This listing of evidence was published as the Factual Fiction section of Frozen Trail to Merica, Vol 1, Talerman.
The evidence is published unchanged except for these items:
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1. Lenape replaces Algonquin in most occurrences.
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Lenape was the language of the people, who walked away,
from Greenland in 1346-50.
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They had been calling themselves Lenape since 1125.
When the Lenape walked away, the language divided:
To the east it became Old Norse as preserved
in the isolated island, IceLand.
To the west it became many dialects of Lenape
because of the local people who intermarried
into the Lenape tribes.
The French called the Lenape language
"Algonquin" when they started to study
a local dialect of Americans.
.
So, Lenape is the oldest and most encompassing name
for the language.
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2. The phrase "in the story" was replaced with more general words.
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3. Images and references to them were removed. You can
see them in the Frozen Trail to Merica, Talerman book.
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4. Except where needed for clarification of previous quotes
and tittles, all Old Norse and Norse labels have been
changed to Lenape.
The Lenape were Norse, who spoke Old Norse when they
walked away from Greenland in 1346 and 1350.
.
AARUM-TID
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Aarum tid meaning, "Yearly-time" was the title of the tribal historian. The historian made engravings of the outstanding events for each year. He composed verses for the engravings and recited them during the Big House ceremony. The repeated use of the historical title "Aarum-tid" in the Walam Olum is strong evidence that it is not a hoax. As centuries passed the words "Aarum-tid" morphed into "Olumapie."
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AKOMEN
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The people in the Walam Olum were going to a land called "Akomen." (Brinton, 1885). The Native American Place Names in Massachusetts has these listings:
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"Accomac, early place name of Plymouth, means 'land on the other side, or beyond the water.'"
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"Accomemeck, of which Massassoit was sachem"
(Douglas-Lithgow, 1909/2001)
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Accom- words are also found in Shawnee, Mahican, and Leni Lenape name listings in the Handbook of North American Indians (HNAI). (HNAI, 1978)
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AKPATOK BIRDS
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The modern European name for Akpatok birds is "guillemot." Variations of "Akpatok" word are still used among the Inuit. Most native peoples named most birds by imitating their call. A reasonable guess is that the Akpatok bird has a call similar to the name. The birds live in holes in cliffs, including those on Akpatok Island. They sit upright on their feet and short tail. They can float like ducks or fly directly into water and continue to "fly" to catch their prey.
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Whole Akpatok birds fermented in a sealskin sack are a delicacy among Inuit. (Malaurie, 1982)
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ALBA
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The Albans held the northern and western islands of Scotland where they used skin boats for fishing and trade. They had persisted to hold the high country in western Scotland against the Picti aggression. The Picti held most of the lowlands of Scotland. After becoming united, the two tribes called themselves. "Alba."
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ALBANS
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Farley Mowat proposed the voyages of the Albans. (Mowat, 1998/2000) Evidence to support Mowat's hypotheses includes the Ojibwa and Cree traditions, which tell of coming to this land a millennium ago from a land across a salt sea in the east. (Bial, 2000)
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A supplemental hypothesis is that when the Albans fled from Iceland ahead of the Vikings, they sailed in two directions. Some of the Albans on Iceland may have chosen to sail to northern Norway where they remain today as the Sami (Laplanders). Evidence to support the supplemental hypotheses includes the similar conical hats worn by women in Labrador and Lapland, ceremonial coats with needlework trim, crossbows, canoes, tepees, and wigwams. All of these items, which may have originated with the Albans, are shown in the HNAI in the chapters for Cree (Vol. 6), Southeastern Ojibwa and Micmac (Vol. 15). Also the use of the catapult in Erik's Saga implies that the Albans used European weapons against the Vikings. (Magnusson, 1966)
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ALBANY RIVER
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The Albany River, a major waterway, flows into James Bay from the west. One of its tributaries is the Little Current River. The Norse name for the river was Geysavann meaning, "swift flowing water." The English spelled the river's name as "Chichewan" before they changed the name to "Albany" in honor of the Duke of York and Albany who was a stockholder in the Hudson Bay Company.
The Albans named the river after themselves. Then the Norse re-named it to Geysavann. The subtle irony is that, in later centuries, the river was again re-named the "Albany River" to honor a man connected with Albany in Britain.
ALTHING
The Althing meeting was the great parliament. A Thing was a regional parliament. The Althings described in the Maalan Aarum is similar to descriptions of historical political gatherings in Greenland.
The actions of men at an Althing are reported in Ingstad's description of the Althing grounds and general activity surrounding the meeting place. (Ingstad, 1966, pp. 41–2)
ARTIFACTS
The Sandnes area in Greenland is the site of four historical objects from America. Those objects are 1) an arrowhead, 2) a piece of coal (Ingstad, 1966, p. 163–4), 3) hair from a brown bear, and 4) hair from a buffalo. (Fitzhugh/Ward, 2000)
The arrowhead is quartzite and has a shape unlike any found from any Greenland Norse or Inuit artifacts. It is considered to be a North American arrowhead.
The lump of coal was found at a low level under the floor of a house. The coal is anthracite. Greenland has nothing but lignite coal. The nearest anthracite coal site is in the place called Akonsee, which is in modern day Rhode Island (on the other side [akonsee] of Davis Strait).
Hairs from two American animals, the brown bear and the buffalo, were found in weaving remains. The recent excavation report postulates that the hairs came from Siberia. (Fitzhugh/Ward, 2000)
BEAVER ROBES
O'Meara wrote that the beaver robes worn by the Indians were worth much more than an equivalent number of beaver furs. (O'Meara, 1960, p. ix)
Wearing the beaver fur removes the guard hair from the pelt. The softer interlocking fur is left. For several years after the Hudson Bay Company started, c1675, only the Russians had the technology to remove the guard hair. Most beaver hides from America were shipped first to Russia and most of those pelts, with the guard hair removed, went to France, where the furriers made hats for England. The Hudson Bay Company paid higher prices to those Indians who wore beaver pelts.
BENEFICE
A benefice is a position that provides a clergyman with his income.
THE CHURCH AT NADIR: 1307-1417
"Every ecclesiastical appointee was required to remit to the papal Curia …half the income of the office for the first year and thereafter annually a tenth or tithe. … On the death of any … bishop … his personal possessions reverted to the papacy. In the interim between the death of an ecclesiastic and the installation of his successor, the popes received the net revenues of the benefice, and were accused of prolonging this interval. (Durant, Vol. VII, 1957)
BIG HOUSE
The location is conjecture but within the historic migration routes of the Leni Lenape. (Hyde, 1962) [Author's 2011 note: The location is slightly wrong and the north to south migration pattern is completely wrong. The Lenape would have been migrating west to east when they reached this location. The villages would have been on the northern fringe of the migration route.]
BIJ
The Lenape word "bij" may have derived from the contraction of "blod vann" meaning, "blood water. "Bva" is conjecture for "blod vann" words in transition.
BISHOP ARNE
Bishop (Big Raven) Arne is a historical man. He came to Greenland in 1315. By 1343 Archbishop Pal, in Norway, thought Bishop Arne was dead. So he named Bishop Jon Eriksson to replace Bishop Arne. Bishop Jon did not leave Norway.
Bishop Arne's final "death" was reported to have happened in 1348. Ivar Bardsson continued to serve as the church's agent in Greenland until 1363. (Ingstad, 1966, p. 200) Although many sources cite various other locations, Bishop Arni's death may have been beyond Greenland.
BISHOP GNUPSSON
Gnupsson's may have moved on to the Penobscot in Norumbege after his James Bay sojourn.
In 1614, five centuries after the conjectured move, Captain John Smith wrote, “… they hold the BASHABES of Penobscot the chiefe and greatest among them."
"Bashabes" means, "Bishop." (Sherwin, Vol. II, p 22, 1942)
BISHOP OLAF
Bishop Olaf landed in Greenland in 1247. He was "charged by the Norwegian King Haakon Haakonsson, IV to bring the Greenlanders under the Norwegian Crown." (Ingstad, 1966, p. 201)
His encounter with the Althing is conjecture.
BLACK CLOTHES
The black clothes with needlework trim and conical hats worn by the people of Northeast America may have been associated with the Algäns who may have reached Northeast North America around the millennium. These black clothes can be traced in drawings and photographs from 1817 to 1900 in illustrations in the HNAI (Vol. 6, pp. 111, 220, and 224; Vol. 15 pp. 115 and 130)
BOILING POTS
Ingstad shows a rectangular soapstone boiling-pot in a photograph of Greenland relics. He writes, twice, of the Greenlander's craft with soapstone. The soapstone industry was well established in Norway before the Greenlanders adapted the ancient tradition and improved upon it. Cooking pots are the first items in the lists of soapstone items made. (Ingstad, 1966, Plate 8, Fig. 8, pp. 71, 270)
Oxford students found one soapstone boiling-pot in Ungava Bay in 1931. (Cox, 1960, Plate D, Fig. 5)
Lee collected six boiling-pots on the east shores of Ungava Bay. (Lee, 1968, Fig. 36A & B, 37A & B, and 38A & B)
Boiling-pots are on display as artifacts in the Deerfield, MA, museum. (Personal observation, 2001)
The major source for soapstone in northeast America, and possibly Greenland (?) was located in New York. The wide distribution of rectangular, soapstone boiling-pots in North America may be more indicative ofLenape penetration than Inuit influence.
One author suggested the soapstone boiling-pots were carved rectangular because the first boiling-pots of the Greenland Lenape were made of metal from Europe. Metal manufacture in the thirteenth century would have favored sheet metal folding and crimping end plates. The result would have been a rectangular pot. When the metal pots wore out in Greenland, they may have been replaced with soapstone pots.
BUFFALO
O'Meara quoted Alexander Henry the Younger's journal (c. 1810), who wrote: "Sometimes the whole herd [of buffalo] would range along the route [of even a single person who had walked in the grass] until one of them would be hardy enough to jump over." (O'Meara, 1960)
CAMPBELL BADGE
A silver Campbell shield-badge made in Scotland about 1330 was found in the Northern Settlement.
CARIBOU
It was no problem for a hunter to sneak up on a caribou. Often caribou herds walked straight at a hunter. A wise hunter had built a rock pile to hide behind as the caribou herd walked past. Mowat wrote about a modern episode of waiting for many hours as caribou walked past. (Mowat, 1952, pp. 65–67)
Caribou are curious animals. Sometimes men would sit patiently on a rock near caribou. Soon the caribou would be curious enough to walk closer. The men could bring down caribou using the "wait and see" method. Ingstad, 1966, wrote about the "wait and see" hunting for caribou. He was a game agent for caribou in Alaska. (Ingstad, 1966, p. 344)
Caribou travel in herds and follow a seasonal migration pattern. The Tunit had to harvest large numbers of caribou during the migrations so they moved massive stone blinds forming a funnel into the caribou route. They hid behind the stones and jumped out at the right moment to scare the caribou herd into a narrow defile. Hunters standing beside the defile used spears and bows to drop caribou. Other Tunit pulled the dead caribou away.
Century's later Tunit in kayaks killed the caribou by lancing them as they swam across a stream. The current floated the bodies away from the kill site. The caribou bodies were fished from the water or temporarily stored under the cold water.
CATAPULT
A conjecture is that the Albans modified the siege catapult to create a light, mobile battlefield catapult. The catapult was basically a long pole with a short cross axle one-fifth of the distance from one end of the long pole. The catapult team lifted the pole and axle to head height and then secured the axle to two "A" frames. A basket was slung onto pegs extending from very near the short end of the pole. The vertical dimension of the basket was short enough so the basket would clear the ground when the pole was vertical. The horizontal dimension of the basket was about the same as the vertical dimension, but was rounded to clear the ground during the swing. A massive weight of stones, perhaps half a ton or more, was loaded into the basket, raising the long end of the pole into the air. Then a team of men pulled on ropes attached to the long pole to wrestle it down to waist level. A latch held the long pole in place.
A heavy missile, weighing one tenth of the massive weight, was fastened to the long end of the pole. When the latch was released, the massive weight in the basket dropped, snapping the pole upward and slinging the missile. The missile soared in a graceful arc to land with a crushing blow on anything at the end of the arc.
The Albans may have modified the catapult tactics by loading the basket from several lighter baskets of stones carried onto the battlefield. They may have also learned that a sheep paunch filled with jagged rocks was more effective against massed fighting men than a large stone. When the paunch hit, the jagged rocks would recoil, bursting the paunch and spraying a large area with rock shrapnel. The catapult men may have learned that aiming for a spot behind the opposing battle line was most effective. Many warriors had no shielding for their backsides.
The battlefield catapult description is similar to one demonstrated in a video documentary on ancient weapons. A battlefield catapult was smaller and more mobile than siege catapults. The swinging basket to hold a massive weight accumulated from smaller weights was probably used in fluid battlefield engagements. (PBS, NOVA)
CAVE
Jesuit Lauer described the cave near the Nemiskou River. (The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, [JRAD], Vol. LXVIII, CCII)
The cave was probably a mica mine. The Hudson Bay Company personnel spent time and resources trying to develop a mica mining operation somewhere up the Nemiskou River
CHESS
Lenape men played chess to pass the time, to make decisions, or to choose people. They played other games also, but the evidence of chess pieces left throughout the Arctic implies chess was the mental contest of choice. (Ingstad, 1966)
CONICAL HATS
Conical hats are found in references of historical fashion. (Iberia, 1989) They are shown on Swedish Laplanders in 1800. A conical hat design, without the hood, appears to be similar in both Lapland and Labrador. Five panel conical hats are not intuitive artifacts in any culture. The hat relationship is more strong evidence that the Laplanders and the people of Labrador shared common ancestors.
The Vikings may have driven Albans from Iceland to America via Greenland. Other Albans may have chosen to flee Iceland by sailing northeast to the extensive forests of northern Norway and Sweden. Those Albans may have developed into the Laplanders of today.
COURT FARMS
At the time of Ivar Bardarsson, from 1341 to 1363, there were two court farms in Greenland. The court farms were named Foss and Tjodhildstat. These court farms were for the use of the King of Norway and his agents during their stay in Greenland. (Ingstad, 1966)
CROSS SYMBOL
A review of old and modern photographs of various Indian Tribes indicated that the Lenapes did and still do display the cross on their clothing, tepees, or inside their homes. In the photographs one person in four displayed the cross symbol, usually the equal armed cross of St. Ninian often with tied ends. The cross display per person ratio is higher than any other tribe including tribes in the southwest where missions worked sooner and longer than missionaries in the north.
Even the Pilgrims observed crosses during the first formal meeting with Massassoit people. The Pilgrim journal recorded that all twenty Wapanoags in the visiting party wore "crosses and other Antick works." (W8liaon, 1945, p. 175)
Evidence showing that the crosses could not have resulted from an intense, swift missionary effort was demonstrated by an entire museum display of Indian artifacts and photographs in Sacramento, California, which revealed only two cross symbols after nearly five centuries of missionary effort.
CROSSBOW
A photograph of a crossbow is shown in HNAI Vol. 15. Underhill, 1953, p. 79 cites the crossbow first of the hunting methods of the Northern Hunters.
DAVIS CURRENTS
Davis Strait lies north of the Atlantic Ocean between Greenland on the east and Baffin Island on the west. Davis Strait also lies above the continental shelf. South of Davis Strait, the floor of the ocean plunges to the deep depths of the Atlantic Ocean. When the tide is rising, large volumes of water moving slowly in the East Greenland Current of the Atlantic Ocean are jammed into the smaller, flatter volume of Davis Strait. The water flow in south Davis Strait moves faster than over the depths of the ocean. The momentum of the flow pushes the icebergs north into Davis Strait.
Ice is also calved from Baffin Island, the west Greenland glaciers, and from Lancaster, Jones, and Smith Sounds. This ice moves south through Davis Strait to collide with the East Greenland icebergs floating north. The icebergs swirl in a massive counter-clockwise eddy in Davis Strait. When weather and ice permits, the jumbled ice peels off and moves south along the Labrador coast. Thus the shores of west Greenland are usually ice free, while the east Labrador coast a thousand miles further south is encased in a jumbled mass of ice lasting into summer.
DRUM
The Merica and Akomen use of drums are fictional but based on observations of drums at dances in America. The Greenland drum is fictional. Unsubstantiated authors mention the conversion of old Odin dances to Christian use, but no substantiated reference to a drum in Lenape history has been located.
EASTMAN LAND
Eastmain (Eastman) is an area on the east shore of James Bay. The Eastmain River of today used to be the Sludd (sleet) River of the Lenapes. The name appears during descriptions in Hudson Bay books as if Eastmain was a known location as opposed to building a trading station and naming it, usually for Englishmen.
The Alban migration to Eastmain via Ungava Bay and the communications with the Albans in the St. Lawrence River valley might have happened. The Cree and the Micmac wore similar, distinctive clothes.
Jesuit Albanel provides tantalizing, but not conclusive, support for this conjecture. In the seventeenth century he describes the unexpected yearning of the people in the southwest James Bay Region to be baptized. (JRAD, Vol. LVI, CXXVIII)
EINARSFJORD
In Ivar Bardarsson's time (1342-60) Einarsfjord was the fjord just south of Eriksfjord in the Eastern Settlement of Greenland. Gardar, the Bishop's residence, and the cathedral were at the head of this fjord and Hrein Island was at the mouth.
The original name for Einarsfjord might well have been Hrein Fjord three centuries earlier. Hrein Island lies in the mouth of the fjord. There are examples of fjords and the island in their mouth having the same name. (I.e. Eriks Island was in the mouth of Eriksfjord.). The "ar" syllable is often inserted after some Lenape nouns. (I.e. see Bardarsson above.) Thus the original fjord name could have been Hreinarfjord. Over the centuries the "Hr" might have faded away and a "s" would have slipped in to make the vocalization smoother. The vocal changes are well within the expectations of language morphing.
ENGRAVED STICKS
The engraved sticks are copies of the pictographs of chapter 3 of the Walam Olum. (See Walam Olum.) They are used in the stories to divide major sections of the narration. In the following vignettes a verse, similar to the Walam Olum verse, is created to go with the engraving. The verses end the episode for the particular engraving.
The wording of a few verses has been changed because the Lenape translation appears to give a better understanding to the Lenape words. Also east has been changed to west in a couple of verses. Rafinesque was a strong believer of the west to east migration across the Bering Strait. He may have changed the original Lenape words to fit his belief, but he left other clues indicating the people were going west, not east. The changed words are surrounded by [ ] symbols.
ERIK THE RED
Erik the Red and his son, Leif Eriksson, are historical men described by the Graenlendinga and Erik's Sagas
EVERGREEN LAND
The first verse of the Walam Olum, chapter 4 says:
"Long ago, the ancient Lenape
Came to Evergreen land."
Rafinesque, and nearly everyone since him, assumed "Evergreen Land" to mean the Alaska forests. But the pictograph implies that the evergreen tree dominated the landscape. The forests around James Bay would also qualify as "Evergreen Land" and the evergreens dominate the landscape.
[Author's 2011 note: We learned to decipher the recorded sounds. In 2011 a student in Kean University, NJ and I determined that the sounds really meant "a place of many rivers." The "evergreen branches may be the six major rivers flowing into James Bay. There is only one pllace where many rivers (21) flow together--James Bay."
FAIR HAIR
Charles Earl Funk wrote a foreword to Sherwin's The Viking and the Red Men on February 1940. He wrote "the tribe of ‘white Indians,’ some with ‘fair hair and gray eyes,’ said to be still inhabiting the west shore of James Bay and speaking a Cree dialect, has also been advanced as such an indication" [of Lenape settlement.]
FOOD
The diet of most Greenland farmhouses was over ninety percent fish, seal, and walrus. They ate two percent of their diet as caribou. The other eight- percent came from the domestic livestock. The more powerful landowners, who also owned the biggest boats, ate forty percent of their diet from fish, seal, and walrus. Caribou was forty percent of their diet. The powerful landowners may have received the larger share of the caribou as payment for shipping space on the boats.
Ingstad wrote about the milk products on a Greenland farm. (Ingstad, 1966)
Malaurie wrote in detail about processing seal (by Eskimos). (Malaurie, 1982)
FOURTEEN YEARS
"Behold, there shall come seven years of great plenty … and there shall arise after them seven years of famine." (Genesis 41:29–30)
"…The speed of the [salinity] event, the 1968–1982 time table translates into a rate of flow …[that is] almost exactly as the same as the average rate of current flow for the sub polar gyre. … [This] continues to stand as the best explanation anyone has yet devised for the fourteen-year saga of the Great Salinity Anomaly." (Arms, 1998, p. 194)
Researchers believe salinity in the North Atlantic controls the world's climate. The sub polar gyre is the flow of water counter clockwise around Iceland, north up the west coast of Greenland, south via the Labrador Current and eastward on the Gulf Stream Current. From there the water flows north around Iceland again. The same mass of water passes a given point every fourteen years.
When the climate is warm more icebergs are calved into Davis Strait. The icebergs melt to reduce the salinity of the surface water. The water with less salinity shuts off the conveyor-belt that is carrying warm, but salty, water from the Pacific Ocean. The North Atlantic climate turns cold. These events repeat on a fourteen-year cycle. (Arms, 1998, p. 193)
GEESE
The second verse of the Walam Olum, chapter 4 says
“The White Eagle had been the pathfinder
Hitherto for all of them there.”
The pictograph shows an indistinct bird that looks more like a sea gull than an eagle. The bird does have a hooked beak. The original word "Wapallanewa" can be divided into "Wapalla" meaning, "White" and "newa" for the bird. Lenape's often named birds by the bird's call.
MacKenzie, one of the first white men into the northern woods recorded the K'nistenaux and Lenape words for white geese as "wey wois" and "woi wois." It appears that his scribe was using French spelling for the sounds, so the Lenape word would have sounded like "we wa" to English ears.
The two syllables "Newa" are closer to the names for white geese than they are to the three syllable names of an eagle which were "makufue" or "mequiffis."
One hypothesis is that the man who made the Walam Olum pictograph was no longer in white goose country, so the bird was drawn using a sea gull as a model. When the Maalan Aarum was recited in Indiana in the 1800's the eagle was probably the favorite bird to both the Lenape speaker and the translator, so the Lenape to English translation probably resulted in an “eagle.”
[Author's 2011 note: Another surprise. When this 4.2 stanza was deciphered the verse reads:
"White goose, a large fish
Children to increase."
Assuming that all people were children, this verse is telling us that the Lenape actually gained population along the southern shores of Hundon Bay by eating geese and whales.]
GRANDFATHERS
A grandfather is used as a measure of approximately 50 years of time. The seventeen grandfathers are equal to 850 years. The grandfather time unit was selected solely for the reader's convenience and has no relation to Lenape methods of telling past time.
GREENLAND
Ingstad described the Greenland fjords, churches, and houses. The written records of ninety houses and four churches in the Northern Settlement appear to be more reliable than data based on recent excavations that have not yet located all the sites. (Ingstad, 1966)
GREENLAND MISSIONARY
Magnus Magnusson reported that Jon Johannesson of Iceland proved conclusively that Leif did not introduce Christianity to Greenland as the sagas report. (Magnusson, 1966)
GRONLAND
The Norse sagas claim that Norsemen named Iceland and Greenland. But the first written document using those names occurred in 834 when Lewis the Pious, Holy Roman Emperor appointed a monk to be Archbishop of eight northern lands including Cronland and Island.
Later in Rome, after Pope Gregory IV agreed to the confirming papal bull in 835, the scribe wrote the names of seven of the lands including "Gronlanders" and "Iselanders."
In 846 and 858 other papal bulls confirmed the original appointment, but the scribes had changed the names to "Iceland" and "Greenland."
There is other evidence in the church records to indicate that Christians, probably Albans, were in Iceland and Greenland four centuries before King Haakon the Old made the two lands part of his kingdom. (Mowat 1965)
HAAKON HAAKONSSON
Haakon Haakonsson, IV, called the Old, was the King of Norway from 1217 to 1263. He was crowned in Bergen in 1247 after being a ruling contender for thirty years. Records of events after 1247 are rare.
In 1258 his daughter, Kristen, married. (Pearson, 1998)
HÄRBRET BASES
During the centuries when they used the low stone walls, the Big Men also fabricated härbrets. Härbrets are food storage huts elevated about nine feet in the air to prevent bears from disturbing the cache.
In ancient times the stone bases were about five feet in diameter and ten feet high. The härbret stone bases on Ungava Peninsula stand near to the low stone walls and the open-water marvels. Lee wrote excellent documentation of the stone bases in his survey of the northeast coast of Ungava Peninsula, but he did not understand their function (Lee, 1968)
The locations of the härbret bases still standing today clearly mark the route taken by the people during the copper trading era..
HOPE
"Hope" means "tidal lake" where a river runs into a lake before the water spills into the ocean. A high tide was needed for the ships to be raised onto the lake. The Vikings
probably called the approach to Hope "Grossvann." "Gross" means "large." "Vann" means, "water." Today, modern maps show Grosswater Bay to be a sea approach to a tidal lake. The water emptying into Grosswater Bay best meets the requirements of Erik's Saga description of Hope, "a river into a lake, and the lake into the sea." (Magnusson, 1966)
The location of Grosswater Bay for Hope was selected after a careful re-reading of Enterline. He glossed over the saga phrase "sailed for a long time" and picked a location further north for the Karlsevne's second over-winter site. Enterline selected a more northern site because he believed that Karlsevne knew the correct latitude of Leif's huts. (Enterline, 1972) Karlserne might have known Leif's information but may have decided Leif had not been capable of determining exact latitude.
Except for Enterline's location, most authors locate Hope much further south than Grosswater Bay. But Carlson sketched a map found on the Spirit Pound Stone #1. The map is similar to the east coast of Labrador from Newfoundland to Grosswater Bay. The runes on the stone say, in runes, "Vinland, Hoop, Take, two days." (Carlson, 1998)
It would take two days for the Lenape boats to sail that distance. Whoever carved the stone knew Lenape runes, Vinland, Hoop [Hope], the sailing time, and enough details to draw the islands in Grosswater Bay. Thus, the two independent determinations of Hope imply strongly that Hope was in Grosswater Bay.
ICE CORE CLIMATE
The GIS P-2 ice core provides data for the Greenland climate from the years 1300 to 1360. When the climate was ten degrees below normal (twenty-four out of sixty years), Davis Strait would have frozen solid enough to walk upon for at least five months of the year. When the climate was minus twenty degrees below normal, (fourteen of the twenty-four cold years), Davis Strait was frozen at least nine months of the year and the Northern Settlement had only one month during the summer when the maximum high temperatures averaged as high as 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Outside water, melted by the sun, would have refrozen every night of the year. . (Fitzhugh/Ward, 2000)
ICE RIDDLE
The ocean between Greenland and Ungava Bay often behaves inversely to the overall temperature. As the climatic temperature rises, more icebergs flow down the Labrador Current, causing the water to be cooler, prolonging the winter's pack ice. When the temperature lowers for many moons or up to years, fewer icebergs ride the Labrador Current. Without the icebergs, the melting of the pack ice occurs sooner. As the pack ice loosens, the dynamic flushing of Ungava Bay by the surging tide clears the surface water sooner in the year.
Arms details the Davis Strait climate inversion. The warmer the weather, the more icebergs move into Davis Strait. The more icebergs in Davis Strait, the colder the water is in Davis Strait. The colder the water, the slower the pack ice melts during the summer. So, warm weather in Davis Strait means the pack ice will linger longer into summer. (Arms, 1998)
ICE RIVER
Kangia, the Ice River, has a flow rate of the ice up to twenty meters per day, every day. Kangia is responsible for fifteen to twenty-five percent of the icebergs from west Greenland. A rock sill at the threshold of the ten-kilometer mouth of the Ice River interrupts the flow of ice into Davis Strait for periods up to two weeks. When the pressure builds up enough to force the ice into Davis Strait it moves with explosive energy at random times. (Arms, 1998 p. 139–44)
ICEBERGS
Pack ice is ice that has frozen on the surface of the ocean for less than a year. Individual floes of pack ice are stronger and harder than freshwater ice. The greatest danger for men on thin pack ice is sinking rather than breaking. Pack ice is loose and moves with the wind. Large floes of pack ice are rarely solid for long distances, especially in a region where tides are active and icebergs plow through.
An iceberg, with ninety percent of the mass below the surface, moves with the current. An iceberg can smash through pack ice, leaving a trail of open water behind. When the pack ice is frozen solid enough to walk on, the sea animals often cluster at the open-water areas near an iceberg. (Arms, 1998)
Arm describes the interaction of icebergs and pack ice in Davis Strait. The interaction was extended to extreme cold temperatures far as the data permitted. (Arms, 1998, p. 34–8)
IN THE LIGHT
The Lenape syllables "Wapa" can have four different understandings. "Wapa" can mean light, rich, east or up. These meanings derive from four different Old Norse phrases that sound similar to "Wapa."
Brinton's translation of Walam Olum 3:13, shows a man in a canoe,
The man is going to Akomen. Akomen (the other side) must be James Bay.
INDIAN MOON
The names of Indian moons appear to vary from tribe to tribe. An Ojibwa version is shown below.
Ojibwa were from Scotland and Ireland. They were not Lenape.
THE INDIAN MOONS (MONTHS)
The moon of the rising spirits January
The moon of the suckers February
(The fish begin moving upriver.)
The moon of the snow crust March
(Because the sun covers the top
of the snow with a fine crust.
It is a good time to travel.)
The moon for breaking snow shoes April.
(Because the snow disappears
and snowshoes are often broken.)
The flower moon May
The strawberry moon June
The raspberry moon July
The whortleberry moon August
The moon of the wild rice September
The moon of the falling leaf October
The freezing moon November
The moon of little spirits December
INDRAWING SEAS
There is universal agreement among historians that the "Indrawing Seas" referred to Hudson Strait. The tidal surge in Hudson Strait can rise thirty-eight feet or higher. The current in Hudson Strait can move faster than men can row. Early explorers wrote about whirlpools and the roaring of the tides. Adam De Bremen wrote of an episode where the crew of Harald the Hardrada's boat rowed hard to escape the Indrawing Seas. (De Bremen, 1070)
INHERITANCE
Very early in the settling of Greenland, decent pasture space limited housing to about 280 farmhouses. In many cases, the Lenape moved into the houses left behind by the fleeing Albans. Then the Lenape expanded and modified them. By Magnus's time, the people in Greenland had been on the same land for about ten generations. Normally, a couple had about ten children with five of them surviving to adulthood. So, if the two older siblings of the leading family stayed at home, if they married two spouses, and if both families raised five children, there were fourteen people per farmhouse plus the older parents who had not died yet. The evidence indicates that fourteen to eighteen people did live in each farmhouse.
What happened to the other six to ten children from each house? They could not all have inherited the farm. They might not have had room to live with their own families in their childhood farmhouse or to marry spouses with inheritance rights in other houses.
The spouses of the eldest two siblings came to live in the farmhouse. The eldest boy of the primary family in the household usually inherited the farm and his children were considered the primary family. An elder daughter and her husband often stayed on the farm, sharing the work. They were usually the secondary couple.
When the children of the secondary couple grew up, they had to eventually find spouses or work on other farms. Many of the second, third, or younger brothers, unlucky in love, sailed away to Leif's River or to Norumvege leaving many younger women without marriage prospects.
Often hunters returned to Greenland to court a blue-eyed girl. A hunter could easily court young blue-eyed women in a country where eligible men were hard to find. But they did the courting under the watchful eye of parents, aunts, uncles and the priest of the local kirke. Most of the returning hunters had already lain with agreeable women, either in Norumvege, Eastman's Land, or in the Blond area west of James Bay. So after a quick look around, many hunters embarked on the next boat going west.
The hunters who did wed in Greenland boarded the westbound boats taking along a young woman who was desperate for an escape from a life of drudgery in a mound of freezing earth. The women who left Greenland never came back.
Greenland had two nunneries. Many women who did not catch the eye of a homebuilder or a hunter chose to go to the nunnery. It beat mucking out the cow room.
IVAR BARDARSSON
Ivar Bardarsson is a historical man. He was a churchman of Bergen. In 1341 he received a mandate from Bishop Haakon to go to Greenland on business. He was in Greenland until 1364. He was appointed the Bishop's deputy at the episcopal seat of Gardar, probably from 1348 to 1364. (Ingstad, 1966)
The personality and detailed actions of Ivar Bardarsson are fictional.
JAMES BAY
Jesuit Albanel was one of the first Frenchman to reach James Bay. His description of James Bay is summarized below. (JRAD, 1953)
The southern sump of James Bay is the body of water farthest south in Hudson Bay. The western side of James Bay is swampy. Although the ebb and flow of the tide occurs at the south end of James Bay, the area can be described as "land-locked" water. Rivers retain fresh water at their mouths, and fresh water extends for a long distance into the bay.
The sea water recedes a great distance at low tide. Albanel estimated the distance to be over forty miles. In the vast area where the water left, all that could be seen was mud and rocks with most of the surface clear of water. At low tides the rivers, flowing out over the mud and becoming lost in the mud, could not float canoes.
The open-water effect is created by different circumstances than a surging tidal flow. The climate at south James Bay is 10 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than Hudson Bay. Warm weather systems sweeping off the plains of North America pass over southern James Bay. Streams, running under the snow, add warmer water to the south tip of the bay. Wild animals, birds, and plants leave a residue of manure, feathers, leaves, and shattered vegetation on the ice, which catch the sun's warmth. The cumulative effect of these factors is to slow the freezing and speed the thawing of the water at the south tip of James Bay.
KIMAL
The Vikings used a handheld device, 4.7 inches long by an inch wide, to determine latitude. The Arabs called similar devices "Al Kemal." The Vikings may have called their device simply a "Ki mal." The Kimal was more precise and versatile than the Al-Kemal, which could only determine one preset latitude. (Slaughter, 1957)
The height of the North Star above the horizon varies with the latitude of the viewer. The viewer held a Kimal tethered by a set of necklaces, which established a set distance from his eyeball. He rapidly scanned along the horizon until he saw the North Star in the slit. The viewer then lowered the Kimal until the North Star peeped through the hole. The viewer then thumbed a slender needle up the notches on the center prong until the needle looked as if it was on the horizon which was seen behind the Kimal. Then he clamped the needle in place with his thumb. The viewer then made an accurate count of the notches using lamplight.
This Kimal was calibrated by adjusting the necklaces so that the distance from the hole to the bottom of the solid crosspiece was the same as the distance as from the Kimal to the eyeball. Known measurements on the ship's deck and main spar created an equal sided triangle to verify that the Kimal was in calibration. The exact latitude, in degrees, was not required. The correct Kimal notch required to sail a given latitude was easier to remember and simpler to determine.
The Kimal is shown in the Beothuk chapter of the HNAI, Vol. 15, p 104, fig. 5, left.
Kemal Re'is, a great sea captain, was the uncle of Piri Re'is, who drew a map including North and South America in 1513. (Hapgood, 1966, Note 1, page 209).
KNIFE
An ancient copper knife is one of a batch of annealed copper knifes sold by Norvege merchants to Greenland hunters, c1130. A companion knife was found by Plummet's (1985) team within the stones of a long house, designated UNG 11B, at the north end of the open water marvels in Ungava Bay. European manufacturing methods of c1120 made the knife. Other artifacts found in the same long house included, 50 glass beads from two locations, an arrow shaft for an iron arrowhead, two wooden handles shafted to use iron tools, and a thumb-sized wooden head.
Migrating Lenape could have carried all of the items found by Plummet. That hypothesis is more viable than Plummet's explanation that an Eskimo hunter walked to Greenland to trade for the knife and carry it back home
KOGALUC RIVER
Rousseau described a summer trip across Ungava Peninsula via the Kogaluc River. The river is a series of lakes, connected by short portages. (Rousseau, 1948, Vol.1, No 2., pp. 133–135)
KRAKATOA
David Keys covers the gigantic explosion of Krakatoa in detail in his book, Catastrophe. This book was the basis for a video documentary of the same name, which is part of public television's "Secrets of the Dead" series. (PBS Secrets)
LAPLAND
The people of Lapland share many traits with the Indians of Northeast America. The Lapps used the tepee. The Lapp women of 1800s wore five-panel conical hats, the same as women in Labrador did in the 1800s. The Lapps wear black clothes tailored similar to the black clothes of the Micmac and the Cree, except the Lapps decorate with bright red cloth instead of the golden trim.
LEFT-HANDED BEARS
Malaurie wrote about a protracted fight with a polar bear. The Inuit and their dogs avoided the left front of the bear. (Malaurie, 1982)
While the knowledge of left-handed bears is not common, many modern hunters, who may have never confronted a bear, use the information to impress others during a conversation.
LEIF'S RIVER
Enterline proposed that Leif Eriksson landed at the River of Leaves. Enterline's location corresponds to the descriptions found in Graenlendinga's Saga. The latitude of the mouth of the river matches what was described in the saga, as does the existence of a large tidal surge.
Also, the saga tells of an island north of the mouth of the river, which would be Gyrfalcon Island at the River of Leaves. Barry Fell searched diligently from Labrador to Massachusetts for islands north of river mouths. He reluctantly concluded there were none.
From the mouth of the river of leaves, the travel directions of the subsequent saga trips follow existing coasts closely.
The only discrepancy between Enterline's location and the location described in the saga is the phrase "… never any frost all winter." There would have been frost at the River of Leaves, even in the warmest year. But no one else has resolved that issue either. (Enterline, 1972)
Later scribes of the saga may have misunderstood a statement made in reference to the open-water marvels and changed "no [water] freezing" to "no frost."
Enterline's location of Leif Eriksson's landing is the most probable choice.
LENI LENAPE
Leni Lenape told translators that the words meant, "real men." "Leni" is a transformation from the Lenape word, "hreina," which means, "pure or decent." "Ape" is derived from the Lenape words meaning, "aa byy" which means, "to dwell in a place." So "Lenape" means, "decent place" and "Leni Lenape" means, "pure (men) from a decent place."
The "pure (men) from a decent place" may have come from a real decent place, Hreinsey, ("sey" means, island) in Greenland, which was named by the Vikings a millennium ago.
LIGHT
Jesuit Lalemont wrote "Thus they [Lenapes] ... believe in the immortality of our [their] souls and, in fact, assure you that after death they will go to Heaven. They call the sun 'Jesus.'" (JRAD Vol. 1629)
The Ojibwa, the Lenape, and the Lenapes use various pronunciations of "Jesus" for their sun. (Bail, 2000)
LOW WALLS
The Big People built winter shelters by overturning their skin boats upon two low stone walls. Each site features two low stone walls fifteen to eighteen feet apart. The walls extend from thirty-six feet to over ninety feet.
Plumet published carbon 14 data that indicate the foundations were built during the five centuries before the Dark Ages. The same data show a five-century span of occupation before the dark ages. There was nearly a five hundred-year gap in occupation of the low walls. Then the next occupation, covering four centuries, centered on the Little Ice Age. (Plumet, 1982)
MAN-SPAN
A man-span was the distance from center fingertip to center fingertip when a mature man spread his arms wide. When women did the measuring, as they did for tepees and wigwams, the "man-span" was shorter than a true man's span.
MEAT-EATER
The Arctic area, including the Ungava Peninsula, was also the home of the Dorset Eskimo. The small, brown-skinned Dorset Eskimo had lived in the region for centuries before Christ. The Dorset name came from the first site archaeologists investigated.
When the Big People came to Ungava Peninsula, the Dorset Eskimo were living in caves or dugouts. They survived by hunting seals and fishing. The Dorset Eskimos wisely collaborated with the Big People, but each group maintained their own culture.
"Meat-eater" refers to the Dorset Eskimos living in the North America Arctic before the present-day Inuit arrived on the scene. The Inuit are a later race of people we know as the Eskimo.
MICHIGAMME
Michigamme (Michigan) is the "middle lake basin,” Mi" means, "middle." "Chi" is derived from "sjø," which means "lake," "gumme" means, "basin." Michigamme is the lake lying in the middle between, Ki-chi-gamme and the other big lake to the east of Michigamme, which was named after the Huron tribes who lived on the north shore. ("Ki" means, "great")
The Lenape and their associated tribes did migrate through Michigan. Hyde suggests there was a tribal division after leaving Michigan, with some Lenape tribes moving east. Other tribes went further south into Ohio before turning toward the east. (Hyde, 1962)
NAMES
The names of the Alban, Greenland, Inuit, and Akomen people were selected from recorded name lists of the period.
NORSE WORDS
Thomas Morton arrived in Massachusetts in 1625. He was an aristocrat, probably a graduate of Oxford, trained for and practiced law, and he was widely read in Latin literature and classical lore. He quoted frequently from ancient poets, and wrote both prose and verse.
"Morton looked upon the [Indians] with considerable curiosity and affection, having satisfied himself that there were Latin and Greek words in their language" (Willison, 1945, p.276)
The Catholic version of Christianity would have inserted "Latin and Greek words" into the languages of the Albans, from seventh century on, and the Norse, from the eleventh century on.
Roger Williams, in his book, Key to the Indian Language, 1644, had no trouble believing the Lenapes were speaking Norse, he wrote:
"There are two kinds of Old Norse. One is called "Gamle-Norsk" (Old Norse); the still older language is called "Ur-Norsk" (Primitive Norse). By marking the various words used by several tribes it should be possible to determine when each Norse settlement was made in America. I am in hopes it may be possible to do this at some future date, as it would give an idea how long the Norsemen did travel to these shores. It appears from my translations that such migrations continued into the fourteenth century or to the time of the Black Death." (Sherwin, 1940, p. 338)
In the 1940s Sherwin had no problem believing Lenape words had Norse roots. He grew up speaking a dialect of Old Norse in a remote valley in Norway. After migrating to northeast North America, he was surprised to recognize that many Indian place names, when spoken out loud, described the land he was seeing. (Sherwin, 1940)
For example, Sherwin recognized Lenape "Agawam" as "marsh." There were six "Agawam" place names in Massachusetts. Early Europeans defined three of them as "ground overflowed by water," two of them were defined as "marsh," and one had no definition. (Douglas-Lithgow, 1909)
Sherwin compiled over fifteen thousand (15,000) phrases of Lenape words compared favorably with Old Norse words. In his fourth volume, he wrote, "The Algonquin Indian language is Old Norse… The truth cannot be successfully attacked."
In the 1970s, Stromsted also could speak a dialect of Old Norse, because her parents sent her to a remote Norwegian island for safety during World War II. She added to the list of northeast North American place names that hadLenape roots. (Stromsted, 1974)
Other evidence that the Lenape language must have been similar to Old Norse is that some Lenape words can still be translated using a modern Norwegian dictionary. English, French, and German dictionaries give a far lower yield, even though they too have some Norwegian words. (Gabrielsen, 1999)
NORTHERN SETTLEMENT
Today the largest city in the Northern Settlement is Godthaab.
In historical references the northern area is called the "Western Settlement." The label is curious. The settlement does lie slightly more west (5 degrees) than north (4 degrees) of the Eastern Settlement. But, in this part of the world, one-degree north covers the same distance as two degrees west. A boat would have to sail eight degrees west to equal the distance of sailing four degrees north. The Vikings were more precise in measuring latitude (north south) than longitude (east- west). The coast dictated the sailing distance to the west. To the Vikings, the settlement at the end of six days rowing was known as the "Northern" Settlement.
NORUMVEGE
Norumvege was a real place for the Jesuits in Arcadia. They mentioned the name many times as a place in the neighborhood and used the location of Norumvege as a basis for directions. The location was across the bay from Port Royal, Nova Scotia.
The center of Norumvege was somewhere between St. John's River and the Kennebec River. The entire area between St. John's River and the Kennebec River is called Norumvege.
NORVEGE
Most European books give the old spelling of Norvege as "Norbege." The "Norbege" spelling was a medieval Spanish creation. TheLenape preferred to use "Norvege" meaning, "Nor's way." Nor was a powerful leader from the east who led a band of people to conquer the coast of a land we now call Norway.
OPEN-WATER MARVELS
The open-water marvels are called "polynya" in modern Arctic books. Polynyas are areas that remain ice free, or nearly so throughout the winter. (Mowat, 1998/2000)
The primary conditions for some polynyas appear to be a high tidal surge, a narrowing of the main flow channel, and a shallow sea floor before the water reaches shore. (See Ungava Bay.)
Modern satellite photographs clearly show the open-water marvels in Ungava Bay.
PAAFA, PAVOW
"Paafa" in Lenape meant, "father." The title of “Paafa" was used for the "local priest" in Greenland and the transformation from paafa to powvow in Akomen is conjecture.
PAMIOK
North of the Arnaud River mouth is a low ridgeline extending, at low tide, to islands lying in Ungava Bay. At this place between the large open water marvels, there is a wide ice corridor connecting land to sea ice. On shore near the ice corridor, the Big People built several of their low wall shelters.
TheLenape named the island Pamiok, meaning "nice point." On Pamiok Island are three sets of low rock walls. Two of them are seven man-spans in length and three man-spans wide. One set of low walls is thirteen man-spans in length and four man-spans wide. Each site consists of two parallel rock walls three or four man-spans apart.
The medieval Norse boats, made of wood, were very heavy compared to skin boats, had more curvature, and the wood segments which could break with sidewise pressure were held together by nails. So the medieval Norse boat was probably not rolled on top the low stone walls. Lee gives the best descriptions of Pamiok Island and the low stone walls. (Lee, 1968)
PAYNE LAKE
Payne Lake, in the center of Ungava Peninsula, has a set of twelve rectangular foundations with indications of stone floors, one foundation for a larger building, and evidence of a dam and a causeway for wheeled carts. (Lee, 1968)
PEACEFUL ONE
The Walam Olum, chapter 4 lists the Peaceful one after "ten sachems, a period of war and chaos." Five generations later the "Historian" and the "Author" are listed with the notations "Written records began" and "Writing red record." Then parallel versions of the experiences are listed with the "Author" appearing to go with the people who moved east first
[Author's Note 2011: The ability to decipher with better precision has enabled the understanding that the sounds for the "ten sachems" really meant "ten shipmates." These "shipmates" were the same ten men whose fate was punched into the Kensington Rune Stone. The Kensington Rune Stone has a clear arabic date of 1362.]
PEMMICAN
Pemmican is dried meat with fat and fruit, nuts, or even green leaves added. The dried meat is pounded into a powder called "beat meat." Then the beat meat is mixed with fat using a ratio of five parts by weight of meat and four parts by weight of fat. Buffalo hunters mixed hard fat, or grease, with the softer fat found along the backbones, using a ratio of one part hard fat to one part soft fat. (O'Meara, 1960)
The people of Northeast American and, probably,Lenape Greenland made pemmican from various meats, probably mostly caribou, and various fats. Seal blubber was probably used for the soft fat. The people of Northeast America, and perhapsLenape Greenland, also knew which berries or green plants would prevent scurvy and the correct amount to mix into a batch of meat and fat. The fruits, nuts, or correct green leaves added the needed vitamin C to prevent scurvy. (Coulter, 1993)
The meat-to-fat ratio is important to prevent protein poisoning. (McKinlay, 1976)
A pemmican survival ration is one pound per man per day. This is a survival ration for a short interval. One sled with six men crossing the ice in fifteen days would need ninety pounds of pemmican. Doubling the ration, in case of trouble, would require 180 pounds, or a man's weight.
The Albans may have developed pemmican. Erik's Saga refers to a meat mixture of the "savages" that could have been pemmican. At the time the saga was written, theLenape did not use the word "pemmican." (Magnusson, 1966)
PICT
Mackenzie lists the Picaneaux as a tribe within Ojibwa nation. (Mackenzie, 1966, p. lxxi)
The HNAI has several "Pic-" listings in the Ojibwa sections. (HNAI Vol. 6, Vol. 15)
PROTEIN POISONING
Protein poisoning occurs when there is not enough fat in the food. The kidneys are forced to work overtime to breakdown the protein for energy. The breakdown causes a fluid build-up in the lower legs. Cramps and diarrhea cause a loss of appetite and dehydration. McKinlay wrote about his own encounter with protein poisoning and the death of other expedition members who tried to live on poorly manufactured pemmican. (McKinlay, 1976)
RAFTING
Rafting occurs when one ice floe is lifted over the adjacent floe. Then the lifted ice floe rides the "raft" created by the bottom floe. The ice floes may be several feet thick, so travelers have to expend energy and time getting up on top of the upper ice floe. The downward pressure created where the rafting floe does not support the upper floe may cause an unexpected break. (Arms, 1998)
SAGAS
The saga description is edited from the Graenlendinga and Erik's Sagas.
(Magnusson, 1966)
SAGLOK
The Viking men had been decoyed away from Leif's huts because the description of Leif's River appeared to match Struamsfjord, but Leif's huts were not found there. So they may have labeled the location as "false knowledge."
SAKKYNDIG
The word "Sakkyndig" is a modern Norwegian word meaning, "expert." The word may have derived from a combination of "sak," used in words for knowledge, and "hyn," used in words for skill. The Walam Olum called a leader "Sakima. The French called a village leader a "Sachem.” (Toye, 1959)
The sachems were more of a law keeper than a leader of the village. Their expert knowledge of the affairs of the village was their reputation.
The sachems knew about past decisions. They made judgments for disputes that came before them. They represented the villages when official guests from other villages visited. They presided over village councils. They encouraged enforcement of the decisions made. The sachems had little authority, other than earned reputation.
Roger Williams wrote in 1644
…”at my now taking ship (for England in 1643) at the Dutch Plantation, it pleased the Dutch Governor (in some discourse with me about the natives) to draw their line (origin) from Iceland because the name SACKMAKAN (the name for Indian Prince, about the Dutch) is the name for a Prince in Iceland.” (Sherwin, 1940, p. 338)
The translocation of the Sakkyndig's duties, as established by King Haakon in Greenland in 1261 to the village leaders of Eastman Land, is conjecture with no supporting evidence other than the similar roles described for both cultures.
SEALS
Most meals were of seal. The household ate a seal nearly every day. All of the seal was eaten except the flippers, any extra fat, the water around the lungs, and the skin. Seal bones were cracked and chewed for the marrow.
The seal harvest came two times, once in late spring and another in the fall. The seal harvest in late spring lasted for two moons. The fall seal harvest lasted four moons. The seals were found along the edge of the ice where there was open water so they could come up to breathe. They were clubbed to death as they lay resting on the ice. Normally, the longest time between seal harvesting was four moons. So prudent households kept many seals in cold storage.
The preferred method was to keep the seal unfrozen until the meat became tainted. Usually the meat was tainted in five days. Then the seals, with the belly pierced, were stored near the permafrost with stones covering the cache. The seal meat was good for up to a year. The favorite parts of the seal were the meat, the liver, eyes, the layer of fat in contact with the skin, the contents of the stomach, and cleaned intestines.
The eyes and small intestines chopped into small pieces were often given to the children for treats.
SECRECY
Astri Stromsted wrote that the Norwegians imposed secrecy on all voyages to the western ocean. The voyages and the secrecy may have begun during the reign of Harald Hardrada and reached maximum levels during King Haakon's reign. (Stromsted, 1974)
Adam De Bremen may have gotten away with his report on Vinland because it was buried in Church records in a country outside of Norse control
SEXUAL MORES
Sexual mores and marriage customs are conjecture based on reports by Jesuit Albanel, the first Jesuit to travel to James Bay (JRAD, 1953); Richardson, a modern reporter who visited Cree winter hunting camps (Richardson, 1976); the Graenlendinga and Erik's Sagas (Magnusson, 1966); and many authors.
Several authors reported on the occurrence of a man, in Greenland, burned at the stake for seducing another man's wife. (Seaver, 1996) The Greenland burning at the stake is surprisingly similar to a "custom" reported by the Beothuk. (HNAI, Vol. 15, p. 106.)
SKIN BOATS
Mowat wrote good descriptions of large skin boats. He also included detailed illustrations of them. His illustrations were developed from existing Irish ships sailing with canvas skins rather than walrus hide. (Mowat, 1998/2000)
SLOUGH
The Gallic dictionary defines "slough" to mean "multitude of people." Transformation of "slough" through time and cultures to the French "naux" or the English "neaux used by Mackenzie is a real possibility. Mackenzie named several other tribes with a "neaux" syllable. The HNAI lists at least five tribes using variations of "neaux." (Vol. 15, pp. 768-770)
STARVING
"Starving on Rabbits" was a phrase heard often in childhood. (My parents grew up near Indians.) It never made sense. The youthful assumption was that you could not catch enough rabbits.
The phase is often repeated, as a whimsy saying, in authoritative Indian books. The truth is that humans can starve to death eating the most common animal alive in a cold, famine area because the rabbit can digest fiber to make its own meat but not create enough fat to sustain a human.
TALERMAN
Talamend III, a Leni Lenape called the speaker for the people, met with William Penn during the treaty meeting of 1683 that created the state of Pennsylvania. Over a century later a missionary used Indian sources to describe Talamend as “… an ancient Delaware Chief who never had his equal. He was in the highest degree endowed with wisdom, virtue, prudence, charity, affability, meekness, hospitality, in short every good and noble qualification.
TAU CROSS
The trim on the black clothes of the Micmac, Cree, and Ojibwa repeated a Tau cross throughout the pattern. A similar style Tau cross relic from the end of a priest's staff was found in Iceland. The relic is considered to be aLenape artifact because the Tau cross represented Thor's hammer, but perhaps it was an Alban artifact. The early Alban Christians in Scotland also used Tau crosses. (Sawyer, 1997, p. 111)
TEPEE AND WIGWAM
The Lenapes used two types of houses in Eastman Land: a conical house covered with hide or birch bark, usually used in a stationary camp during the summer, and a smaller dwelling with an arched roof resembling a skin boat turned upside down. The small dwelling was used during the winter hunting when frequent moves were made. TheLenape named the conical house, “Tepee" and the other house "Wig warm."
THOR'S HAMMER
The unique column with a pointer standing near the mouth of Arnaud River has been called Thor's Hammer. The base, standing over eleven feet tall, weighs more than twenty-four men and has a pointer on top. The pointer, weighing as much as three men, aims upriver. The capstone on top of the pointer weighs as much as a man.
Thor's hammer still stands.
This unique column is probably the remains of a härbret, where the base is still holding the two stones that weighted down and balanced the storage hut. The wood and skin part of the härbret probably rotted away long ago.
TUNIT
The word "Tunit" is still used by the Arctic and sub-Arctic peoples to identify the builders of the large stone artifacts in the North Country.
UNGAVA BAY
Ungava Bay lies to the south of Hudson Strait. Ungava Bay is a shallow bay. The northeast shore of Ungava Peninsula near the Hudson Strait has several open-water marvels because of its geography. The peninsula, on the west side of the bay, restricts the currents through Hudson Strait. As the tide rises in the western Atlantic Ocean, the deep volume of water is shoved into the shallower Hudson Strait. Where Ungava Peninsula narrows Hudson Strait, the water is forced to surge into Ungava Bay.
In winter, warmer water from the Atlantic Ocean is driven under the ice toward Ungava Peninsula. The tidal water comes in like a driven wedge lifting the ice near the peninsula and surging to the surface through the cracks. After rising several feet on the incoming tide, the almost freezing water is then sucked down and away by the out-going tide. This surging and purging of nearly freezing water keeps large holes in the ice unfrozen. (See open-water marvels.)
VANISHED
Magnusson (2000) quotes Ted Cowan who wrote:
By Page Three of almost any one-volume History of Scotland, the Picts disappear. And it always used to amaze me that nobody asked what on earth happened to them. After all we are talking about three-quarters of the population of north Britain."
VERSE 3:12
The words of the verse used were developed by cross checking Raider T. Sherwin's 15,000 comparisons of Lenape to Old Norse, Cree word lists, and modern Norwegian dictionaries against the original recorded Leni Lenape words.
The original English translation (by Rafinesque, 1836) was:
“By the dark fish sea,
The gaping hollow sea,
Settled the white eagle clan
And the white wolf clan.”
The revised English translation of the verse (Brinton, 1885) is:
“The Fathers of the Bald eagle
And the white wolf remain
Along the sea rich in fish and mussels”
.
The original verse by Rafinesque appears to be describing an open-water marvel. The "sea" was translated from the word "peek," which is also used for "frozen sea," (v. 3:16), "slippery water," and "stone-hard water." (v. 3:17) In the modern Norwegian, the word "packs" means "pack ice." A reasonable guess is that the "is" syllable fell away from "pek" during four centuries of reciting the verses. After the first century most of the speakers probably did not know what "pakkis" was
The original Leni Lenape words "newa" and "tumewi" are closer to Cree words for "goose" and "bear" than they are to words for "Eagle" and "Wolf."
When the old Leni Lenape, who may have grown up in Delaware, tried to explain the verse to the missionary, four centuries later, he probably was more familiar with eagles and wolves. The missionary certainly was. Thus the original Leni Lenape words and the original English words appear to name different animals.
VIKING OR NORSE
The point when Vikings stopped being Vikings and began to be Norseman has been recorded to be the death of Harald the Hardrada in 1066. (Pearson, 1998)
In real life the one lifestyle did not end abruptly nor the other begin suddenly, but the death of Harald the Hardrada does appear to have happened at a time when the men of the North stopped expanding and started to fight with greater intensity among themselves.
VINLAND
Adam De Bremen wrote about Vinland and grapes before the Graenlendinga and Erik's Sagas were written. De Bremen got his information from the King of Denmark who may have just returned from a trip to Vinland. The King of Denmark was a half brother to Harald Hardrada. Vinland (a.k.a. Norumvege, Akomen, Akonsee, Kanal Dal, and Massachusetts) may have referred to many locations along the shore from Newfoundland to west of Rhode Island. (Stromsted 1973)
Physical evidence ofLenape contact in the area is provided by at least eight stones with rune inscriptions from the area. (Carlson, 1998)
Circumstantial evidence is provided in the HNAI, which states, "A sharp linguistic and political division between the western and eastern Long Island Indians is clear and archeological sites seem to cluster at the opposite ends of the Island."
The eastern Lenapes may have been descendants of Norse that sailed directly from Norway. The Lenape, on the west end of Long Island, may have been descendants from the GreenlandLenape. If this hypothesis were correct, there would have been a distinct difference in language and culture, but the two cultures would still appear to be Lenapes to modern researchers. Thus, the HNAI describes a situation that is supports the hypothesis. The implication is that the eastern Lenapes lived in Vinland (before it became Akomen); the western Lenapes walked in later from northern Akomen. (HNAI, Vol. 15, p. 215)
WALAM OLUM
The words “Walam Olum" are derived from "Maalan Aarum," which means, "engraved years." (Sherwin, 1940).
The Walam Olum is a manuscript of pictograms and verses first published in 1836 by Rafinesque. The man was accused of falsifying data to enhance his stature with scientific peers. Later researchers, who have analyzed his botanical research, have suggested that he may have been a man on the frontier who was ahead of his academic peers. He claimed the original pictograms, on bark, were given to a doctor by an old Leni Lenape Indian. When Rafinesque got the bark pictograms from the doctor in 1821 he was told they were memory devices for verses of a song. (Brinton, 1885)
Rafinesque found a Lenape man who could say, in Lenape, the verses for the pictograms.
A Monrovian Pastor who could speak Lenape wrote the verses onto paper in the Lenape language. The Monrovian Pastor may have also recorded a primitive English version as interpreted by the Lenape. Then, over many years, Rafinesque translated the written Lenape verses to English. (Brinton, 1885)
Some of the Lenape accept the Walam Olum. Other Delaware tribes are adamant that the Walam Olum is a white man's hoax. (Oestreicher, 1994)
The Walam Olum has five chapters. The first chapter is a creation story. The second chapter is a story of a flood. The third chapter is a story of migration across ice. The fourth and fifth chapters are genealogies of the leading chiefs, with an occasional mention of a place or event.
Many people, including those claiming the Walam Olum is a hoax, assume the fourth and fifth chapters represent a serial progression of chiefs. But chapters four and five start at similar times and progress through similar major events in the same order. So people in two different tribes of Lenape may have composed separate pictograms and verses for chapters four and five.
Whether or not the Lenape created the Walam Olum, one thing is impressive: the creator of chapter 3 knew about events in Greenland from 1000 to 1348. In chapter 3, verses 1–6 describe the houses of Greenland and the division of the men into either homebuilders or hunters. Verses 7–10 describe the flight of the Greenland Odin followers from the imposed Christian religion. Verses 11–13 describe the open water marvels and rich land found by the Odin followers and the hunters in Akomen. Verses 14–20 describe the migration across ice.
WALKING HOUSES
TheLenape hunters who first visited Ungava Peninsula were astounded at the flimsy shelters used by the Tunit. When the firstLenape hunters stayed through the winter, they could never get warm until a Tunit woman sewed warm clothes for herLenape man. The clothes of caribou hide consisted of two suits worn at the same time, one suit over the other. The inner suit had the fur facing inside toward the man. The outer suit had the fur facing out to the environment. Each suit consisted of boots, leggings up to the hips, and a parka extending from a hood at the face to an opening around the knees. The two suits, skin to skin, moved independently of the other.
Cold air does not rise up through the outer parka. But, air heated by the body and carrying moisture moves upward through the fur of the inner parka and leaves via the hood surrounding the face. The condensation of moisture returns heat to the face area. The Tunit had found that using wolverine and martin fur to line the face opening of the parka would prevent the condensation from adhering to the fur around the face.
Then theLenape man realized why the Tunit were not concerned with good shelters. The double suit of caribou hides was similar to having a "walking house." The person's body heat was the "fire." The double suits of caribou hide were the "walls" keeping the warmth near the man. In a modern age we know now that the "walking houses" protected the person inside from outside temperatures as low as minus sixty (60) degrees Centigrade. During cold weather, theLenape walked and slept in their "walking houses."
Farley Mowat describes the caribou clothes in the People of the Deer, 1952
WAR SLINGS
Fighting on the treeless plains of Alba posed a challenge. Arrows were light to carry, but precious. Shields and armor could stop arrows. War slings were used to fling heavy missiles into opposing enemy ranks. The repeated pounding caused by heavy jagged missies was an effective means to discourage and disorganize a massed enemy.
The slings worked best in a siege setting where stones could be piled up before the battle. The Albans created sling teams with two to four bowmen matched to a sling man. Each bowman carried forty pounds of stones in baskets along with a crossbow. When the battle started, the bowmen placed their baskets near the men with the slings and took up defensive positions or returned to a supply area for more stones. Within the limits of the stone supply and the efforts of the bowmen, the slingmen lofted continuous barrages of heavy missiles. When the enemy shields were lifted to defend from the falling missiles, the men with the crossbows had a chance to drive their bolts into the enemy.
This description of the war sling is conjecture based on fragments of information including the mention of war slings in Erik's Saga and of "arrows and stones" in historical records of battles fought between Albans and Vikings during the fourteenth century.
WHITE BEAR
During the Little Ice Age period, the Polar Bear of today was called just a "White Bear" The white bear is left handed also.
WINTER HUNTING
A description of the winter hunting and summer camps is given in the HNAI. The longest straight-line distance, from Eastmain to the Atlantic shores of Labrador is 860 miles. Doubling the distance, because of terrain, requires daily movements of less than ten miles a day. That amount of travel is well within the ability of people walking all day, every day. (HNAI, Vol. 6, p. 170)
WOLFPACKS
"Wolfpacks" refers to a group of people different than the Lenapes who surrounded them. Hyde described the people, who ate their way across Ohio, as behaving similar to Wolfpacks. The Wolfpacks also ate the people of Michigamme is supported by strong circumstantial evidence. [Lager evidence confirms that the Wolfpacks were located in upper New York. Michigamme was a favorite Wolfpack hunting ground. Michigamme was still underpopulated when moodier history texts were written.
The fear of aggression by the Wolfpacks was their only connection. For those interested enough to research further, the names of the Wolfpack people should be immediately recognizable by their location south of Lake Ontario. Adams, 1951, Coulter, 1993, Hyde, 1962, and Morison, 1972 all testify to the reality of the fear of aggression from the Wolfpacks into historic times.
WOMEN'S BOAT
The women's boat, the umiak, was historical and was used in modern times. (It may still be in use.) Freuchen described the operation of a women's boat. (Freuchen, 1953)
Kent drew an excellent sketch of the women's boat. (Kent, 1930, p. xxi)
The loading of the women's boat is counter-intuitive. The load goes into the bow and the stern. The women stand on the ribs in the center to row. Putting load in the center may cause the boat to buckle in rough seas.
WORD DECODING
Key illustrated a basic vocal chart, similar to the International Phonetic Alphabet chart, to compare sounds of all languages. The chart assigns letters to two groupings. One set of groupings is associated with where in the mouth the sound is made (place of articulation). The other grouping has to do with how the sounds are produced (manner of articulation). There is a set of sounds produced by stoppage of air. There is a set produced by friction. Also there are sets for nasals, liquids, and semivowels. (Key, 1998)
Assume that a sound in a given articulation group can only transform through time to sound like the nearest adjacent sounds produced by a different location in the mouth. Then a sound that started as "p" centuries ago might be "p" or "t" or "b" in today's language. Thus, the spelling of an Lenape word might be altered by using "p, t, or b" to locate similar words in the Norwegian dictionary. The correct Norwegian word, if there is more than one word possible, is the one with the most reasonable meaning when compared to the Lenape context.
For those who want to try this process, start with a Norwegian-English Dictionary (Gabrielsen, 1999 or Kunnskspsforlaget, 1992). Break an Lenape word into syllables. Change "w" to "v" and "c" to "k." Start searching for a word with a reasonable meaning based on the context of the Lenape word.
For example, start with the Lenape "wann" written near drawings of drinking vessels in the Beothuk section of HNAI. "Wann" changes to "vann," which means, "water" in the Norwegian Dictionary. (HNAI, Vol. 15, p. 106.)
If the first search, using the given spelling, fails, try searching with the nearest letters as shown below:
TPKD PTB BPD
DBGT KTGF SY
SFXZ XYZ ZVSY
NM(NG)L MNW W(Y)R
RWY YR
IEOA EIOA
OUEA UOEA
If no word makes sense, you may not have a word withLenape roots. For example, "Akpatok" looks like aLenape word. But the closest reasonable understanding from the Norwegian dictionary is "egg-suck-cruise." The logical conclusion is that Akpatok is not a Lenape word. Akpatok was a meat-eater word.
The custom of the Lenape people to name birds and animals by their cry may explain the Akpatok bird label and the name of the Island, where Akpatok bird nested.
If the Norwegian syllables make reasonable sense, the Lenape syllables and the Norwegian words had common roots. But, beware; the exact original meaning may not have been similar to the modern definition because modern Norwegian, itself, is changing rapidly.
All the Lenape words fall within the allowable transformation table above. The words were used if the modern Norwegian definition appeared to be reasonable when compared to the Lenape context. The words were checked against Sherwin's 15,000 related phrases. Where there were differences (for example the modern Norwegian "teppa" is "carpet", In Lenape "teppa" is "enclosure") Sherwin's Lenape definitions were used.
Reider T. Sherwin’s books can be obtained through library loan or ordered from ABEBOOKS. Request the Viking and the Red Man. There are eight volumes produced about two years apart.
In Volume IV, Sherwin declares the “Lenape Language is Old Norse.”
