smith Sound, mainly in megalithic stone longhouses or hearths, with regional populations peaking around the 900s and 1000s CE.[8] Late Dorset sites dating to the 1200s CE have been found further north at Inglefield Land, Washington Land, and Hall Land.[9] The Late Dorset were relatively sedentary, occupying the same regions for several hundred years, although individuals likely travelled large distances between regions of Dorset settlement despite lacking the dogsleds or large boats of later Arctic cultures.[10]

The Thule, the ancestors of the modern Inuit, sailed to Greenland in the 12th century after migrating from northwestern Alaska. Although the Dorset and Thule coexisted in Northwestern Greenland for up to 200 years, relatively little cultural transmission existed between the groups.[11]

Trade and contact[edit]

Norse farmsteads at the Western and Eastern Settlements were first built c. 985. Greenlandic Norse farmers would periodically embark on hunting expeditions to the Norðrsetur, 'Northern hunting grounds', building temporary structures north of Disko Bay, and at least occasionally traveling as far north as Melville Bay. Considerable European demand for ivory led to the prolific hunting of walruses and narwhals in Greenland.[12]

Norse artifacts have been found in both late Dorset and Thule sites contemporary to Norse settlements in the region.[13] While Norse-Dorset interactions were limited ,

Thule winter settlements spread south along the western coast during the 13th century. Settlements reached the vicinity of the Western Settlement at Nuup Kangerlua by 1300, leading to competition over local sealing grounds. Despite a shared region of sealing, the Greenlandic Norse continued to use traditional net-based sealing techniques as opposed to Thule strategies of harpoons and ice hunts.[14]

Violence[edit]

The two written sources interactions between the Norse and the Skrælíngja focus on violence, with no mention of trade. The earliest source describing Greenlandic Skrælíngja, dates to nearly 250 years after initial settlement, a 12th century passage in the Historia Norvegiae relaying a battle between Norse hunters and a group of Skrælíngja in northern Greenland. These people were described fancifully as bleeding white, although a note that they lacked iron weapons suggests that they were Dorset. The Icelandic Annals in 1379 describes an attack by a group of Skrælíngja, said to have killed 18 Norsemen and enslaved two boys.[15][16]

North America[edit]

c. 1000, Norse explorers from Greenland reached the coast of North America. Norse literature describes the continent as comprising three distinct lands: Helluland, Markland, and Vinland. Only the last is described as having native inhabitants, the Skrælíngja. The region explored by the Norse, corresponding loosely to Atlantic Canada

Description in the sagas[edit]

The Eiríks Saga (the Saga of Erik the Red) and the Grænlendinga Saga (Saga of the Greenlanders), collectively known as the "Vinland sagas", detail the Norse discovery and settlement of Vinland, including early encounters with the Skrælíngja.

Eiríks Saga[edit]

The Eiríks Saga describes a party led by Thorfinn Karlsefni encountering the Skrælíngja, described as "ugly men" with "bad hair" and "dark skin". A one-legged Skrælíng, described as an einfœtingr, shoots and kills Þorvaldr Eiríksson in the saga. The concept of a monstrous monopedal race is a common trope in Medieval travel literature and descriptions of distant lands, although some scholars have interpreted the incident in a more serious light.[17]

Legacy and historiography[edit]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon (1989). Íslensk orðsifjabók [Icelandic Etymological Dictionary]. Reykjavík: Orðabók Háskólans.
  2. ^ a b Ernst Hakon Jahr; Ingvild Broch (1 January 1996). Language Contact in the Arctic: Northern Pidgins and Contact Languages. Walter de Gruyter. p. 233. ISBN 978-3-11-081330-2.
  3. ^ Maschner, Mason & McGhee 2009, p. 317.
  4. ^ Friesen & Mason 2016, pp. 12–14.
  5. ^ Friesen & Mason 2016, pp. 756–757.
  6. ^ Friesen & Mason 2016, pp. 785–789.
  7. ^ Maschner, Mason & McGhee 2009, p. 303.
  8. ^ Maschner, Mason & McGhee 2009, pp. 300–303.
  9. ^ Maschner, Mason & McGhee 2009, pp. 301, 309–310.
  10. ^ Maschner, Mason & McGhee 2009, pp. 305–309.
  11. ^ Maschner, Mason & McGhee 2009, pp. 305–311.
  12. ^ Maschner, Mason & McGhee 2009, p. 304.
  13. ^ Gulløv 2008, pp. 19–20.
  14. ^ Dugmore, Keller & McGovern 2007, pp. 18–19.
  15. ^ Friesen & Mason 2016, p. 903.
  16. ^ Gulløv 2008, pp. 21–22.
  17. ^ Abram 2019, pp. 116–117.

Bibliography[edit]


Sources[edit]

Books[edit]

  • Pedersen, Anne and Søren M. Sindbæk. Viking encounters: Proceedings of the Eightteenth Viking Congress. Aarhus University Press, 2020. Project MUSE. muse.jhu.edu/book/100355
  • KOLODNY, ANNETTE. In Search of First Contact: The Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of the Dawnland, and the Anglo-American Anxiety of Discovery. Duke University Press, 2012. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11g97zn.
  • Abram, Christopher. “Trees, Vines, and the Golden Age of Settlement.” In Evergreen Ash: Ecology and Catastrophe in Old Norse Myth and Literature, 103–23. University of Virginia Press, 2019. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvbcd06q.10.
  • Johansson, Karl G. “The Search for Vínland and Norse Conceptions of the World.” In Conceptualizing the World: An Exploration across Disciplines, edited by Helge Jordheim and Erling Sandmo, 1st ed., 4:286–98. Berghahn Books, 2019. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvw04kj6.23.
  • WATTS, EDWARD. “The Norse Forefathers of the American Empire.” In Colonizing the Past: Mythmaking and Pre-Columbian Whites in Nineteenth-Century American Writing, 162–210. University of Virginia Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvw1d556.9.
  • Ernst Hakon Jahr; Ingvild Broch (1 January 1996). Language Contact in the Arctic: Northern Pidgins and Contact Languages. Walter de Gruyter. p. 233. ISBN 978-3-11-081330-2.
  • From Middle Ages to colonial times: archaeological and ethnohistorical studies of the Thule culture of south west Greenland 1300–1800 AD. Hans Christian Gulløv. 1997. Copenhagen: Dansk Polar Center

Articles[edit]

  • Yeager, Stephen. "The Global Far North: Planning Indigenization Efforts in Medieval Studies." English Language Notes 58, no. 2 (2020): 151-166. muse.jhu.edu/article/772655.
  • Prentiss, A. M., Walsh, M. J., & Foor, T. A. (2018). Evolution of early thule material culture: Cultural transmission and terrestrial ecology. Human Ecology, 46(5), 633-650. doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-017-9963-9
  • McGhee, Robert. “Contact between Native North Americans and the Medieval Norse: A Review of the Evidence.” American Antiquity 49, no. 1 (1984): 4–26. https://doi.org/10.2307/280509.
  • Guðmundsson, Guðmundur J. “Greenland and the Wider World.” Journal of the North Atlantic, 2009, 66–73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26686938.
  • Halink, Simon. "The good sense to lose America: Vinland as remembered by Icelanders." In From Iceland to the Americas, pp. 160-178. Manchester University Press, 2020.

Theses[edit]

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