Empires and Imperialism 2729
The culture was Norse. Iceland was a republican renegade state to the Norwegian monarchy; created as a consequence of the purges of Erik I "Bloodaxe" and the similar situation...
The word is "SkrÌÏling" (or Skraeling, transliterated into ascii).
Literally it is a diminutive of "shrunken one". It was applied to American Indians, Inuit and pre-inuit settlers of Baffin Island.
Another tidbit, the Norse in Greenland were settlers ("NÌ´msmenn") , not Vikings. Vikings were a separate clbutt of warriors, and quite rare in Iceland and Greenland. They mainly went south to rape and pillage.
From the sources we have we must conclude that the interaction with the Inuit were almost non-existant. The Norse were very good at describing historical events like battles and discoveries, but there is almost nothing in their written history about the Inuit.
snip The settlers-vikings that went to Vinland were very few, and they were a third wave. The estimated numbers for a.d. 1000 are : Mainland (Norway, Denmark, parts...
The brief and bloody encounter with the American Indians is well documented. These Indians were clear regarding settlement policy; they would accept trade and a minimal settlement for that purpose; but would not allow permanent immigration. The settlement in North America therefore lasted only around 10 years, from 999 to 1008-9. Exploratory excursions were done in 1000 and 1002, and they probably got as far as the US-Canadian border area, but only ventured briefly ashore. But, in want of a Green Card they had to take the boat home.
On Thu, 09 Feb 2006 02:25:59 -0500 in alt.folklore.computers, Scots rejected absolute monarchy, feudalism, and episcopalianism when English influenced kings tried to introduce them, and the law of the land is, unlike English Common...
These 10 years of contact with the inhabitants of the mainland is well documented, as well as some encounters with pre-inuit settlers of Baffin Island. But 250 years of co-existance with Inuit only produces material that is less than a paragraph in length, and quite ambigous. They also used the same word for them as for the mainland Indians.
Norse and Inuit lived in totally separate ecological niches, and had no big gains in trade to achieve; and had a huge distance in language and customs. It seems to have been remarkably devoid of conflicts, except for the occational skirmish.
Why the Norse in Greenland didn't fish is a big mystery though; the Norse in northern Norway lived off the fish for a millenium. They would probably have survived until 1712 (when the danes reclaimed Greenland) if they had.
-- mrr
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