Reykjavík Grapevine - 31.07.2015, Blaðsíða 34

PLEASED TO MEAT YOU!
And yet, the history of Iceland, like other
origin stories, has strong literary traits.
Two brothers (“blood,” rather than “ac-
tual”) arrive in a new country, one dies,
the other becomes a founding father. Even
though the former is killed by his slaves,
not by his brother, there are strong simi-
larities to the story of Romulus and Remus
and other founding myths. This has even
led some recent scholars (Sverrir Jako-
bsson, Pernille Hermann, John Lindow) to
suggest that Iceland’s founding tale isn’t
actually “history,” but rather literature, in-
spired by the classics that the monks who
wrote the Sagas had access to.
Whatever the actual history, historical
writing both then and now draws a upon
literary narrative to make its point. In fact,
the Icelandic word “saga” refers to both
story and history, and until fairly recently,
people here did not really distinguish be-
tween the two (some would argue that
they still don’t).
Us and Them
So what then, precisely, is the point of the
founding myth? In his book ‘Sapiens: A
Brief History of Humankind’, Yuval Noah
Harari suggests that origin stories play an
important role in enabling people to think
as a group, and it is precisely this trait that
has allowed us to become the dominant
life form on this planet. He also claims that
in a global world, we should abandon na-
tional narratives and concentrate on the
history of our species.
Nevertheless, the national narratives
still hold sway. These are intended to en-
compass the entire nation, but are more
often than not actually far more exclusive.
The origin of the United States is a case in
point. Their founding narrative is actually
the story of white, male landholders—and
it took the Civil War and a decades-span-
ning Civil Rights movement for everyone
to be included (in theory, at least).
Iceland’s origin story is, inevitably,
also constructed around its ruling class.
The two brothers, Ingólfur and Hjörleifur,
are prominent slaveholders. Whereas re-
visionist historians in the US like to point
out that Washington, Jefferson and other
founding fathers were indeed slavehold-
ers, here that fact takes centre stage.
At the turning point of the narrative, the
slaves rise up and kill Hjörleifur. Ingólfur
avenges him by murdering the rebellious
slaves, thereby consecrating the land as
belonging to himself and his offspring,
rather than theirs.
And yet, slavery did not become much
of an issue in Iceland in the following cen-
turies. It disappeared in a few generations
without either civil war or much of a civil
rights movement. Descendants of both
slaves and freemen mixed freely; we are
all descendants of both, and Ingólfur is a
national hero to everyone.
Some are more independent than oth-
ers
In many ways, the founding of Iceland has
more similarities to the US than to Europe.
In his book ‘Iceland: The First New Soci-
ety’, Richard F. Thompson draws out some
of the similarities. Both Iceland and the
US appear on the surface to have been
founded in order to create something new,
but in fact, the aim was to preserve social
systems perceived to be under threat
in the old homeland. For the Icelanders,
the independence of the chieftains was
threatened by the unification of Norway
by King Harald Fairhair; for the Pilgrims,
their religious liberties were being threat-
ened by the King of England.
This might go some way towards ex-
plaining why, for all their emphasis on
newness, both countries seem to have
a strong conservative streak. Iceland’s
neighbours in Scandinavia tend to be
dominated by social-democratic parties
emphasising co-operation. In Iceland,
however, the conservative party (Sjálf-
stæðisflokkurinn), is by far the biggest,
and here the ideal is the individual, free
from outside interference, both social and
domestic. This is why they call it “The In-
dependence Party.” Iceland was founded
on the dream of individuals being inde-
pendent of the state. But perhaps, now as
then, this mostly applies to the chieftains.
Canada: A country
without myths?
A similar difference can be seen in the
United States vis-á-vis Canada. The latter,
despite being a new society and an im-
migrant community, lacks a strong found-
ing myth. In fact, it retains its ties with
the British Monarchy and only settled on
its own national anthem as late as 1982.
They share no origin story of a group of
settlers coming to found a new land and
establish a particularly Canadian way of
life. Canadians—unlike Americans, but
similar to Scandinavians—seem to prefer
co-operation over individualism.
However, societies within Canada tend
to celebrate their own origin stories. New
Iceland is a case in point., its founding nar-
rative reminiscent of both Icelandic and
American myths. Upon seeing Iceland,
Ingólfur threw his seat pillars into the sea
and decided to settle wherever they came
ashore, to the chagrin of his men, who felt
they had passed greener pastures in order
to settle in the smoky bay that remains our
capital.
Fate also drove the New Icelanders to
settle where they did. Their boats were
being towed across Lake Winnipeg to
the mouth of a river, where Riverton now
stands. However, a storm hit, they were
cut adrift and wound up landing where the
town of Gimli, the heart of New Iceland,
now stands. A rock at a peninsula called
Willow Creek marks the place they came
ashore, much as one in Plymouth, Massa-
chusetts, marks where the Pilgrims land-
ed. None of this is to suggest that these
events are made up, but when stories are
told and retold, they tend to take on liter-
ary traits.
Meet the New Iceland, same
as the Old Iceland
Much as the Norwegians in Iceland, Ice-
landers did not move to Manitoba to found
a new society, but rather to replicate their
old one, under better conditions. Despite
facing a wildly different environment, New
Icelanders tried their best to replicate the
old one for over 20 years, and people con-
ducted their affairs in Icelandic.
In 1897, the area was opened up to
other immigrants. Ten years prior, its
schools had been incorporated into the
Canadian school system and English be-
came the language of instruction. Those
that mastered it were able to enter Cana-
dian society and become journalists, doc-
tors, politicians. Those that clung to the
old language were doomed to remain on
the farm.
The Icelandic immigrants became fully
incorporated into Canadian society over
time, but they still celebrate the old tra-
ditions a few times a year and are proud
of their unique heritage. For them, as for
most Canadians, the act of assuming twin
identities brings little contradiction.
Inclusive exclusivity
Some origin stories eventually incorpo-
rate much larger groups than originally
intended. Most Americans, whether de-
scended from English Puritans or not,
celebrate the Mayflower landing and the
resulting Thanksgiving. In Iceland, Ingólfur
Arnarson is the father of the whole nation,
chieftains and slave-children alike. The
Romans later made all their subjects citi-
zens of the Empire, symbolic descendants
of Romulus.
Sometimes, later additions become
necessary. Lincoln freed the slaves and
hence became something of an additional
founding father—the same could be said
of Martin Luther King Jr., whose statue
stands alongside presidential monu-
ments in Washington. In Reykjavík, Jón
Sigurðsson, credited with initiating the
liberation of the country from the Danes,
looks sternly at Alþingi. Alongside him, we
celebrate Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir, credited
with instigating voting rights for women in
Iceland a hundred years ago.
Perhaps Harari is right, and we must
learn to outgrow our origin stories. Includ-
ing more and more people in the ones we
already have would seem to be a start,
but ultimately, the origin of each separate
group of people always means the exclu-
sion of another to some extent.
Maybe one day, we’ll celebrate a
species-wide origin story rather than the
many national ones. Of course by that
time, we will no doubt be deeply involved
a war with Kepler-186f, and in dire need of
mythologies to tell us why we are superior
to those pesky Keplerians.
Every nation has an origin story. Unique about Icelanders in
this regard, at least from the European perspective, is that
we are one of the few nations where it is set in historical
times, rather than some mythical past. The origin event has
even been dated, to 874 A.D. or thereabouts. Iceland is one
of the last places on Earth to be settled by human beings.
Words Valur Gunnarsson
Photos Baldur Kristjáns
34 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 11 — 2015CULTURE
Origin Stories
Or: Why we believe we are
who we think we are