Assuming a surviving Vinland, in what ways might Norse and Native American beliefs syncretise?

[Emperor-of-New-Zealand]

Basically as said in the title. Pre-Christian European religions were often syncretic, adopting practices and deities from other local religions. There have been theories that animistic notions in Norse paganism were a result of adopting Finnic practices, and even that the mythologised Aesir-Vanir War was based on an actual conflict between two different belief systems in the area.

So, ignoring the likelihood of Norse settlers finding reasons to stay in North America, if they did, and had an enduring presence, how might prolonged contact with Native Americans effect their religious beliefs?

 

[Gloss]

The Beothuk would most likely be extinguished leaving little cultural impact or ancestry in the region, so we can ignore them.
The Norse would certainly be Christian with any close PoD, but it might end up becoming very heterodox through isolation and lingering pagan presence. I honestly don't think there would be much syncretism going on in Norse-dominated region but some Algonquian tribes would pick up elements from Christianity.

 

[Jürgen]

I doubt we would see a transfer of much folklore to the Norse. While there was some transfer of Finnic and Saami folklore ( to the Norse this happened before the Norse became Christians. As example the Jotun Thjazi the father of Skadi is believed to be a Saami god adopted by the Norse. But with the shift to Christianity syncretism becomes limited to syncretism with other Christian cultures’ folklore.

 

[Emperor-of-New-Zealand]

The Beothuk would most likely be extinguished leaving little cultural impact or ancestry in the region, so we can ignore them.
The Norse would certainly be Christian with any close PoD, but it might end up becoming very heterodox through isolation and lingering pagan presence. I honestly don't think there would be much syncretism going on in Norse-dominated region but some Algonquian tribes would pick up elements from Christianity.

I doubt we would see a transfer of much folklore to the Norse. While there was some transfer of Finnic and Saami folklore ( to the Norse this happened before the Norse became Christians. As example the Jotun Thjazi the father of Skadi is believed to be a Saami god adopted by the Norse. But with the shift to Christianity syncretism becomes limited to syncretism with other Christian cultures’ folklore.

Yes, I perhaps should have remembered that Vinland occurred during Christianisation.

What I'm really asking is broader than that, I suppose - assuming paganism continued and the Norse still ventured to North America, what sorts of beliefs might be adopted? Was there any specific worldview or practice in the nearby Native American tribes that might appeal to the Norse? What about further afield?

 

[Citrakayah]

I don't think we can ignore the Beothuk. Even if we assume the Beothuk will eventually be supplanted by the Norse, there will not be an instant process, so intermarriage and the like are still possible. This allows for things like Beothuk vocabulary, architectural practices, hunting practices, and yes, mythology to influence the Vinlanders.

 

[Jürgen]

Yes, I perhaps should have remembered that Vinland occurred during Christianisation.

What I'm really asking is broader than that, I suppose - assuming paganism continued and the Norse still ventured to North America, what sorts of beliefs might be adopted? Was there any specific worldview or practice in the nearby Native American tribes that might appeal to the Norse? What about further afield?

The Norse if they stayed pagan would likely adopt neighboring people‘s supernatural beings as Jotuns or minor Asir and Vanir. But it will be much more limited. The ancestors of the Norse and the Saami have more or less lived beside each other for several thousand years, they have had close interactions for all that time, intermarriage was common and the Southern Saami seem to have a pretty Norsified culture. The tales we have about the Saami from the Norse are not respectful, but at the same time they’re a lot nicer than the tales about the Anglo-Saxons and Irish and political their leaders was treated like Norse royalty. Contact between the Norse and Native American will likely be lot uglier and bloody, the Saami and Norse had made niche partitioning with the Norse being sedentary and the Saami semi-nomadic, the Norse was agricultural and the Saami hunter-herders. Only the Inuit and Canadian Algonquian can hope to make a similar niche partitioning with the Norse.

 

[Gloss]

The Norse if they stayed pagan would likely adopt neighboring people‘s supernatural beings as Jotuns or minor Asir and Vanir. But it will be much more limited. The ancestors of the Norse and the Saami have more or less lived beside each other for several thousand years, they have had close interactions for all that time, intermarriage was common and the Southern Saami seem to have a pretty Norsified culture. The tales we have about the Saami from the Norse are not respectful, but at the same time they’re a lot nicer than the tales about the Anglo-Saxons and Irish and political their leaders was treated like Norse royalty. Contact between the Norse and Native American will likely be lot uglier and bloody, the Saami and Norse had made niche partitioning with the Norse being sedentary and the Saami semi-nomadic, the Norse was agricultural and the Saami hunter-herders. Only the Inuit and Canadian Algonquian can hope to make a similar niche partitioning with the Norse.

I disagree, the Saami didn't really live close to the Norse for thousands of years, in fact the Sami might have come to northern Scandinavia as late as 500 CE, prior to that some other population, maybe already Uralic speaking but possibly even pre-Uralic lived there, the Saami speakers likely remained confained to southern and central Finland during the 1000BCE-0CE period before their northern expansion.
Any contact would have been through potential Germanic presence in Finland(likely given linguistic influence) but given the lack of Uralic influence in Germanic the argument that those people were particularly influential is dubious.

 

[Gloss]

I don't think we can ignore the Beothuk. Even if we assume the Beothuk will eventually be supplanted by the Norse, there will not be an instant process, so intermarriage and the like are still possible. This allows for things like Beothuk vocabulary, architectural practices, hunting practices, and yes, mythology to influence the Vinlanders.

I honestly don't think people have an actual understanding of what generally happens when a rather advanced farming/pastoralist society encounters an extremely small hunter-gatherer population.
Hint: It tends to be total replacement insofar as the cards are stacked so much against the hunter-gatherers, the Beothuk might leave a single-digit % ancestry at most.

 

[TheLionOfJudah]

The Beothuk would most likely be extinguished leaving little cultural impact or ancestry in the region, so we can ignore them.
The Norse would certainly be Christian with any close PoD, but it might end up becoming very heterodox through isolation and lingering pagan presence. I honestly don't think there would be much syncretism going on in Norse-dominated region but some Algonquian tribes would pick up elements from Christianity.

I'm like 80% sure the Beothuk weren't in Newfoundland at the time. Instead it was the pre-Inuit Dorset culture in the region, or perhaps another group.

 

[Gloss]

I'm like 80% sure the Beothuk weren't in Newfoundland at the time. Instead it was the pre-Inuit Dorset culture in the region, or perhaps another group.

Which were still hunter-gatherers, maybe even worse off that their successor(there must be a reason why they didn't survive)

 

[Citrakayah]

I honestly don't think people have an actual understanding of what generally happens when a rather advanced farming/pastoralist society encounters an extremely small hunter-gatherer population.
Hint: It tends to be total replacement insofar as the cards are stacked so much against the hunter-gatherers, the Beothuk might leave a single-digit % ancestry at most.

The Vinlanders are also starting from an extremely small population base. It took a couple centuries for the Beothuk to go extinct, and that was with more settlers coming in from Europe than people usually presume would be arriving for a surviving Vinland settlement (which tends to be viewed as basically a single outpost that loses contact with Europe, but where the people there don't all die or leave).

 

[Gloss]

The Vinlanders are also starting from an extremely small population base. It took a couple centuries for the Beothuk to go extinct, and that was with more settlers coming in from Europe than people usually presume would be arriving for a surviving Vinland settlement (which tends to be viewed as basically a single outpost that loses contact with Europe, but where the people there don't all die or leave).

If they are more than a couple hundreds that's enough to overwhelm any local population within generations from the more attractive regions and I assume we will see those figures there.
Your idea of a creolized Norse community in the region is simply unfeasible, there are countless cases of far less advanced and non-metal-working Neolithic societies replacing hunter-gathers at a >90% rate and Newfoundland wasn't even a particularly strong HG area.

 

[Quinkana]

I think concepts like the wild hunt will mix with native traditions, and mythical creatures like huldras and fairy equivalents will spread into native communities if Vinland survives.

 

[Citrakayah]

If they are more than a couple hundreds that's enough to overwhelm any local population within generations from the more attractive regions and I assume we will see those figures there.

Even if so, those generations provide time for the cultural intermixing I mentioned to occur.

Your idea of a creolized Norse community in the region is simply unfeasible, there are countless cases of far less advanced and non-metal-working Neolithic societies replacing hunter-gathers at a >90% rate and Newfoundland wasn't even a particularly strong HG area.

There are also countless examples where even iron working societies do no such thing. Much of Zomia, for instance, was in direct contact with iron working societies but has had a hunter-gatherer mode of production for quite a long time. Hell, there are a bunch of examples where that happened in the USA, and creolized groups resulted (for instance, some of the Métis trace ancestry from hunter-gatherer populations of the Cree).

You're trying to present as an inevitability something we know was due to contingent circumstances. The question we should be asking is, "What were those contingent circumstances, and can we duplicate them here?" Not just blanketly dismissing the possibility because "Lol hunter gatherers always lose."

There's also the minor matter that, depending on the circumstances of the Vinland settlement's origin (for instance, is it a trading post that is lost contact?), it may be disproportionately male, leading to high intermarriage rates.

 

[AfriqueStyle]

There are also countless examples where even iron working societies do no such thing. Much of Zomia, for instance, was in direct contact with iron working societies but has had a hunter-gatherer mode of production for quite a long time. Hell, there are a bunch of examples where that happened in the USA, and creolized groups resulted (for instance, some of the Métis trace ancestry from hunter-gatherer populations of the Cree).

Zomia has a far harsher terrain then Newfoundland and is far larger.
Also are you sure Zomia has a hunter-gatherer mode of production? It has it's own domesticated species of cattle, gayals.
The Metis were created by small numbers of single male fur traders and trappers. But the Vikings would be bringing over their own families.

 

[PrinceofApathy]

*bernie sanders voice*

I am once again plugging Odinson's "American Viking".

 

[Citrakayah]

Zomia has a far harsher terrain then Newfoundland and is far larger.

Yes, but the population of the mandala states was also far larger.

Also are you sure Zomia is hunter-gatherers? It has it's own domesticated species of cattle, gayals.

It's a mix. There are hunter-gatherer populations, horticulturalists, and agriculturalists. Zomia's ethnic groups are extremely varied and difficult to study, so practices of all sorts vary wildly. I recommend reading The Art of Not Being Governed if you have the time.

The Metis were created by small numbers of solitary male fur traders and trappers. The Vikings would be bringing over their families.

While true, wasn't Vinland in large part a supply depot/trading post, rather than an actual settlement? It would be entirely possible for it to turn into a settlement by a large number of people who don't intend to settle getting stranded there.

 

[Diego]

The Vinlanders are also starting from an extremely small population base.

As I said in another topic about Vinland this week, there is only two plausible scenarios where Vinland could survive:

1 - If the Norse find something valuable like precious metals or minerals.
2 - If some king or extremely rich individual bankrupt itself subsiding many thousands of settlers for one, or two, or even three decades without any hope of making back the wealth sunk on this adventure.

Either of those options would mean at least a couple thousand Norse living in Vinland. Also because there would be families and not just single men going to Vinland both peoples, Natives and Norse, would be quite segregated, maybe not to the level of the British Puritans, but still quite segregated. I think that the Norse would absorb something from the natives, a colony would probably need to learn techniques from the natives and they could trade or make alliances, but it would be limited, maybe limited to nothing other than the names of places and things and a couple legends incorporated into the local Norse folklore.

 

[Citrakayah]

What about a trading party getting stranded? Maybe a storm wrecks their boats, and they lose the people with the knowledge to fix them, or don't have the supplies to do so.

 

[Gloss]

Even if so, those generations provide time for the cultural intermixing I mentioned to occur.

Very minor and virtually unnoticeable in the long term, not "Beothuk vocabulary, architectural practices, hunting practices, and yes, mythology" in a major way.

There are also countless examples where even iron working societies do no such thing. Much of Zomia, for instance, was in direct contact with iron working societies but has had a hunter-gatherer mode of production for quite a long time.

Funny how you mention Zomia considering the original inhabitans, the Hoabinhians, have been mostly(completely? Outside the Onge-Jarawa) replaced in the region, any small hunter-gatherer population is mostly of recent Austro-Asiatic farmer ancestry and all spoke at the very least Austro-Asiatic, originating from the first major linguistic expansion we know of(which were later supplanted by Burmese, Thai, Austronesians).

Hell, there are a bunch of examples where that happened in the USA, and creolized groups resulted (for instance, some of the Métis trace ancestry from hunter-gatherer populations of the Cree).

The Metis formed small communities by virtue small bands of male traders, the Norse here wouldn't come as a male only population(they had a self-sustaining population in Greenland afterall)

You're trying to present as an inevitability something we know was due to contingent circumstances. The question we should be asking is, "What were those contingent circumstances, and can we duplicate them here?"

You are missing the forest while looking only for the trees that are convenient to your argument.
It doesn't matter how many small exceptions you bring from places that were already extremely convenient to lingering hunter-gathers(tropical regions) or single case-examples of creolization, I can bring dozens of examples where hunter-gathers were simply steamrolled from just Neolithic Eurasia, places as far as Portugal, Ireland and Southern Scandinavia ended up having at most 25% HG ancestry accumulated all the way from the southern Balkans or Italy, which means that in each migration(Balkans-Italy, Italy->Southern France etc) a larger % of replacement happened.
Similar things happened with the Bell Beakers in the British Isles, 80-90% replacement and that was between agriculturalist/pastoralist populations, not involving HGs.

Not just blanketly dismissing the possibility because "Lol hunter gatherers always lose."

Well it's simply true, there is a reason why widespread language families are a thing, because populatiosn routinely(in the grand scheme of things) end up having certain advantages that allow them to either demographically or politically/socially dominate a larger region through relatively rapid expansions and the shift from hunter-gathering to agriculture is one of those, not every HGs is replaced to the same extent but the Beothuk are hardly a candidate for survival. The HGs of Newfoundland were extremely small, extremely isolated and are encountering populations deriving not a simple Neolithic society but from a iron age population that is already familiar with complex political systems, has a stronger religious identity(both Christian and pagan) and has a well developed agricultural/pastoral package.
Hunter-gatherers survive where agriculture and pastoralism can't thrive and Newfoundland while not being a paradise is still free real estate for farmers and pastoralists, simple as that.

There's also the minor matter that, depending on the circumstances of the Vinland settlement's origin (for instance, is it a trading post that is lost contact?), it may be disproportionately male, leading to high intermarriage rates.

Yes if you try to create a specific convenient timeline you can do such a thing but that's not really the point of a "surviving Vinland", even in Iceland where the locals have 30-40% Celtic/British ancestry(mostly female-mediated) there is hardly that much Celtic influence, not anymore than you would expect from mere contact and proximity(involving the founding stock population as well) regardless of what people claim nowadays based on recent genetic find(all of a sudden people realized that there might be Celtic influence when their DNA tests told them they were 1/3 Irish, convenient)