LEGACIES, THE STORY OF THE NORSE IN GREENLAND
In 1431 the year of our lord, the first contact began between the emerging Thule civilization and the Norse people of Greenland. In 1517, the last full blooded Norse, Dagmar Gandulfsdottir passed away, and with her, the end of the Viking era in the new world.
For over five hundred years, the Norse had inhabited Greenland, hewing a precarious niche. During the last eighty six years they co-existed with the Thule culture, clinging on despite their rapid decline.
And it was rapid decline. By this time, both the middle and western settlements had either died out or been expanded, the eastern settlement population was well past its peak. The population was coping with a steadily worsening environment which was pushing its subsistence lifestyle to the edges, and trade with Norway and Iceland had largely come to an end. Without Thule intervention, the Greenland Norse would likely not have lasted out to the end of the century.
Although it was the Thule that initiated contact, the Norse were quick to take advantage of the opportunity that presented itself. The subsistence package of the Norse was deteriorating. More than 50% of Norse food was coming from the sea, in the form of fish, walrus and seal. But the sea was an unreliable provider. Against this, the Norse balanced a pastoral lifestyle of herding for milk and meat - particularly cattle for the well to do, sheep and goats for the poor and a handful of vegetable crops. In a worsening climate, neither ‘leg’ was doing terribly well, winter famines were endemic.
In contrast, the agricultural and herding Thule who were establishing themselves up and down the coasts of Greenland, were beginning to produce regular surpluses, despite encroaching climate change. This was a consequence of a mature and well adapted agricultural complex coming through Ellesmere, a relatively small developing population, and large numbers of Caribou producing draft labour.
The result was that there were local surpluses in Greenland that the Norse could credibly trade to obtain and alleviate local shortages and bottlenecks.
The question is, what did the Norse have to trade? The old trade with Iceland and Norway had consisted mainly of luxuries and specialty items, primarily Walrus Ivory, but also including sealskins, walrus hides, walrus skin rope, narwal horns, polar bear and arctic fox furs, falcons, Polar bear cubs, seals. None of these items were in particular demand among the Thule, who could access all of it more easily and in greater amounts than the Greenlanders.
Instead, the Norse would reach into their own subsistence lifestyle and technologies to produce trade goods. The clearest and most obvious trade good were the Norse’s own iron artifacts, for which the Thule had an immediate demand. Because of declining population and careful conservation, the Norse had a surplus of iron which they were able to trade for effectively.
The iron trade had a limited life span. The Greenland Norse did not smelt iron ore, or harvest bog iron. All of their iron was imported. There was only so much available to trade before it began to cut into the colony’s basic requirements.
But within that period, the Greenland Norse were able to identify secondary products for which a demand emerged - namely woolen goods and woven fabrics and textiles, as well as soapstone carved artifacts. Both of these items had been exported to Iceland, and had been notable for their quality. Both were part of the indigenous Norse Greenland economy, although without a market their activities had been carried on at lower levels.
As the Iron trade developed, both of these began to ramp up as secondary trade goods, with production effort and production increasing.
There was also a trade in secondary items - Norse artifacts and jewely as ceremonial or novelty items. Leather from Norse domesticates, such as pigs, horses, goat or sheep, valued for their unusual qualities but generally available only sparingly.
The Greenland Norse were also able to take advantage of Thule concepts of reciprocity and generosity. Sharing the meat of a slaughtered cow or lamb, the giving of an otherwise useless hide would result in gifts at opportune times, such as gifts of Caribou meat or agricultural surpluses during hard times.
Beginning with the Thule Shaman known as Grandfather, the Norse found other Thule, mostly under grandfather’s tutelage moving into and near the community. Communication resulted in cultural exchanges.
Some of these exchanges were inadvertent. Thule came to understand the concept and possibilities of writing indirectly as a result of the effort to Christianize grandfather. Others were more deliberate. Grandfather recorded much of the local lore of ironworking and passed it on through the Thule community. Over time, the Thule picked up a handful of Norse innovations and domesticates which made their way into the mainstream.
The record of adoption of Thule innovations was less clearcut. There were real barriers to the incorporation of Thule agriculture for instance. The Norse found it difficult to switch to a perrenial, three year crop cycle, particularly since their concerns (avoiding winter famine) were so much more immediate. Pastoralists, it was difficult for them to give up or assign the amount of land a three year crop cycle needed. The amount of labour required for mound building and microclimate engineering was daunting, particularly when that labour was required for trade goods. Finally, the Thule agricultural system was inextricably tied to Shamanic spiritual beliefs and it was difficult for Christians to unwind those beliefs. Indeed, the Norse commitment to Christianity was a barrier to many cultural adoptions. There were scattered instances of Norse attempts to adopt Thule agriculture, but for the most part, it never really took hold in a cultural context.
The Norse were far more willing to try their hand at adopting Caribou and Musk Ox. These animals were far better adapted to the climate that the Norse were facing than their own domesticates. But there were again barriers. There was a learning curve associated with the handling of these animals. They were extremely poor milk producers in comparison with the Norse domesticates and milk was vital to the Norse subsistence economy. Finally, it was found that they could not be kept with or around sheep. CMT would decimate the herd. This was problematic for the Norse who were breeding more and more sheep to meet growing demands for textiles, and who as a matter of course were fairly casual with regard to their animals mixing. Norse efforts to herd Caribou were occasional and sporadic, and tendned to die off.
Over time, the Norse did adopt some Umiaks, the large skin boats of the Thule. But this was slow and reluctant. These boats could not be sailed, they were comparatively lightweight and delicate. Their construction and piloting required very different skill sets.
There were some innovations. Thule snow goggles became common. Thule winter gear, either traded for, or reproduced became the norm. The Thule snowsuits were clearly better designed for the winter conditions than the Norse clothing. The toggle harpoon was adopted, and with more wood locally available, the Norse even traded back improved harpoons to the Thule.
Rather, the Norse focused most of their cultural effort on trade. Although there was a limited quantity of surplus iron available, other resources could be developed. With demand for woolen and woven items, the Norse began to raise more and more sheep. Looms became more common and more active. The Norse shifted from a subsistence to a trading economy.
But there were downsides to trade, particularly to the iron trade. As Norse iron artifacts made their way further into the Thule sphere, and as Grandfather’s writing system and the messages it carried spread, the value and demand of Norse iron artifacts rose exponentially.
As ‘prices’ rose, exorbitant demand pushed the Norse into parting with more and more. A good knife could command a brace of musk-ox. At times, the value was so great that desperate Norse stole from each other. Houses were robbed, abandoned or empty buildings were torn apart, graves were dug up, ships were stripped of washers and fittings, all to feed an insatiable Thule demand for Norse iron at any price.. Even where there was no particular desire to part, winter’s privations often forced desperate decisions.
Nor was this confined to the Norse. Ambitious and avaricious Thule raided outlying houses, slaughtering whole families for iron trinkets. After several such incidents, the Norse withdrew in on themselves, fortifying and guarding their property, and consolidating their territory. For a time, only Grandfather remained among the Norse, though a half dozen trading settlements wer springing up in the region.
Impoverished of iron, several of their boats no longer seaworthy, their land base confined to a smaller area and sustaining smaller herds in that area, the standards of living of the Norse actually dropped. Their ability to sustain a subsistence lifestyle was diminishing.
Nor was it feasible to re-expand the land base significantly, as quite often, abandoned territory was taken up by the Thule trading settlements for their own subsistence. Efforts to regain land could result in friction. At times, the better strategy to seek to regain or expand subsistence lands was to enter into alliance or relationships.
Trade inevitably develops relationships, as did efforts to coordinate or resolve land use issues. Formal arrangements or agreements emerged between the Norse and the different trading communities and groups of Thule that they were encountering. In some cases, defensive alliances emerged, joint hunting or fishing ventures. Arranged marriages or out-marriages reinforced or established alliances. Individual Norse families or factions were integrated into Thule clans or politics and vice versa. Even after Grandfather was long gone, these webs of relationships became steadily more complex, decade after decade, perhaps to the ultimate detriment of the Norse.
However, the demand for iron had beneficial effects as well. Other Norse products and artifacts became known, and demand for them increased and emerged, although not to the hysterical levels of iron. As available iron declined, woolen and woven products, and soapstone, took its place in trade. These were sustainable products, for which the Norse could manage long term production, and the Thule had a long term demand.
Through these relationships, iron turned out to have a second life in trade. Some of Grandfather’s skin messages refer to young Norsemen sent north to Disko Bay or even Cape York to work iron. It seems that over a period of years, he had concluded that the although the resources were not there, the skill was. Archeological evidence of Cape York and Disko Bay shows strong evidence of very late Norse settlements - traditional Norse houses, foundries and smelters, forges.
Almost all of the Norse style iron artifacts produced by these centers vanished into the Thule trading networks. Relatively few artifacts, if any, found their way back to East Settlement. Nevertheless, Thule systems of reciprocity and generosity almost certainly meant that the East Settlement saw benefit from these activities.
Over the next decades, the Norse would continue to see severe demographic erosion. Despite the advantages of trade, their birth rates remained extremely low. This tended to be a factor of developments in the Norse lifestyle - close association with their animals tended to result in e-coli diseases, which tended to hit women harder. Marriage ages tended to be later, limiting child bearing opportunities. Young men tended to be shut out of the breeding pool for extended periods, as younger wives were pledged to senior men. Monogamy further limited opportunities.
These were cultural adaptations to worsening climate and more desperate subsistence conditions, but now they had become ingrained in the society and hard to shake loose.
The Norse had not been maintaining their numbers, and if anything the demographic decline accelerated. In contrast, the Thule population were expanding. Within a generation of contact, the Thule in the area would outnumber the Norse easily.
Young men, shut out of the marriage pool, were often tempted by the prospect of Thule wives. This was a risky strategy for the Norse. Outmarriages brought them contacts and alliances with Thule clans. But it also potentially stole the labour and contributions of these young men from the community. Some brought their new wives back with them, to be taught the Norse ways. Others vanished into life with their new relatives.
There were also disasters. A sudden storm during a fishing/sealing expedition in the summer of 1456 sank over half the Norse fishing fleet and cost the lives of almost forty men. Many Thule also died, but they could replace their losses. The loss of so many able bodied and skilled men was a major disaster for a community already in steep demographic decline. The loss of so many vessels so crucial to subsistence was an even bigger disaster.
Thule records indicate this loss was followed by strong seasonal famines among the Norse for three consecutive years, many dying of hunger, others permanently incapacitated, during a particularly fierce series of winters. This was during a post-grandfather period of poor relations and antagonism between Thule and Norse groups, driven in part by mutual blaming for the disaster. Those who did worst among the Norse were those who had the least or most minimal relationships with the Thule.
Many Norse fled, joining permanently with Thule communities. During this period, not a single Norse child born during this time survived, and many children born previously died. All told, the sea disaster and its consequences may have accounted for a third of the Norse.
The Norse, despite themselves, were drawn unwittingly into the local politics of the southern Greenland Thule.
Their presence had distorted local evolution. Agricultural Thule, Herders/horticulturalists and Hunters/Gatherers were all drawn to the region and drawn into trading relationships. Traditionally, there had been a slow process of land use, whereby one group would replace another, sometimes this happened peacefully as a group adopted new ways, sometimes violently as interlopers pushed out or killed off their rivals. As lifestyles changed, those clinging to older ways or who had been evicted, retreated seeking out new territories, often coming into conflict with the inhabitants of new regions.
These were known as displacement wars. Different lifestyles warring among themselves or warring with each other. Herders would war on hunter gatherers, who displaced would war among each other for territory. Displaced hunter gatherers might then attack herders or agriculturalists. Herders in turn would be warred upon or displaced by agriculturalists, forced to battle each other or battle hunter gatherers for less hospitable lends, and so on. Ultimately, displacement wars turned on land use, on who was or could use it for what purposes, and eventually the various lifestyles or subcultures would settle into an uneasy peace, with herders dominating lands too sparse for agriculture, and hunter-gatherers making a living on lands too barren to support herds.
The violence of displacement wars varied. Some were entirely peaceful replacements, marriages, adoptions, changes of lifestyle. In others, all it took was some shouting, some unkind words and waving a few spears back and forth, with no blood being shed. On the other hand, some instances were outright genocidal, with groups being obliterated by ambush or hunted down like animals.
Nor were outcomes always pre-determined. In the western archipelago, a displacement war between hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists was decided when the hunter-gatherers began herding musk-ox and developed a superior use of marginal land. Subtle factors of home ground advantage, superior technology, the productivity of land, the value of transport or transit could affect outcomes.
The presence and trading opportunities of the Norse changed the local economy. Instead of land use, trade became a motivating factor. The different lifestyles reached accommodations or cooperations, found advantages, and managed to coexist in their relationships with the Norse.
This was not a situation which endured. Much of the Norse iron surplus, their most valuable trade good, was traded away within the first decade or two. Thereafter, the bulk of the Norse trade revolved around their local production - soapstone items and carvings, minor innovations, and particularly woolen and woven goods.
The value of this would inevitably decline as the local Thule themselves began to acquire these skills and the elements of production.
Some aspects of this decline were masked by the expansion of trading networks and the increasing volume flowing back through Greenland. Suppose other Thule were beginning to manufacture woolen and woven goods? The Norse would maintain an edge in volume of production and quality for a long time. But more significantly, the trading network expanded to handle the overall volume. Local priorities remained trade rather than land use.
But there was going to come a time when the masking effect ended. The Norse became increasingly impoverished as their local monopolies vanished. As Norse trade lost significance, disputes and conflicts between Norse and Thule, and more importantly between Thule groups, over land use began to re-emerge with a vengeance, and populations which had built up in overlap began to compete in earnest.
As a trade driven peace eroded, displacement wars began to break out with a vengeance, often far bloodier and murderous than normal. The Norse found themselves unwilling participants and victims in the displacement wars which began to break out. Because they were often tied to multiple communities, the Norse found themselves drawn into factions, even battling each other.
They were often a particularly vulnerable constituency. You could, for instance, get away with killing quite a few Norse allies of your enemy, without your enemy rousing to take revenge.
Displacement wars had been going on in the region among the Thule since before the time of Grandfather. Trade brought peace, but minor displacement wars flared up from time to time in the post-Grandfather era, with the Norse increasingly involved as participants.
New rounds of displacement wars and Thule conflicts in the period 1470 through 1490 also killed many Norse, directly and indirectly. Many men and families were killed directly through warfare and attacks. Depredations on Norse livestock herds, encroachments onto Norse lands further undermined the basic resources they required for subsistence. Again, this was coming at the same time, and was magnifying an accelerating demographic decline.
The Norse fared particularly poorly in the displacement wars, at least initially. The Norse style of war was unsuited to Thule techniques. The Thule favoured ambush, arrows, and the slaughter of families, as opposed to the head on approach of the Norse. Norse casualties tended to be higher, and with low birthrates and high mortality, the Norse could not afford any losses. The Norse did adapt and adopt Thule warfare, but only after damage was done.
To make things worse, during this period, many of the allied Thule groups were raising their own sheep and operating their own looms. This had been an ongoing development, and for a long time, the market had been strong enough to sustain all parties, and the Norse themselves had maintained a lead in quality and prestige. But after more than half a century, their position was eroding. Increasingly, the Norse were dependent on trade with the Thule as a vital lifeline, and increasingly, they had little to trade, most of their iron surrendered piece by piece, their wool and weaving undermined by the products of their allies.
By 1490, the East Settlement Norse had ceased to exist as a coherent community, they were essentially divided into three tribal groups, allied with and under the protection of more powerful Thule tribes, and heavily intermarrying.
Within a generation, by 1517, the last pure blood Norse had died. The identified half breeds, and remnants of Norse speakers and Christian tradition lingered on for another generation or two, but the consensus is that by 1550 there was nothing left of the Norse adventure.
Even the East Settlement vanished, as graves were steadily looted, empty farms and houses were pulled apart to construct Thule buildings. The ruins of the Western settlement remained relatively intact. But again by 1550, there was almost nothing recognizable left of the Eastern settlement.
So what is the ultimate legacy of the Norse among the Thule?
In the south of Greenland, we can acknoweldge that many people have some Norse in their ancestry, blonde or redheaded thule are not unheard of. This genetic donation declines the further north you go, and becomes mere traces once we are past Ellesmere, and nonexistent by the time we get to the McKenzie valley.
Linguistically, there is a substantial borrowing of loan words and local idioms in the south of Greenland, once again, diminishing as we go north, with a diffuse handful spreading to the rest of the Thule realm, almost undetectable in the McKenzie Valley and Alaska, absent in Siberia except for very distorted terms relating to iron.
Of the Norse material culture, a handful of plants have spread, adding to the Thule basket. Sheep are a local import, extending over part of the Thule realm. Horses never made it, but an adapted horsecollar drove a ‘horsepower’ revolution for Caribou labour, and the example of horse riding certainly helped to popularize Caribou riding.
There are minor contributions. Buttons and buckles, the shapes of certain kinds of tools. The idea or example of wooden boats.
The arts of the loom and of weaving that accompanied sheep are much more widespread, and now a key part of musk ox husbandry. There are even looms and musk ox qviat weavings in Siberia.
The art of ironworking has spread into parts of the Thule realm. Aspects of Norse metallurgy have affected and improved the copper and bronze workings.
Writing has been one of the most widely embraced and most significant contributions.
But in the end, what is remarkable is not what has been transformed, but what has not been. Thule/Norse contact did not result in a hybrid culture. The Norse were too few and too weak for that, their culture, superbly adapted for their home, was not well suited for the arctic climate that was overtaking them, or which the Thule had so thoroughly mastered.
The Norse did a credible job of adapting to the Thule. It can be argued that they missed opportunities. But the reality was that their long term position was never tenable, with or without the Thule.
In the end, we can say that in the interchange, the Thule took what was most valuable to them, undoubtedly missed many opportunities, but intrinsically remained Thule.