The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studies

by Sir Daniel Wilson

Here, then, is the same problem submitted to the historical antiquaries of Nova Scotia which those of Rhode Island took up upwards of half a century ago, with unbounded zeal, and very surprising results. Nor is there a “Dighton Rock” wanting; for Nova Scotia has its inscribed stone, already interpreted as graphic runes, replete with equally suggestive traces of the Northmen of the tenth century. The inscribed rock at Yarmouth has long been an object of curious interest. So far back as 1857 I received from Dr. J. G. Farish a full-sized copy of the inscription, with the following account of it: “The inscription, of which the accompanying sketch is an exact copy,

Inscription, Yarmouth Rock, Nova Scotia.

was discovered forty-five years ago, at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. The rock on which the characters are engraved is about two feet in diameter, of an irregular hemispherical shape, with one naturally smooth surface. It lies on the shore of a small inlet, at high-water mark, and close to the bank, on which it may formerly have rested. The stone has been split where a very thin vein of quartz once traversed it, but the corresponding half could never be found. The tracing has been done with a sharp-pointed instrument carried onward, by successive blows of a hammer or mallet, the effect of which is plainly visible. The point of the instrument barely penetrated the layer of quartz, which is almost as thin as the black marks of the sketch. The inscription has been shown to several learned gentlemen,—one intimately acquainted with the characters of the Micmac and Millicet Indians who once inhabited this country; another, familiar with the Icelandic and other Scandinavian languages; but no person has yet been able to decipher it.” Again, in 1880, I received from Mr. J. Y. Bulmer, Secretary of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, a photograph of the Yarmouth rock, with an accompanying letter, in which he remarks: “I am directed by the council of the Nova Scotia Historical Society to forward to you a photographic view of a stone found near the ocean, in Yarmouth county, N.S., and having an inscription which, if not runic or Phœnician, is supposed by many to be the work of man. As ancient remains are most likely to be preserved by calling attention to all such works and inscriptions, we thought it best to forward it to you, where it could be examined by yourself and others likely to detect a fraud, or translate an inscription. The stone is now—or was one hundred years ago,—near, or in fact on, the edge of the sea. It has since been removed to Yarmouth for preservation. It was found near Cape Sable, a cape that must have been visited by nearly every navigator, whether ancient or modern.”

The earlier description of Dr. Farish is valuable, as it preserves an account of the rock while it still occupied its original site. He speaks, moreover, definitely as to the period when it first attracted attention; and which, though more recent than the “one hundred years” of my later correspondent, or a nearly equivalent statement in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, that “it has been known for nearly an hundred years,” is sufficiently remote to remove all idea of fraud, at least by any person of the present generation. The description given by Dr. Farish of the apparent execution of the inscription by means of a sharp-pointed instrument—meaning thereby no doubt a metallic tool,—and a hammer or mallet, clearly points to other than native Indian workmanship, whatever may have been the date of its execution. As will be seen from the accompanying copy, it is in arbitrary linear characters bearing no resemblance to the abbreviated symbols familiar to us in Indian epigraphy; and at the same time it may be described as unique in character. Having been known to people resident in its vicinity for many years before the attention of students of the early monuments of the continent was invited to it, it appears to be beyond suspicion of purposed fraud. I did not attempt any solution of the enigma thus repeatedly submitted to my consideration; but it was this graven stone that was referred to when, in the inaugural address to the section of History and Archæology of the Royal Society of Canada, in 1882, the remark was made: “I know of but one inscription in Canada which seems to suggest the possibility of a genuine native record.”

On nearly every recurrence of an inscription in any linear form of alphabetic character brought to light in the western hemisphere, the first idea has been to suggest a Phœnician origin; and this is, no doubt, implied in the statement of its runic decipherer, in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, that “the glyphs have been at various times copied and sent abroad to men of learning who have made more or less attempts at deciphering them, more than one savant seeing traces of Semitic origin.” But latterly with the reported discovery of any linear inscription on the eastern seaboard, the temptation has been to refer it to the Northmen of the eleventh century. To this accordingly the allusions of both of my Nova-Scotian correspondents pointed. But the characters of the Scandinavian futhork are sufficiently definite to satisfy any one familiar with Scottish and Manx runic inscriptions, or with Professor George Stephens’ ample illustrations of them as they are found in the native home of the Northmen, that it is vain to look to either for a key to the graven legend on the Yarmouth rock. The presence of the Northmen, not only in Iceland and Greenland, but as transient visitors on some portion of the North American mainland, now rests on satisfactory historical evidence. In Greenland they left indisputable literate records of their colonisation of the region to which they gave the inapt name it still retains. The runic inscriptions brought to Copenhagen in 1831 not only determine the sites of settlements effected by the companions and successors of Eric, but they serve to show the kind of evidence to be looked for, alike to the north and the south of the St. Lawrence, if any traces yet survive of their having attempted to colonise the old Markland and Vinland, whether the latter is recovered in Nova Scotia or New England. Their genuine memorials are not less definite than those left by the Romans in Gaul or Britain; and corresponding traces of them in the assumed Vinland, and elsewhere in the United States, have been perseveringly, but vainly, sought for. One unmistakably definite Scandinavian inscription, that of the “Huidœrk,” professedly found on the river Potomac, does not lay claim to serious criticism. It was affirmed to have been discovered in 1867 graven on a rock on the banks of the Potomac; but to any student familiar with the genuine examples figured in the Antiquitates Americanæ, it will be readily recognised as a clever hoax, fabricated by the correspondent of the Washington Union out of genuine Greenland inscriptions. It reads thus: hir huilir syasy fagrharrdr avstfirthingr iki a kildi systr thorg samfethra halfthritgr gleda gvd sal henar. To this are added certain symbols, suggested it may be presumed by the Kingiktorsoak inscription, from which the translator professes to derive the date a.d. 1051.

In the interval between the dates of the two communications previously referred to, a rubbing of the inscription on the Yarmouth rock was forwarded to Mr. Henry Phillips jr., of Philadelphia. It appears to have been under consideration by him at intervals for nine years, when at length it was made the subject of a paper read before the American Philosophical Society, and printed in its Proceedings in 1884. After a description of the locality, and the discovery of the inscribed stone on its original site, “about the end of the last century, by a man named Fletcher,” Mr. Phillips states the reasons which sufficed to satisfy him that the inscription is a genuine one. He then proceeds thus: “Having become imbued with a belief that no deception was intended, or practised, I entered upon the study of the markings with a mind totally and entirely free from prejudice. So far from believing that the inscription was a relic of the pre-Columbian discovery of America, I had never given any credence to that theory.” Thus, not only entirely unbiassed, but, as he says, “somewhat prejudiced against the authenticity of any inscription on this continent purporting to emanate from the hardy and intrepid Norsemen,” he proceeded to grapple with the strange characters. “As in a kaleidoscope, word after word appeared in disjointed form, and each was in turn rejected, until at last an intelligible word came forth, followed by another and another, until a real sentence with a meaning stood forth to my astonished gaze: Harkussen men varu—Hako’s son addressed the men.” On reverting to the old Vinland narrative this seemed all unexpectedly to tally with it, for Mr. Phillips found that in the expedition of Thorfinn Karlsefne, in 1007, one named Haki occurs among those who accompanied him. Still more noteworthy, as it appears, though overlooked by him, this oldest record of a European visitor to the Nova-Scotian shores, if actually referable to Hake, the fellow-voyager of Thorfinn, was no Northman, but a Scot! For Thorfinn himself, the old Saga, as reproduced in the Antiquitates Americanæ, claims a comprehensive genealogy in which his own Scottish ancestry is not overlooked. In the summer of 1006, according to the narrative of the “settlement effected in Vinland by Thorfinn,” “there arrived in Greenland two ships from Iceland; the one was commanded by Thorfinn, having the very significant surname of Karlsefn (i.e. who promises, or is destined to be an able or great man), a wealthy and powerful man, of illustrious lineage, and sprung from Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Irish and Scottish ancestors, some of whom were kings of royal descent. He was accompanied by Snorre Thorbrandson, who was also a man of distinguished lineage. The other ship was commanded by Bjarne Grimolfson, of Breidefiord, and Thorhall Gamlison, of Austfiord. They kept the festival of Yule at Brattalid. Thorfinn became enamoured of Gudrida, and obtained the consent of her brother-in-law, Leif, and their marriage was celebrated during the winter. On this, as on former occasions, the voyage to Vinland formed a favourite theme of conversation, and Thorfinn was urged both by his wife and others to undertake such a voyage. It was accordingly resolved on in the spring of 1007.” This later narrative distinctly sets forth an organised scheme of permanent settlement in the tempting land of the vine. Thorvald, who was in command of one of the three ships fitted out for the expedition, was married to Freydisa, a natural daughter of Eric the Red. “On board this ship was also a man of the name of Thorhall, who had long served Eric as a huntsman in summer, and as house-steward in winter, and who had much acquaintance with the uncolonised parts of Greenland. They had in all 160 men. They took with them all kinds of live stock, it being their intention to establish a colony, if possible.” Then follows the notice of their observations of the characteristic features, and of the fauna and flora of Helluland, Markland, and subsequent points; to the last of which, characterised by “trackless deserts and long beaches with sands,” they gave the name of Furdustrandir. After passing this, the characteristic feature is noted that the land began to be indented by inlets, or bays. Then follows the notice of Hake, the Scot, to whom Mr. Phillips conceives the Yarmouth inscription may be due. The reference, accordingly, with its accompanying description of the country, has a special claim to notice here. “They had,” says the Saga, “two Scots with them, Haki and Hekia, whom Leif had formerly received from the Norwegian King, Olaf Tryggvason,” it may be assumed as slaves carried off in some marauding expedition to the British Islands. The two Scots, man and woman, it is added, “were very swift of foot. They put them on shore recommending them to proceed in a south-west direction, and explore the country. After the lapse of three days they returned, bringing with them some grapes and ears of wheat, which grew wild in that region. They continued their course until they came to a place where the firth penetrated far into the country. Off the mouth of it was an island past which there ran strong currents, which was also the case further up the firth. On the island there was an immense number of eider ducks, so that it was scarcely possible to walk without treading on their eggs. They called the island Straumey (Stream Isle), and the firth Straumfiordr (Stream Firth). They landed on the shore of this firth, and made preparations for their winter residence. The country was extremely beautiful,” as we may readily imagine a sheltered nook of Nova Scotia to have appeared to voyagers fresh from Iceland and the Greenland shores. It may be well to note here that the incident of the discovery of the vine and the gathering of grapes reappears in different narratives under varying forms. It was a feature to be specially looked for by all later voyagers in search of the Vinland of the first expedition, that set out in search for the southern lands of which Bjarni Herjulfson is reported to have brought back an account to Greenland. Nor is the discovery of the vine by successive explorers along the American seaboard in any degree improbable, though it can scarcely be doubted that some of the later accounts are mere amplifications of the original narrative. It is, at any rate, to be noted that the scene of Haki the Scot’s discovery, was not the Hóp, identified by the Rhode Island Historical Society with their own Mount Hope Bay. As for Thorhall and his shipmates, they turned back, northward, in search of Vinland, and so deserted their fellow-voyagers before the scene of attempted colonisation was reached, and were ultimately reported to have been wrecked on the Irish coast.

Such is the episode in the narrative of ancient explorations of the North American shores by voyagers from Greenland, in which Mr. Phillips was gratified by the startling conformity, as it seemed to him, of the name of Haki, with the Harkussen of his runes; though, it must be admitted, the identity is far from complete. If, however, there were no doubt as to the inscription being a genuine example of Northern runes, the failure to refer them to Hake, or any other specific member of an exploring party, would be of little moment. Here, at any rate, was evidence which, if rightly interpreted, was calculated to suggest a reconsideration of the old localisation of Vinland in the state of Rhode Island; and to this other evidence pointed even more clearly. Reassured, accordingly, by a study of the map, which shows the comparatively trifling distance traversed by the assumed voyagers from Greenland, when compared with that from their remote European fatherland, Mr. Phillips submitted his interpretation to the American Philosophical Society “as worthy of consideration, if not absolutely convincing.” To the topographer of the maritime coasts of Canada, a genuine runic inscription which proved that Norse voyagers from Greenland did actually land on the shores of Nova Scotia, in a.d. 1007, and leave there a literate record of their visit, would be peculiarly acceptable. But whatever be the significance of the Yarmouth inscription, it fails to satisfy such requirements. It neither accords with the style, or usual formula of runic inscriptions; nor, as will be seen from the accompanying facsimile, is it graven in any variation of the familiar characters of the Scandinavian futhork. The fascinating temptation has to be set aside; and the Hake or Harkussen of its modern interpreter must take rank with the illusory Thorfinn discovered by the Rhode Island antiquaries on their famed Dighton Rock, which still stands by the banks of the Taunton river.

It is indeed vain for us to hope for evidence of the same definite kind as that which establishes beyond question the presence of the Northmen on the sites of their long-settled colonies in Greenland. Their visits to the Canadian seaboard were transitory; and any attempt at settlement there failed. Yet without the definite memorials of the old Norse colonists recovered in the present century on the sites of their Greenland settlements, it would probably have proved vain to identify them now. The coast of Nova Scotia is indented with inlets, and estuaries of creeks and rivers, suggesting some vague resemblance to the Hóp, or creek of the old Sagas. Whether any one of them presents adequate features for identification with the descriptions furnished in their accounts has yet to be ascertained. But there is every motive to stimulate us to a careful survey of the coast in search of any probable site of the Vinland of the old Northmen. Slight as are the details available for such a purpose, they are not without some specific definiteness, which the Rhode Island antiquaries turned to account, not without a warning to us in their too confident assumption of results. Dr. E. B. Tylor, in his address to the section of anthropology at the Montreal meeting of the British Association, after referring to the Icelandic records of the explorations of the hardy sea-rovers from Greenland, as too consistent to be refused belief as to the main facts, thus proceeded: “They sailed some way down the American coast. But where are we to look for the most southerly points which the Sagas mention as reached in Vineland? Where was Keel-ness where Thorvald’s ship ran aground, and Cross-ness where he was buried when he died by the Skræling’s arrow? Rafn, in the Antiquitates Americanæ, confidently maps out these places about the promontory of Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, and this has been repeated since from book to book. I must plead guilty to having cited Rafn’s map before now, but when with reference to the present meeting I consulted our learned editor of Scandinavian records at Oxford, Mr. Gudbrand Vigfusson, and afterwards went through the original passages in the Sagas with Mr. York Powell, I am bound to say that the voyages of the Northmen ought to be reduced to more moderate limits. It appears that they crossed from Greenland to Labrador (Helluland), and thence sailing more or less south and west, in two stretches of two days each, they came to a place near where wild grapes grew, whence they called the country Vineland. This would, therefore, seem to have been somewhere about the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and it would be an interesting object for a yachting cruise to try down from the east coast of Labrador a fair four days’ sail of a Viking ship, and identify, if possible, the sound between the island and the ness, the river running out of the lake into the sea, the long stretches of sand, and the other local features mentioned in the Sagas.” A fresh stimulus is thus furnished to Canadian yachtsmen to combine historical exploration with a summer’s coasting trip, and go in search of the lost Vinland. The description of the locality that furnished the data from which the members of the Rhode Island Historical Society satisfied themselves as to the identity of their more southern site on the Pacasset river, has to be kept in view in any renewed inquiry. At the same time it must not be overlooked that the oldest and most trustworthy narrative, in the Saga of Eric the Red, with the credited, and probably genuine story of the voyage of Karlsefne, are expanded, in the Grænlendingathàttr, into five voyages, with their incidents recast with modifications and additions. The expedition of Leif Ericson, and his accidental discovery of Vinland, and the subsequent attempt at colonisation of Karlsefne, in company with Thorvald and Freydisa, are the only adventures accredited by the oldest tradition. In the latter narrative it is stated that “they sailed for a long time, until they came at last to a river which flowed down from the land into a lake, and so into the sea. There were great bars at the mouth of the river, so that it could only be entered at the height of the flood tide. Karlsefn and his men sailed into the mouth of the river, and called it Hóp,” i.e. a land-locked bay. “They found self-sown wheat fields wherever there were hollows, and where there was hilly ground there were vines.” Subsequent descriptions are obviously based on this account. But to whatever extent the description of the locality where Thorvald, the brother of Leif Ericson, was killed by a Skræling may have been suggested by that narrative, the localities are different. It was apparently in the spring of a.d. 1004 that Karlsefne set out on his colonising expedition. The voyagers sailed along Furdustrandir, a long, low sandy coast, till they came to where the land was indented with creeks and inlets. There they steered into the Straumsfjord, to a spot where Karlsefne and his companions spent the winter of a.d. 1005; and where, therefore, we may assume the observations to have been made that determined the length of the day in Vinland at the winter solstice. The narrative of noteworthy incidents is accompanied with topographical details that have to be kept in view in any attempt at recovering traces of the locality. There, if it could be identified, we have to look for a promontory answering to the Krossanes, or promontory of the crosses: the spot where Thorvald was buried; and as would seem to be implied, where a cross was set up at the grave mound. The style of such a sepulchral memorial of the Northmen at a little later date is very familiar to us. The discovery on some hitherto unheeded spot of the Nova-Scotian coast of a bautastein, graven like those recovered on the sites of the old Greenland colony, would be an invaluable historical record. It might be expected to read somewhat in this fashion: Leif sunr Erikr rautha raisti krus thana eftir Thorvald brothur sina. But there is slight ground for imagining that the transient visitors from Greenland to the Canadian shores left any more lasting memorial of the tragic event that reappears in successive versions of the narrative of their presence there, than a wooden grave-post, or uninscribed headstone.

One other element in the characteristic features of the strange land visited by the Greenland explorers is the native population, and this has a specific interest in other respects, in addition to its bearing on the determination of a Nova-Scotian site for “Vineland the Good.” They are designated Skrælings (Skrælingjar), and as in this the Greenland voyagers applied the same name to the natives of Vinland as to the Greenland Eskimo, it has been assumed that both were of the same race. But the term “skræling” is still used in Norway to express the idea of decrepitude, or physical inferiority; and probably was used with no more definite significance than our own word “savage.” The account given in the Saga of the approach of the Skrælings would sufficiently accord with that of a Micmac flotilla of canoes. Their first appearance is thus described: “While looking about one morning, they observed a great number of canoes. On exhibiting friendly signals the canoes approached nearer to them, and the natives in them looked with astonishment at those they met there. These people were sallow-coloured and ill-looking, had ugly heads of hair, large eyes and broad cheeks.” The term skræling has usually been interpreted “dwarf,” and so seemed to confirm the idea of the natives having been Eskimo; but, as already stated, the word, as still used in Norway, might mean no more than the inferiority of any savage race. As to the description of their features and complexion, that would apply equally well to the red Indian or the Eskimo, and so far as the eyes are spoken of, rather to the former than the latter. More importance may be attached to the term hudhkeipr applied to their canoes, which is more applicable to the kayak, or skin-boat, than to the birch-bark canoe of the Indian; but the word was probably loosely used as applicable to any savage substitute for a keel, or built boat.