Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1962, Page 89

INVENTIO FORTUNATA
71
from both written and archaeologi-
cal evidence;23 from the written ac-
counts of the yearly hunting expe-
ditions north and west from the
farming settlements on the southern
part of the west coast of Greenland;
from the eider duck nesting grounds
in the far north; from the polar
bear traps found as far west as the
Melville Peninsula; from the popu-
larity of the white falcon in the
Middle Ages; from cairns and runic
stones. We know also that from the
beginnings of the settlement of
Greenland some people yearly left
the farming settlements and took up
a life dependent on hunting, moving
to the northern part of the west
coast of Greenland, across to Baffin
Island, to Labrador and other adja-
cent regions of the North—to the
regions the Icelanders c a 11 e d
Nordrseta (the Northern Booth-
Dwellers Region) ,24 Evidence has
been accumlating, although this has
not yet been widely understood, that
the bearers of the so-called Thule
culture—the most widespread and
first true Eskimo culture — were
actually the Dorset people25 heavily
intermixed with the Icelanders in
Greenland.26 There can be little
doubt that the Skraelings are to be
indentified as the bearers of the
Dorset culture. This intermixture
between the two peoples and the
hunting expeditions of the Iceland-
ers meant, of course, that all regions
of the eastern Canadian Arctic be-
came well known not only in Green-
land but throughout Europe. Again,
the racial intermixture forced the
church in Greenland to send its
priests far and wide throughout the
Canadian Arctic in an attempt to
prevent the abandonment of the
faith by its intermixed populace.27
This was, however, too big a task
for the slim resources of the diocese
of Gardar in Greenland. The emi-
gration from the farming settle-
ments in Greenland continued.
About 1342 the inhabitants of the
Western Settlement moved en masse
from their farms and as the an-
nalist says “abandoning all good
mores joined the peoples of Amer-
ica,” i.e. the Skraelings.
It was at this time that a priest
named Ivar Bardarson was appoint-
ed administrator of the episcopal see
of Gardar in Greenland. It was he
who in 1342 on a visitation to the
Western Settlement discovered that
it had been abandoned. What did he
do about this? We do not really
23. Cf. Gunnar and Fridtjov Isachsen, “Hvor langt mod nord kom de norröne
Grönlendingar?” Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift, IV (1932-1933), 75-92; Dúason,
Landkönnun, pp. 426-455. These works cite all the sources.
24. Ibid. pp. 370-401.
25. So-called Eskimos, long extinct, whose culture was first identified in a brilliant
piece of detective work by Diamond Jenness in 1925 on the basis of some
artifacts from Cafe Dorset on Baffin Island. Since then numerous Dorset sites
have been found in the eastern Canadian Arctic, in Labrador and in New-
foundland as well as in Greenland. See Willjam E. Taylor, “Review and As-
sessment of the Dorset Problem”, Anthropologica, N.S. I. (1959), 24-46.
26. Dúason, Landkönnun, passim. The Thule culture was first identified by
Therkel Mathiassen on the Fifth Thule Expedition to the American Arctic 1921-
24. Thule culture sites have been found from Greenland to Siberia, but the
earliest are in Greenland (cf. Henry B. Collins, “Recent Developments in the
Dorset Culture Area”, American Antiquity, XVIII (1953), 32-39).
27. A task in which it failed.