Moderator:
- “Which animals kept at either the Western or Eastern Settlements were the easiest and hardest to maintain?”
- According to bones found in garbage piles, only the richest could afford to keep cattle. Beef was so rare because cows were hard to maintain, due to their diet consisting of large volumes of only grass that they were able to eat. Unlike the cows, goats could ingest almost anything and were more suited to Greenland’s climate. After cows, the second-best delicacy was caribou. Poorer folk fed on seal in times of hardship and goat and sheep were most common. Sandnes was the largest farm in the western settlement, and Gardar was the largest farm in the eastern Settlement.
- “How did the Norse and the Inuit or Dorset peoples fair? What attitude did the Norse have that kept them from learning from their neighbors?”
- The Dorset people had moved on by the time the Norse had settled there. As for relations with the Inuit people that came a few decades after the Norse, they saw the Inuit as trespassers. The Greenland Norse were a violent, combative people prone to killing each other, who were also very conservative. Part of the reason this society collapsed was because they failed to adapt to their surroundings or learn from their more successful neighbors. If they weren’t so aggressive, they could have better sourced food, built better home structures that took less resources, built kayaks, or used fat for fuel.
- “What happened to the rate at which the crops were growing on the hillsides?”
- This question is important because the steady decrease in available hay for the livestock was part of the reason the Norse starved to death. Environmental degradation, though overgrazing and turf cutting, on top of climate change, the beginning of the “Little Ice Age” which caused long cruel winters, together accounted for the starvation of the western and eastern settlements and the collapse of the colonies as a whole.
- “How did you respond when the ships stopped coming”
- The Norse people depended on imports such as iron, lumber, and tar to survive. Their chief exports were rare commodities like ivory. When the ivory trade opened back up in North Africa, walrus tusks became too much work to produce, and ivory fell out of novelty. The cease of ships also cut the Greenlanders off from European and Norwegian culture. The reading talks about how the Norse tried to keep up with European fashion and piety. Because of Norway’s stress on the importance of Christianity, hard labor and necessary materials which could have been used elsewhere for tools, a few large cathedrals like Gardar Cathedral in the Eastern settlement were erected.
- “How did Christianity play into your culture”
- As mentioned in the last question, religion and eurocentrism walked hand in hand throughout the daily lives of the Norse people. Even the attempt to raise livestock like in Europe even though the landscape couldn’t sustain it shows this. Also, funds were put into churches which should have been put into the community. Lastly, during the steady collapse after the last bishop died, (bishops had always come from the mainland) there were no priests, and without priests there were no baptisms, burials, or marriages. People lost composure after this, with the addition of raids on the last available farms got rid of the last available food sources and the Norse starved to death.
Character 1: My name is Ahnah, a native Inuit, and wife to Tulok, a hunter in our tribe. We live in a small house far North of the Norse’s Western Settlement. While my husband is hunting, I am home caring for our 3 children, preparing and cooking the food that he brings home, and sewing skins for myself and my family as I learned to do since I was a child.
When the Norse first arrived, we were hesitant to interact with them, and rightfully so, because they attacked a group of us to see how we bleed. Over the years we have tried to be peaceful and offer to trade with them, even teach them how to use our technologies, but they reject our offers. Our way of life has been very harmonious with nature: we only take enough from the environment to provide from ourselves while still trying to give back to the environment. We see the Norse trying to build their communities and support their people, but they are often taking so much from the environment that it can no longer produce what they need. They have been clearing the forests and cutting down our trees for centuries now, and we don’t have many trees left. It reminds me of when I saw the last tree on Easter Island die, it was like I could see that happening to our home, and now it is. We can see that they are struggling and hurting our environment, I wish they would let us help them.
While the Norse have become more accustomed to the cold weather shifts, they haven’t changed their practices to adapt like we have. We know how to live in the cold and still collect food, but they are beginning to starve. It is clear that the reason they haven’t changed because they want to express their European culture, even to their own downfall. And while most of our food comes from the hunters in our tribe, some of the other mothers and I create small gardens in some of the warmer months of the year. Within recent years we have been experiencing some soil erosion which is decreasing our crop yield because the soil is dried out. Even though we haven’t been yielding as much, we are still largely successful in hunting, not struggling with providing enough food for our families. We enjoy our ways of life, we know how to survive and thrive. If the Norse were more friendly, then we could help each other.
Character 2: The character I decided to choose has a traditional and a very distinct role in Norse society. He is a young farmer living in a longhouse (a small farm with several animal pens near it). His primary duty is to keep animals fed and grow enough crops for his family and cattle. Some of the farmers were involved into other activities such as: hunting, fishing, and harvesting. Norse farmer usually was standing on a good position in a hierarchical society. Being freeman granted them an access to the raw material and economic surplus that they gained from their fields and territory.
Hello, I am a Norse settlement living in the harsh arctic land named Greenland. Life here can be cruel and challenging even for the strongest of us. With severe climate and temperature changes varying from negative 50 during winter and positive 15 during the hottest days of summer. Our primary source of food includes hay, barley, rye, and oats during the warm seasons when the earth is suitable for farming. And animal meat during the cold seasons. Although, during the past several years the climate change started to emerge causing the temperature to fall. Making the farming season even shorter and leaving us with shortages of food and crops for animals. Outside of the farming concern we have faced another large-scale issue threatening our dominance in these lands. With an extreme depletion of natural resource our settlement soon ran into a problem of shortage of wood and lumber without which a production and extraction of iron bogs which were preserved in the ground would be highly problematic. By losing an ore deposit our people and territory became vulnerable to the Inuit invaders originating from Siberia and conquering territories of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland at fast rates. Soon we were exposed to regular raids and plundering. Some say Inuits were massacring the entire communities.
Overall, the Greenland’s End was a series of events.
Character 3: Hello, I am a member of the Norse society within Greenland. My family and I live on a small farm that is in charge of providing food for most of the people that live around me. While everyone does their part in growing food for their own families, our farm is the largest and most well kept out of everyone’s. Due to this a lot of other people come to me to trade crops with other substantial items.
Something that I have noticed while farming recently is that my crops are not being held well within the soil and they seem to be drying out. My land does not have many trees or shrubs on it due to them being consistently harvested for houses and basic tools. Personally, I do not own much lumber except for the tools I use to farm my crops. These days when I look around outside there does not seem to be many trees at all, just grass. This is really unhelpful because I had to do some recent repairs on my house by digging up nearby turf and placing it on my roof, due to the fact that I did not have any lumber to fix the holes that needed to be covered up. Recently my neighbor has been bothering me because they have been letting their sheep graze onto my property and they are trampling my crops and already terrible soil. A solution to this could be to build a fence around my property, but I do not have any wood to do so. When the sheep step on the soil it breaks up my grass and blows the grass and dirt all over the place. I am running out of healthy places to plant my vegetables. Although that one neighbor sucks, I have a few that really help me out when I am having bad growing seasons by giving me food that their family has hunted. Because of this I usually give them extra vegetables when I have a good season. Up until recently, I have had nothing but bad growing seasons due to the fact that the land is slowly deteriorating.
Character 4: My character is a young girl who has a lot of responsibility in the Greenland society despite her age. Young children had to learn many abilities in their childhood to be able to help their families and pass on as they got older.
Wondering if we would be able to eat everyday was always a thought that we had. It was hard enough already for us to get food for ourselves but having enough food for the cattle was just as hard. The cattle liked to eat grass, but my brothers and all the other men here were always cutting the turf from the ground to put around our house to keep us warm. We did not have good materials to make a strong, warm house. So, after some years, my brothers would have to put new turf on our house since the old turf would break down after a while. Keeping the cattle healthy was always a big responsibility. Once I milked the cattle, I would store the milk to help my mom make cheese. To keep the milk from going bad, we had to wash the milk twice a day by boiling it with water. Learning how to weave and spin wool, care for the cattle and sheep, and make butter and cheese was something I have been doing for a long time now.
We only had a few cattle and sheep, unlike the wealthier people of our village. Therefore, my brothers were always hunting seals, however, after a while, it was hard for my older brothers and father to even catch any seals, let alone find any. I think their method of catching seals could have been better. They could have started hunting other animals like fish or different types of whales. My brothers were also responsible for resharpening knives, even if they were already so small. This is because we did not have enough iron, as well as lumber. Many of the trees had already been cut down for firewood. They then had to start using turf to use as fuel. The vegetation was ruined and the soil was bad. If my brothers and father had learned new ways to hunt, taken care of the vegetation better, or started trading with other people near us, maybe we could be in a better position.
Character 5: My Character in the Norse society was a woodworker with a small family. He came from a family of woodworkers and the skills were passed down from my father. He is trying to teach his son the same skills his father taught him.
As a woodworker in the Norse village, I spend most of my time helping build houses and furniture for the rest of my village. My father had a much easier time than I did because of the decreasing supply of timber in our village. The moment we decided to burn the trees down to make room for farms and pastures I knew we were making mistakes, but that’s what the clergy and chiefs wanted. The lack of wood also made it hard to heat our homes because it always seemed to get colder and colder. I often had to decide between using driftwood for making money and keeping warm in the cold season. I often wondered whether the chiefs and clergy knew what was best for us, I knew I shouldn’t think that way but sometimes it was too hard not to.
I always thought to myself that maybe I could trade my crafts with the nearby natives, but our chiefs were always against that idea and would always rather trade with Europe but never traded the things we really needed, it was always luxuries and jewels. But over the course of my life the trade with Europe slowly stopped and our lives became more and more difficult. The Natives were always nice to us and always offered to help me when our paths crossed, but our society’s rules were strict, and my superiors never wanted their help.
Character 6: My name is Estrid Johansen. I came with my husband, Ragnar, to the New World. We are part of a settlement to establish the Norse people in the New World. As a housewife, I tend to the household duties. I milk the cows, graze the sheep, spin wool, and make the food. I also have the duty of showing the young girls in the settlement how to become proper wives by teaching them the necessary skills.
Our hardships began when Ragnar came back from a hunt with the rest of the men. He described these skraelings that they encountered. They had boats made of skin, weapons with sacs on them, and sharp stone tools. He stabbed one of the skraelings and told me with uneasy that they do not bleed unless they are fatally wounded, that the wounds turn white. The skraelings became aggressive, and the men retreated back to the settlement.
Soon the men began coming back with less food. They could not find any caribou, only hares. The weather here does not allow for good farming; we were running out of hay for the livestock. The men attempted to hunt into the fjord for seals and fish, but the skraelings prevented them from going any further. We had to resort to eating the livestock, and even out own hunting dogs. Now, we have nothing left. We are starving. We were promised ships from our homeland, but it has been years since the last one. We are losing hope.