Who Were the Skraelings?

There have been several threads lately that have involved the Norsemen, Vinland and possibilities that could follow a more successful Norse colonization.

Everything from christian native Americans to a competitive NA culture in 1492.

Central to this are the Skraelings, the native peoples encountered by the Norse. Who were they and how close to the Native Americans we know, The Algonquian peoples, were they?
 
I don't think Skraeling refered to a single tribe or nation. Rather, it was a catch all term for any natives that the Norse encountered in the "New World."
 
I was taught that since the Viking settlement at L'Anse Aux Meadows was in Newfoundland, the skraelings were the now extinct Beothuk natives of Newfoundland. That's what is usually implied here in Canada anyway.
 
I was taught that since the Viking settlement at L'Anse Aux Meadows was in Newfoundland, the skraelings were the now extinct Beothuk natives of Newfoundland. That's what is usually implied here in Canada anyway.


My understanding as well. But the use of Skraeling as a Blanket term for First Nations isn't a huge leap in logic.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
I don't think Skraeling refered to a single tribe or nation. Rather, it was a catch all term for any natives that the Norse encountered in the "New World."
This. Skraeling was just a term the Norse used for natives they found in the New World. Natives of Greenland were called skraelings, for example, as were Native Americans. In fact, "skraeling" is still the Norwegian (or Danish) word for "barbarian."
 

Valdemar II

Banned
This. Skraeling was just a term the Norse used for natives they found in the New World. Natives of Greenland were called skraelings, for example, as were Native Americans. In fact, "skraeling" is still the Norwegian (or Danish) word for "barbarian."

Never heard the term being used as such, and I haven't seen any indication that the Norwegians use it that way either, they seem to use the word "barbar" for barbarian like us. But some Norwegian may use it, but I would expect it would be a national-romantic development in the 19th century rather than a surviving use of the word.
 
Never heard the term being used as such, and I haven't seen any indication that the Norwegians use it that way either, they seem to use the word "barbar" for barbarian like us. But some Norwegian may use it, but I would expect it would be a national-romantic development in the 19th century rather than a surviving use of the word.

You may not have heard such a usage in modern Norwegian, but that doesn't mean it wasn't used as such.

FWIW here are two etymologies:
Etymology

The word skræling is the only word surviving from the Old Norse dialect spoken by the medieval Norse Greenlanders. In modern Icelandic, skrælingi means a barbarian or foreigner. The origin of the word is not certain, but it is probably based on the Old Norse word skrá which meant "skin"; and as a verb, "to put in writing" (written accounts, such as the Icelandic Sagas, were put on dried skin in Iceland). The Inuit, both Thule and Dorset, as well as other indigenous people whom the Norse Greenlanders met, wore clothes made of animal skins, in contrast to the woven wool clothes worn by the Norse.

Some scholars have speculated that skrælingi came from the Scandinavian word skral or the Icelandic word skrælna. The word skral connotes "thin" or "scrawny". In the Scandinavian languages, it is often used as a synonym for feeling sick or weak. But, this speculation is probably a case of folk etymology or linguistic "false friend"; the word skral does not exist in medieval Norse texts (for example the Icelandic sagas) nor in modern Icelandic. It is a 17th-century loanword from Low German into the Scandinavian languages: Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Skræling in modern Norwegian means weakling. [1]. Skrælna refers to shrinking or drying (plants for example). But, the written medieval texts do not use skræling in an adverse sense.

The Greenlandic ethnonym Kalaalleq may be based on the Norse Skræling (the combination skr is unknown in the Inuit language) or on the Norse klæði (meaning cloth).

As documented William H. Babcock in "Certain Pre-Columbian Notices of American Aborigines", the word skræling may have been the name of one of the North American tribes encountered by Norse during initial contact. The story was that Norseman Bjorn the Bonde saved two Skræling siblings from the sea. As was their custom in gratitude, the Skrælings decided to become the Norseman's life-long servants. During this service, the Skrælings indicated that the word skræling was how their peoples' name was pronounced in Norse. Eventually, “The brother and sister killed themselves and threw themselves down the cliffs into the sea when they were prohibited from following along with Bjorn Bonde . . .” on his return to Iceland. [2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skræling#Etymology

Skraeling
1767, Norse name for inhabitants of Greenland encountered by the Viking settlers there, from O.N. Skræingar (pl.), apparently lit. "little men" (cf. Icel. skrælna "shrink"); another term for them was smair menn. The name may have been used first in reference to the inhabitants of Vineland (who would have been Indians), then transfered to Eskimos, who adopted it into their own language as Kalaleq.

Hans Egede, who published a dictionary of Greenland Eskimo in 1739, says that the Eskimos themselves told him that they got the name from the Norsemen who once lived in Greenland. [Gordon, p.217-8]
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Skraeling
 

Valdemar II

Banned
You may not have heard such a usage in modern Norwegian, but that doesn't mean it wasn't used as such.

FWIW here are two etymologies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skræling#Etymology


http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=Skraeling

The point are that it's only used in the Icelandic sagas, it isn't used for Lapps (Sami), Finns, Balts or Slavs, and the Sami especially was seen as weak, cowardly and barbarian warlocks by the Norwegians. But I'm only speaking one of the language and understand the other, so don't take my word for it.

Norwegian (Bokmål) Wikipedia said:
..Begrepet skræling er det eneste nyord som er videreført fra den norrøne befolkningen på Grønland som døde ut på 1400-tallet. Opprinnelsen til begrepet er noe uklart, men muligens er det basert på det gammelnorske ordet «skrá» som betyr skinn. Det kan således være en beskrivelse av at de innfødte gikk kledd i skinn i motsetning til de norrøne som bar klær av vevd ull...

The term Skræling are the only new word which has been continued/survived from the Norse population on Greenland which died out in the 15th century. The origin of the name are unclear, but it may be based on Old Norse word «skrá» which mean skin. It can be a describtion of the natives being clothed in skin, rather than woll as the Norse.
 
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I was taught that since the Viking settlement at L'Anse Aux Meadows was in Newfoundland, the skraelings were the now extinct Beothuk natives of Newfoundland. That's what is usually implied here in Canada anyway.
That's what I've always thought, that the Vinland Skraelings were Beothuk, or Beothuk ancestors. Did the sagas ever make any references to how red they were though? Because that would settle the matter definitely, as the Beothuks' redness (they painted themselves and everything they owned with red ochre) was what distinguished them and gave rise to the term "Red Indians". But then again, I don't think the Sagas described the "skraelings" one bit though.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
Never heard the term being used as such, and I haven't seen any indication that the Norwegians use it that way either, they seem to use the word "barbar" for barbarian like us. But some Norwegian may use it, but I would expect it would be a national-romantic development in the 19th century rather than a surviving use of the word.
You're right, my mistake. "Skrælingi" is the Icelandic word for "barbarian" or "foreigner."
 
But the Dorset preceded the Inuit. The Inuit didn't reach Alaska until about 1000 AD, I thought...

Genetic research has been hazy, and many sources refer to them as Inuits. Culture appears to be one of the main dividers, although there were descendants of the Dorset that were definitely non-Inuit. The Thule expansion did bring about the modern ethnic Inuits, but there was also a lot of intermingling.

I just use the term for convenience, paleo-Indian ethnography is a very speculative field.
 
The textbooks in Canada usually mention the Beothuks (which disappeared in the 19th century). I have no idea if anyone ever recorded their language down.
 
Archeological evidence points directly to the Dorset 'Eskimo' (using the old term for an even older culture). For a period of time around 1000, the Dorset culture was in northern Newfoundland, with the Beothuk (or their ancestors) further south.

Note that the Thule culture (ancestors of the modern Inuit) arose ~1000 and didn't spread across the arctic until some later. So, when the Icelanders settled Greenland, there wasn't anyone there. But by the time the Greenland colony failed, they were surrounded by Inuit.
 
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