CHAPTER 18
.
Lost Histories
Aidon Aakelas
Aidon Aakelas
.
When one looks at a time scale revealing the history of the earth over
thousands or even tens of thousands of years, technologically advanced societies like our own may be considered a brief
anomaly-a 'flash in the pan,' so to speak.
.
For instance, many so called primitive hunter gatherer cultures
have lasted for tens of thousands of years, wheras the so called civilized
societies, because they usually fell their forests and develop agriculture and
relatively advanced technologies, have a use by date-their civilizations
usually collapse after several thousand years of forest clearing. Civilization
collapse usually co-incides with the felling of the last few stands of forest -
usually difiicult to access montane forests which were previously large
enough in area to attract substantial rain clouds and prevent erosion and
silting in the agricultural land in the valleys below. This ocurrs
in conjunction with a naturally long term mega drought.
.
At the present itme, existing at the same time as the so called
advanced civilizations of the first world in places such as Europe, North
America, Japan and Australia, traditional hunter gatherer societies also exist
in isolated parts of the world which have had little or no contact with
'outsiders,' These cultures still exist with their traditional way of life
intact in areas such as the Amazon rainforests, parts of New Guinea, the
Phillipines and the Indonesian Archipelago.'
.
Because these cultures exist in harmony with their
environment, if they can continue to avoid contact with outsiders- as they no
doubt have for millenia - and thus the prospect of the destruction of their
culture, environment and thus their people by logging from commercial logging
companies, the introduction of infectious diseases and so on, there is no
reason to believe these cultures will not continue more or less intact
following their traditional way of life for many more thousands of years to
come- with the ephemeral 'advanced civilizations' rising and falling
every few thousand years along the way.
.
These 'people of the forests' revere
their trees : for instance they only fell one for timber when it is needed and
there is usually much ceremony and asking of the spirit of the tree for
permission to cut it down. This sort of practice is considered in the light of
modern western cultural norms to be the behaviour of ignorant, superstitious,
primitive people. Yet these traditional cultures have survived for many
millenia and the remains of civilizations which have clear felled their forests
and engaged in unsustainable agricultural practices - taking more from
their finite environment than it can stand without breaking down (such as is
practiced in modern western societies) now litter many of the great deserts of
the world. These great civilizations all had a use by date : which usually
expired after a few thousand years. Many of these so called primitive
hunter -gatherer societies have probably been in existence for (at the very
least) tens of thousands of years. The remains of many of the relatively
technologically advanced cultures in history such as the Mayans, Anisazi, the
Harrapans and Ankor Wat, now either lie covoured in the dust of deserts of
their own making or by jungle regrowth, reclaiming the lands these peoples had
once rendered arid.
.
These cultures and the many civilizations which once existed in
formerly fertile lands in the vast stretch of deserts reaching from the
Western rim of the Mediterranean Sea all the way to Western China are now
extinct. Our own, much vaunted Western civilization, is thought by many
environmental experts and scientists to be on the brink of collapse - so which
cultures are the 'ignorant, primitive' ones?
.
The native American legends of the survivors of the
Anisazi civilization founding the Hopi tribe -who claim descent from them,
calling them the 'Hisatsinom' [(ancient people) - and whom are generally thought by
historians, along with the other Pueblo peoples, to be descended from the
Ancestral Pueblo (Anisazi)][1] together with the
Native American legends of the Greenland Norse joining with the Algonquin
tribes in America, are examples of so called advanced cultures, who
allegedly learned the errors of their ways and learned to live in harmony with
their environment and in peace with their neighbours.
.
The fate of the Greenland Viking colony had been an unsolved
enigma for centuries.
.
This colony, founded by Eric the Red, who set sail from Iceland
into the North Atlantic in 986 with 25 ships, (14 of which arrived safely),
survived and even - for a time, thrived, for about 400 years.
.
There were two Greenland Viking settlements, the larger eastern
settlement and the western, about 200 miles further north.
The Greenland Vikings effectively established a miniature version
of their original Norwegian homeland, with, at first, prosperous cattle farms,
stone houses with turf roofs, churches and even a great cathedral to rival
those in the larger cities of Scandinavia, replete with stained glass
windows.
.
Then the little ice age,' beginning in the 14th century, set in.
Ice floes and stormy conditions in the Atlantic rendered shipping unsafe,
effectively cutting off Greenland from its 'mother' cultures in Iceland and
Norway. In the late 14th century their trading ship the Greenland
Knarr was wrecked. Thus the Greenlanders trade with Europe, to which they sent
highly prized narwhal and walrus ivory, polar bear pelts, falcons, eider
down, as well as walrus and seal hide rope, in return for expensive
accoutrements for their churches and vital iron and timber, upon which they
depended so much, ceased.[2]
.
The last news heard in Europe of the Greenlanders was from
a visit in 1410 mentioning that a wedding was recorded at the Hvalsey Church, in
the Eastern Settlement in 1408.[3]
.
In tthe early 1600's, once the weather started to become warmer
again, the King of Denmark sent ships to Greenland to search for any survivors
-none were found, only abandoned, ruined settlements.
.
As the extreme cold of the little ice age became more severe, by
the middle of the 14th century, the folk of the eastern settlement became
concerned as to the fate of their kin in the isolated western settlement,
hundreds of kilometres to the north. Nothing had been heard of them for several
years.
.
Myron Paine a retired engineer, became fascinated by the enigma of
what became of these rugged Scandinavians. He began to meticulously research as
many historical sources as he could find, in order to discovour clues as to
their eventual fate. Finally he pieced together the extraordinary epic of the Greenland
Norse, described on his website 'The Frozen Trail,' :[4]
.
It seems, that when the Vatican appointed Bishop of
Greenland, Bishop Ivar Bardson, visited the western settlement in 1351 to
enquire as to his parishioner's welfare and to drive off the 'skraelings,' the
Inuit (eskimoes) whom had reportedly been attacking the settlement, he found it
completely abandoned: "now the Skraeling have [destroyed] the whole of the
Western Settlement. There are only horses, goats, cattle, and sheep all wild,
but no inhabitants, neither Christian nor Heathen.' Archeological surveys have since
found evidence that some of the starving inhabitants, on one of the farms,
during a harsh winter, shortly before the demise of the settlement, had
slaughtered their livestock (including a highly valuable new born calf) and
their dog, in order to stay alive.[5] However, no
archeological evidence of mass starvation or of the Inuit destroying the
settlement while the Norse still occupied it, has been found.
.
On the contrary, the only remains of Norse found there show that
they had had Christian burials and had been, for most of their lives,
relatively healthy, before evntually dying from natural causes. The
portable belongings in their houses had been removed methodically and in an
orderly way, with no sign of a desperate, last minute evacuation.[6]
.
Thus, Bardsen found a settlement, completely abandoned, with
the valuable livestock left roaming untended. So what became of the Greenland
Norse?
.
Had the Inuit overun the settlement? Did they all starve to death,
frozen into their homes, from the effects of the medieval mini ice age? Were
the stories the Inuit told of pirates attacking their settlements, the cause of
their demise?
.
Bardsen reported finding a clue to this enigma, left at the
settlement, written in Latin, most probably by a Norse 'bishop,' whom had lived
there: 'Ad Americae Populose Se Converterunt,' which translates as : 'To the
people of America we have turned,'[7]
Myron Paine has revealed that the Greenlanders had an ongoing
relationship with America from the earliest times of their colony.
Lief Ericson (Eric's son) had sailed to America in 1000. That same
year, most of the Greenland leaders converted to Christianity[8] at the request of
King Haarkon of Norway.
.
Those Vikings who persisted in following the Norse God Odin, were
ruthlessly driven out of Greenland and having nowhere else to go, ventured to
America, where they thrived in the verdant lands.
.
Bishop Gnuppson, appointed by the Vatican as Bishop of Greenland
had relocated to America, known to the Greenlanders as 'Eastmansland,' in 1121
to be a pastor 'to the many Norse already there.'[9] Once there, he devised a method of
writing pictographs on sticks, in order to teach the American Norse bible
stories. Following bishops continued with this practice. (Paine 2007)
It seems that many Norse had left the harsh life in Greenland and
following the path of the earlier Odin worshippers, migrated to America, where
food was abundant and adopted an American, hunter gatherer, outdoor lifestyle,
living on bison, geese, fox, bear, seals, whales and fish, only returning to
Greenland for short stays.
.
The Norse who stayed in Greenland had adapted to travelling to
America to hunt for the abundant food there, because once they had felled the
Greenland forests, cattle grazing had practically destroyed their farmlands and
the inhabitants there, especially on the smaller holdings, had to rely
increasingly on seafood, (mainly seal meat) in order to survive. (Greenland
Archeology). During winter, when the sea froze over, seal hunting was not
possible, as the Norse did not learn from the Inuit how to catch seals through
holes cut into the ice. The only alternative to starvation for many Norse
from these smaller holdings would have been to winter in America, in less severe
southern climes, living off the land from what they could hunt.
.
Adventurous young men, wanting to make their way in the world,
after leaving freezing Greenland, where the small amount of arable land was
getting more and more scarce every generation, (because of environmental
degradation and the Greenlander's practice of digging up the outfields on their
farms - called 'flaying the outfields'[10] -to make and to
repair turf roofs continually in need of renewal) would have seen
America, after a few hunting trips there, as a much more attractive
proposition, where they would be free from the rigid, rule bound,.church
dominated Greenlander elders. (Because of this scarcity of arable land, only
one son would have inherited the family farm. Life in hard years was already
marginal, Paine's research provides a very plausible explanation for where
many of the younger sons went. Archeological excavations in Greenland Norse
settlements have also found a disproportionate number of children and young
adult women died before reaching full maturity..[11] Greenland Archeology - Smithsonian Institution National Museum
www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/greenland/archeo.html
.
Thus, with a shortage
of prospective wives in Greenland, this was another incentive for young men to
venture to America to start a new life with the Norse already living there
)
Did Ivar Bardson know, when he later reported to Bishop Oddson in
Bergen, back in Norway, that the Western settlement was 'lost,' that the
population of the whole settlement had left only five years before?
.
In 1346, the 1,000 Catholic Norse Greenlanders of the
settlement walked across the ice sheets in Davis Straight to the North American
mainland, at James Bay. Bardson, when he returned to Norway, duly
informed Bishop Oddson, in Bergen, of the message he found: left at the
abandoned settlement.
.
In the following years, at least 3,000 Norse Catholics from the
Eastern settlement followed. This event was recorded in three medieval texts.
(In 1364, the 'Inventio Fortunatae,' reported :"nearly 4000 people who
'entered the indrawing seas [beyond Greenland] who never returned."[12]
.
The Englishman, Professor Lyon, who was on the same Norse
ship to Bergen as Bardson, later reported to the King Henry 2nd of England,
that 4,000 Norse had walked into Hudson's Bay and never returned.[13]
.
Many of The Greenland Norse were contemptuous of the Vatican,
which exacted huge tithes from the struggling Greenlanders (which would have
becaome increasingly difficult to bear as their farmlands degraded and became
less productive), (Greenland Archeology) and which interfered in European
politics, even sacking a King of France! That is why they called themselves the
Leni Lenape: 'abiding with the pure,' (meaning living by the ethics of Jesus) and
which led Bishop Oddsen in 1360, to write in his journal :. "The
inhabitants of Greenland of their own free will have abandoned the true faith
....and joined themselves with the folk of America."[14]
.
The Leni Lenape, once in America, adhered to the principles of
their 'pure' Christian faith.
.
When Queen Elizabeth the first was granting provisions for
Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition to America with the mission to establish an
English colony there, she agreed that two highly accomplished men, John White,
an artist and John Hariot, an eminent man of science, should go with the
expedition.
Hariot, once the colonists arrived at Roanoke Island, quickly
learned the Leni Lenape language. When enquiring of a local chief as to the
religious beliefs of his people, he was informed - 'There is one chiefe God
that has been from all eternitie.' Hariot wrote that 'They believe in
the immortality of the soul.'[15]
.
Hariot also later wrote that he was strengthened in his Christian
faith by the devotion shown to Jesus by the Leni Lenape. They called him
'Geezis, 'the light of the world.'[16] ) and worshipped
him through the sun.
.
(Is it a coincidence that the Hebrews, whom had already been
in America during the time of King Solomon, - with some indiginous tribes still
apparently practicing some elements of the faith up until the arrival of
European settlers in their lands - called the sun 'Shim si yahu,' which
translates as 'The sun is my God.'[17] (Rabbi Edward
Jacques). Furthermore the Egyptians, under the Pharoah Akhnaten, - of
whom Professor Barry Fell, of Harvard University, has accumulated a compelling
body of evidence proving their ships had visited America- worshipped the sun as
God.)
..
Hariot was told about a woman who concieved by intervention of a god
whose son brought guidance for humankind and heard another story of a man who
was raised from the dead. He affirmed: 'They believe in the
immortality of the soul.'
.
Further signs of their continued Christianity are that when
the Norse left Greenland, they still had an intimate connection with the Virgin
Mary, as did most Scandinavians at the time. This connection continued in
America, only the name 'Virgin Mary' was replaced with the name 'Kewasa,' which
is derived from the Old Norse 'Gaas.' meaning womb. White described every
temple as having a picture of Kawasa in the Arctic birthing posture, to which
the Leni Lenape bowed down and worshipped. .( Sherwin wrote that 16 colonial
translaters had written that Kewasa meant 'mother' and one went further, saying
Kewasa translated as 'mother of Jesus.')[18]
.
John White recorded an accurate depiction of an Algonquin
woman wearing a St. Hans Cross engraved with blue shell (such crosses
were worn in Scandinavia from between 1000 and 1300) who was also wearing
prayer beads.
.
Captain John Smith, of the Pocahontas legend, (he was acquainted
with her and one of his men married her) leader of the first Jamestown Colony,
said that in 1610 he had met an American bishop in the Maine district. Other
explorers of the region said that the other local chiefs were under this
bishop's rule.
.
Smith's account of a Leni Lenape bishop in Maine shows that the
early Norse Bishops, following Bishop Gnuppson, the first American bishop, had
continued the lineage and had even set up a bishopric in America. [19]
.
The Leni Lenape (who claimed descent from the 'Noosh'),
recorded their story on pictographs, (in the same way they had learned the
bible stories) which they called the Maalan Aarum-the engraved years.
.
The new invaders from England, and their colonial American
descendants, (as well as the French to the north and the Spanish in the south)
from the early 17th century onwards, slowly drove the Leni Lenape inland,
encroaching upon their abundant lands from the coastal areas, until
by 1820 the Delaware Leni Lenape had been driven into a small plot of land
in Indiana 'granted' to them by the US Government. When the US army
arrived and instructed them to move again, many of the remaining young men
reacted with chaotic rage, blaming their fathers for 'giving all that land in
the east away,' some even killed their fathers.[20]
.
In about 1821, a dying Leni Lenape historian, a veteran of the
revolutionary war, had preserved 186 memory stick pictograms of the Waalum
Aarum.
.
He was worried that the enraged young men, rioting throughout the
encampment, might destroy the pictgraphs, so he asked US army doctor John
Russel Ward, who was treating him, for assistance. As he was dying he finally
gave Dr. Ward the bundle of sticks with the pictographs enscribed on
them.
Myron Paine, provides this explanation : "The historian hoped
to save the Lenape 400-year history as the tribe, splintered into chaotic
factions that had fought on opposite sides in the American Revolutionary War,
massacred each other and were being pushed out of their shrinking land
allotments once again,"
.
Ward gave the pictographs to the eminent naturalist Constantine
Samuel Rafinesque, in Kentucky, whom in turn asked another elderly Lenape
historian,who knew the sounds associated with each pictograph, to help him in
this project. This elderly Leni Lenape man recited them to a well meaning
Moravian pastor, who, not understanding Leni Lenape well, mistranslated some of
the sounds and thus their meanings. Another complication was that, this Walum
Olum or Waalan Aarum, must have been passed down by word of mouth through at
least sixteen generations. Many of the words evolved over time, thus, some were
not recognisable to 19th century Leni Lenape speakers.
.
The resulting Walum Olum,[21] caused a lot of both
interest and confusion, some calling it a fake.
.
It was only when Reider T Shirwin - whom had been born on an
island off the Norwegian coast, where Old Norse was still understood
- upon arriving in America, heard someone mention an Algonquin
place name in New England, that the path to the true story began to unfold.
Shirwin recognised the name as being a Norse word, wherapon he was duly
informed that the name was actually of Native American origin. However, both
the Norse word he recognised and the Native American name meant the same
thing.
.
Intrigued, Shirwin obtained a map of New England and had soon
compiled a list of dozens of Algonquin place names he recognised as being Old
Norse. Furthermore, they had the same meanings in both Algonquin and Old Norse.[22]
.
This inspired him to further examine linguistic similarites
between Norse and Algonquin, Eventually, in 1940, after 18 years research,
Shirwin published the first volume of 'The Viking and the Red Man.'
.
Myron Paine writes 'Reider T. Sherwin's epic eight volumes
of The Viking and the Red Man, 1940-1954 has over 15,000 comparisons of
Algonquin and Old Norse phrases. In December, 2006 a systematic comparison of
the Walam Olum words to 19th century Algonquin words and the corresponding Old
Norse phrases revealed that every Walam Olum word could be deciphered into Old
Norse,' vindicating Shirwin's claim that “the Algonquin IndianLanguage is
Old Norse.'[23]
.
For.example, 'Milwaukee,' in Old Norse, is "milde
aakre," meaning "the pleasant land"-- an almost perfect match
for the pronunciation and meaning in Algonquin.' (Myron Paine) 'Quebec,'
in Old Norse is 'kwe bec, both meaning blocked brook, other examples are
'Mississippi,' (mestr sipi) - mighty waters,
'Gitchegumee,' (geis sjoe kumme) - big sea basin/great sea reservoir
and 'Minniehaha,' (minni ha hardt) which translates as
laughing waters/loud laughing chasm.
.
(Another, rather obviously Norse sourced Algonquin word is
moccassin, from the Old Norse 'maca sin,' meaning things which are paired!)
.
Shirwin painstakingly translated both the pictographs and the Walum
Olum, with his knowledge of Old Norse, to evaluate exactly where in the
manuscript the Moravian pastor had mispronounced and mis-spelled sounds and
thus mistranslated the true meaning of the pictographs. For instance, what he
had written as being the Walum Olum, Shirwin re- translated, with his knowledge
of Old Norse, as being the Maalan Aarum.
.
Myron Paine, cites the 'Carte Du Canada (Carte),' a French
map compiled in 1700, which 'reveals the unsuspected Lenape epic.'
The existence of this map indicates that the early French
explorers, upon arriving in North America, had found Christians ('Les
Christinoux') already living there.
.
Paine continues: 'The Carte confirms that the largest area of “Les
Christinaux” was in the northern forests of North America surrounding James Bay
and the land south of Hudson Bay. This area was the termination of the
migration across ice recorded in Maalan Aarum (MA) Chap. 3.
.
On the Carte the large white area from Fort Nelson in the west to
the Eastmain River on the east side of James Bay is labeled “Les
Christinaux.”
.
The term "Les Christinaux" used on the map is French
spelling for the Old Norse word 'Kristin' and a Gaelic word
“slough," which means 'multitudes' - sounds which the early
Jesuit missionaries and French explorers would have heard from the Leni
Lenape.
So the term 'Les Christinoux' is a French spelling for the Norse
words they heard the Native Americans speaking. The term the French would have
used is 'chretian,' (meaning Christian in French).
.
The Americans included large numbers of Irish and Scottish people,
who called themselves “Albans." Alba is an ancient name for Scotland.
(Hence the Gaelic derivation of the second half of the word 'Christinoux). The
Albans were also people, who abided with the pure. (Paine)
.
Paine continies: 'On the Carte, the “Len” syllable in the tribal
names along the Nelson River, Lake Winnipeg, and Red River water way is a
positive indication that the people in the area in 1700 still “abided with the
pure.”
.
*On the Carte Du Cananda this name (Asslenipoils) appears three
times, in two instances the "l" appears in the name, in this
position it does not.' Commenting on Shirwin's work, Paine states that :
'A very important result is that Sherwin’s comparisons show that the Lenape
syllables “Len,” “Lin,” “Ren,” or “Rin” can only mean “pure” if they are found
anywhere in any Lenape word. Sherwin’s comparisons can also decipher most other
Lenape syllables.
.
So, a researcher can look at (better listen to) the syllables in a
Maalan Aarum stanza to determine if they pass the Drottkvaett format, an oral
format to let the listener know if what he hears is the same as what was said
miles away and months ago. Then a researcher can refer to Sherwin’s comparisons
to determine the meaning of each syllable.
.
The 1350 stanza maker clarified what “Len” meant. In MA 3:7 he
describes a Bishop, who was “immersed to be “Len.” People, who were “Len,”
lived by the ethics of Christ. Lenape tribes with the word “Len” in their name
lived the ethics of Christ.
.
The Carte shows that most of the people, who lived north of the
Great Lakes, were either “Len” or “Christinaux” people. Around the Great Lakes
the Ojibwa, which means “Greatest” preferred to stress “Great” instead of
“Les,” but they and the Albans called the sun “Jesus” also.' (Paine)
.
Thus, the creators of this map, who unknowingly charted the story
of the great migrations of the Leni Lenape, together with Shirwin's masssive
compilation of linguistic comparisons and Myron Paine's compelling body of
evidence, now reveal the Maarlan Aarum to be seen in the light of being
the true story of the Leni Lenape.
Myron Paine states that 90% of the Norse Greenlander's diet was
seal meat. Seals were best hunted on the edge of the ice sheets.
.
As the weather
during the mini ice age by the mid fourteenth century was becoming colder the
ice sheets hugging the coasts reached further south, covouring Davis Straight.
Each year the hunters would have to journey further and further south for seal
meat. Eventually, the only places which remained ice free, were the 'open water
marvels' (due to the combination of shallow water and strong currents, due to
huge tidal shifts) on the Ungava Peninsula and in Hudson Straight. Desperate
hunters would thus journey there during each winter to provide food for their
families.
.
Paine states :
'A cold climate provided a driving reason for the first trips to
get food. As the cold persisted, the possibility of migration became a
reality.'
.
As the little ice age persisted -
'The desperate Norse hunters walked to the open water marvels to
get food to take home to their families. As the cold persisted through two
generations, the thought of moving the families to the food became compelling.'
.
The migration of the Leni Lenape is one of the great endurance
feats of any migration.
.
It has been called impossible but the Norse were rugged, hardy and
desperate.
.
Paine continues :'The Frozen Trail was four hundred and fifty five
(455) miles from the Northern Settlement to land at Bjarni Island (now called
Resolution Island). They had to go another two hundred (200) miles from Bjarni
Island to Pamiok on the east coast of Ungava Peninsula. Good Arctic traveling
is about twenty five (25) miles a day, but there is one known case of a man,
alone, averaging forty three (43) miles per day.
.
(Comment: The Norse could have made forty to fifty miles a day by
sleeping one third of the people on sleds and pulling through all night and a
short day. Using a twenty-five (25) mile/day rate, the trip would have taken
less than four (4) weeks. The walk would have been a difficult human endeavor,
but achievable).
.
They also knew they had to leave in the middle of
winter, when the arctic sun was sitting low on the horizon and providing
sunlight for only two hours a day, so as to have the best chance of arriving in
America before the ice began to turn to slush, as spring approached. They also knew they couldn't expose
their women and children to the insect swarms on the Ungava Peninsula - the
first. landfall on their journey - which would have been fatal for many of
them.
.
The choices were to stay in Greenland and die of starvation by early
spring or make a desperate life or death trek across the treacherous pack ice in the middle of a dark Arctic
winter to reach America before spring.
.
These hardy, heroic folk were the survivors of the so called
'lost' Greenland Norse colony, the Vikings, who, in 1346, on the brink of
starvation, abandoned their exhausted, deforested lands and walked west
-en masse across the frozen expanses- in a quest for survival and a new life in
America (Akomen).
.
3.17
.
On the wonderful slippery water,
On the stone hard water, all went
On the great tidal sea,
Over the [puckered pack ice]
.
3.18
.
[I tell you it was a big mob]
In the darkness,
all in one darkness
To Akomen, to the [west],
In the darkness
They walk and walk,
all of them
.
3.19
.
The men from the north,
the east, the south,
The eagle clan, the beaver clan
the wolf clan,
The best men, the rich men,
the head men
Those with wives,
Those with daughters,
Those with dogs
.
3.20
.
They all come.
They tarry at the land
Of the spruce pines,
Those from the east
Some with hesitation.
Esteeming highly their
Old home at the mound land
.
The Leni Lenape had trekked, pulling whalebone sleds carrying
women with babies, toddlers and small children snugly wrapped in furs, with the
elderly and whatever portable possessions they had, through the long arctic
winter night, across frozen Davis Straight, then a long haul, pulling
sleds by hand across the Ungava Peninsula, then south down Hudson's Bay and
finally arriving at its southern most extremity, at James Bay- hungry,
dirty and bitterly cold, some despairing at leaving their homeland, with its
snug, turf roofed, stone cottages.
.
They then 'made a desperate migration to their kin at
Fargo-Moorhead. (Wynland of West). After they left there, they migrated
whenever surrounding environmental resources diminished.' (Paine).
.
Myron Paine has charted the progress of the Leni Lemape in their
journey into the American interior by matching landmarks, climate, historical
incidents and the landscape with descriptions in the Maaran Aarum.
.
In the dozen or so years after they had crossed the pack ice to
James Bay, (up until around 1358), they journeyed over the lands south of Hudson
Bay, then by 1362 south of Big Stone Lake towards the Great Lakes, for the
abundant fishing there. Then they travelled, seemingly meandering back and
forth, through Minesota, then down the Big Souix River into South Dakota.
.
A
severe drought then set in, so they headed east into southeast Minesota, on a
long trek towards the caves called Niagara and Mystery, where they
dwelled until the drought broke.
As the rains returned and the land began to replenish, they began
a slow migration to the south, along the west bank of the Mississippi, through
Iowa and Missouri, to the Missouri River.
.
In about 1445, the Lenape crossed the Mississippi, calling
themselves the Illini, heading east towards Lakes Michigan and Erie, then
expanding into Illinois, Indiana and most of Ohio to form the Illinois
Confederation.
.
Around 1470, the Illini separated into the Lenape and the southern
Lenape (the Shawnee). The Shawnee tribes migrated south, reaching, at one point
, as far as Mexico, while the Lenape continued east over the Allegany
Mountains, towards the Atlantic coast, as many of the men wanted to bring
their families back to the 'big sea,' which they reached by around 1500.
(Myron Paine)
.Some moved up the Hudson River and renamed themselves the
Mahigans.
.
Over a hundred and fifty years, they migrated for 4,000 miles
and settled lamds 1,200 miles along the Atlantic seaboard of the North American
coast. (Paine)
.
The region inhabited by the at least 24 tribes, descended from the
Lenape, reaches, to quote Myron Paine: 'from the Atlantic coast to the purple
mountains from Fort Nelson, Manitoba, Canada to Savannah, Georgia.' (Paine)
.
This region was the land settled by the Leni Lenape, including the
Algonquin (Delaware) tribes 'the Cree, Chippewa (Ojibway), Ottawa, ,
Potawatomi, many Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo, Abnaki, Micmac, Mohican,
Shawnee, Illinois, Blackfoot, Pequot, and others who speak dialects of
the Algonquin language.[24]
'(Larry Stroud The Frozen Trail)
.
Many New England rivers, as well as having Norse and Native
American names, are now also known to have Gaelic names: such as
'Merrimac,' which means 'deep fishing in Algonquin, which is too close to
the Gaelic Mor- rionmach, meaning 'great depth,' for it to be a
coincidence.
.
The presence of these Gaelic words in the Native American
languages of the east coast, gives credence to claims that there were tribes of
people of Scottish and Irish descent, who called themselves Albans, referred to
in the earlier quote from Myron Paine, living in America when the Norse arrived,
in about 1000 CE.
.
The Albans had left Scotland to escape from the Norse invasions in
the 9th century, wherupon they moved to Iceland. When the Norse arrived
on that island, they evacuated to North America, via Greenland. . (Myron
Paine) (This may explain why the first Norse settlers in Greenland claim to
have found the ruins of stone buildings there).
.
Many of the Lenape tribes have legends of ttheir ancestors coming
across the sea from the east. For instance, the Abnakis are one of twelve Northeast America
tribes that have traditions of their ancestors coming from the east over a
salty sea. As the Abnakis traditions mention their ancestors crossing a 'salty
sea' from the 'east' and not a frozen sea from the north, (as in the case of
their Norse ancestors) they may be referring to the Albans.
In 1866, Daniel G Bighton wrote, in 'Myths of the New World,'
:"The Algonquins with one voice called those of their tribes living
nearest the rising sun, Abnakis. meaning our ancestors at the east or dawn; literally
our white ancestors. [25]
.
Professor Roger McLeod of Lowell University in
Massachusetts has studied the languages of the tribes along the eastern
seaboard of the United States and compiled a huge dictionary of Norse and
Gaelic words which have been assimilated into these languages).[26]
.
Early explorers found Mandan Indians who had blue eyes and yellow
hair, which may have been from either descendants of Irish Prince Madoc, who
led several shiploads of settlers to North America in the 12th century, or the
Norse — but probably both.
In the 17th century, English settlers in North America wrote home
telling about native Americans with blond hair (Robert L. Pyle, All That
Remains, pp 66) These people were subsequently absorbed into the new
European population.
.
Myron Paine has also provided another tanatalising piece of
information : '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 Norse settlement.] (Sherwin, 1940)'
.
Paine also writes that Old Norse names began appearing in
documents when the Hudson's Bay Company arrived in Eastman Land, (the name the
Greenland Norse called America) which lay on either side of the Sludd
River. Sludd means sleet in Old Norse. The British changed the name to Eastmain
River. Paine states that there are twenty two rivers which flow into James Bay.
Nine of these have distinctively Norse names.
.
Furthermore, Paine cites genetic evidence from researcher
Gene Parks, who has found that the Shawnee, (and thus Lenape and at least 23
other tribes) have Norse admixture in their DNA.[27]
He continues: 'Over half of the male DNA in Iceland is Haplo
groups is R1A & R1B. Greenland still has 58.6% of the males with European
DNA, mostly R1A and R1B, making the telling point that any genetic surveys of
North American native Americans that reveal European DNA have been, up until
the beginning of the 21st century, thrown out becaus ethey were presumed
to have been contaminated by post Columbus European DNA.
.
Wallace'discovoured 'a set of genetic markers found only in the
Objiwa and other tribes living near the Great Lakes; the markers are not found
in any other native Americans or in Asia'.
"We just don't know how it got there," Wallace says,
"but it is clearly related to the European population."
.
The simple answer would be the DNA arrived with the European
colonists, but the strain is different enough from the existing European
lineage that it must have left the Old World long before Columbus.[28]
.
Research by Elena Borch, et al, states :High Level of male-based
Scandinavian admixture in Greenlandic Inuit shown by Y-Chromosome anaylsis,
2003. Borch notes that she cloud not distinguish between the Y chromosone of the
Inuit and the male populations of 17 northern European countries.
.
The presence of European male Y haplogroup DNA 'predating
Columbus' in Native Americans from the Great Lakes district down along the east
coast of the United States, supports there having been a Norse migration into
America. There also appears to be genetic evidence that women with
hapolgroup X appear to have arrived in America via Hudson's Bay and
Newfoundland. In 2011, haplogroup X was discovoured to occurr in
significant concentrations in both the Orkney Islands, to the north of Scotland
and in Palestine.
.
(It is interesting to note that the Vikings used to raid both Scotland
and the Orkney Islands and take captive wives with them to Iceland and most
probably thence to Greenland and America. In fact, 50% of the mtDNA lineage of
women in Iceland is from the British Isles and this means that 50% of the mtDNA
lineage of the Viking Norse females was also Celitc).
.
The mystery of what had happened to
the Greenland Norse colony, had haunted the imagination of many Northern
Europeans, especially Scandinavians, for centuries after they
disappeared. Writers and historians surmised as to their possible fate
for just as long. (The only sign of the Viking
Greenlanders since the last visit there in the early fifteenth century, was a
dead Norse Greenlander, found lying face down on the pebble scree beside a
fjord to the north of the eastern settlement, by a Norwegian fishing boat in
the 1540's).[29]
.
Although Bishops Oddsen and Bardsen both knew what had
happened to them (and thus, so did the Vatican), they were hardly likely
to spread the word that 4,000 of their parishioners had abandoned the 'true
faith' en masse. [30]
.
Interestingly, several verses of the Maarlan Aarum describe
the flight of the Odin followers from Greenland to escape from the Christian
religion imposed by their elders about 1000.and describing the abundant lands
found by them in Akomen. (America). These Odin worshippers were the
first Norse to migrate to America.
.
Thus, just as the Pilgrim Fathers left England on the
Mayflower to escape from religious persecution, 600 years later, the Greenland
Norse Odin followers went to America for the same reason.)
.
Taking as an example the Algonquin tribe, we can see that these
descendants of the Norsemen, had learned to live in harmony with both their environment
and (mostly) with their neighbours. Wheras arguments and disputes, during the
heyday of the Greenland settlement, were most likely to have been settled with
a broad axe through the skull, inflicted upon any dissenting parties, and any
Inuit found roaming too close to the settlements were killed on sight, the
Algonquin would have a pow wow, to discuss things and seek a settlement through
mediation.
.
This behaviour is in great contrast to how Arthur Barlowe, co
captain of the original, 1576 Roanoke colony, described the Algonquin Croatoan
people (the descendants of the Norse) he met there as being "gentle,
loving and faithful, void of all guile and treason."[31]
.
They even adapted their version of Christianity to be connected to
their environment and the earth- not as just a spiritual concept. Jesus was
worshipped as 'the light of the world' through the sun, Mary was worshipped as
a birthing mother, so their religion was intimately connected to the natural
cycles of the earth.
.
Wheras formerly the Greenlanders had cleared their forests and
overgrazed their farmlands, leading to environmental collapse once the mini ice
age set in, the Algonquin had -by all accounts - learned to grow crops
sustainably, supplementing and balancing their farming activities with a partly
hunter gatherer lifestyle. The rich alluvial soil lowland areas along the
rivers being the places they planted their crops, all other areas were left as
wild forest. To the Algonquin, all the trees, animals, land forms, even
the earth itself had their own spirits and were thus sacred: preserving the
environment was seen as being of paramount importance: a lesson well
learned.
.
The 'codes' or 'Laws of the Land' by which many hunter -gatherer
societies have lived, can be seen as ways of preserving their finite
environments. The intricate belief systems, processes and ceremonies
which much be practiced in many of these cultures, demonstrate this. Examples
of this are the assignation of animal and tree totems to various members
of the clan, tribe or society in which they live- with those whom are assigned
these totems obliged to protect and preserve them.
.
Other examples of this are
the worshipping of particular trees and communicating with the spirits of
trees : asking permission for the spirit to 'gift' its tree wood and a
hunter asking the spirit of an animal to gift its life for meat and sustenance
of the tribe. These may indeed be very clever, sophisticated processes devised
by the survivors of previous civilization collapses to ensure their descendants
do not repeat the same mistakes as their ancestors did and destroy their
environment. These so called primitive, superstitious practices may thus be
seen 'in the light' of being 'survival codes' devised to ensure the survival of
their people: just as parents will do everything to ensure their children are
well equipped with the knowledge to be happy and successful in life.
.
One can
imagine the survivors in remnant refugee groups from such traumatic
civilization collapses ( and their descendants) devising ways of ensuring their
beloved children and grandchildren learn from the mistakes of their
forefathers. This may explain why the descendants of the great Harrapan
civilization : the Dravidian aborigines- who, when the several hundred men eventually
made their way to far flung Australia (as had many before them). - adopted a '
code' or 'Law of the Land' such as quoted in Robert Lawler's ' 'Voices of
the First Day' of no agriculture, no construction of buildings ( except for
ceremonial purposes) and no wearing of clothes in order to ensure their
descendants survived in harmony with their environment.[32]
.
Graham Hancock, in his book 'Fingerprint of the Gods' provides the
reader with a wealth of compelling evidence that an advanced maritime
civilization existed before 11,000 years ago somewhere in the area of the
Mediterranean- or as legend has it the Atlantic Ocean- which was obliterated by
a naturally occurring cataclysm, such as an earthquake, volcanic eruption,
massive tsunami or all three.' Hancock argues these were precipitated by a
polar shift. Dr. Robert Schoch argues that extreme solar
flare activity was the cause)
.
This culture would have existed alongside some very 'primitive'
cultures indeed.
.
Even though it has most often been ignored by academics, because
it does not fit the currently accepted 'dominant paradigm,' there is a
considerable body of evidence to suggest that advanced and not so advanced
civilizations have existed on earth for a very long time.
.
Thus, even if we accept the comfortable assertion that our
civilization is the pinnacle of human evolution and development, that
there have been none like us before, this process of cultures abandoning
their hunter gatherer - 'living in harmony with and revering their environment'
-ways and engaging in agriculture, then developing relatively advanced
technologies- before civilization collapse due to emvironmental breakdown- may
be an often repeated pattern when one looks at a time scale over many
millenia. Each of these civilization collapses would then be followed by
the few scattered remnant survivors (if there were any) returning to a
hunter gatherer way of life and endeavouring to live in harmony with
their environments. This pattern may have been continuing for many
thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions of years.
.
INTERLUDE BETWEEN CHAPTERS
Since the great wet rainforests of the Australian East coast, the
Northern, Central monsoon rainforests and the vast dry rainforests which once
stood on the Western side of the great dividing range along much of the Eastern
coast of Australia were burned out by aboriginal firestick farming,
Australia has become a land captive to a destructive cycle of droughts,
bushfires and floods.
In the ancient Chinese system of medicine, which endeavoured to
keep both the human body and the body of the Earth and indeed the whole cosmos
in a state of balance and thus optimum health, there were five elements Earth,
Fire, Metal (Air), Wood and Water which were considered to be vital for human
and environmental health. 'Earth' corresponded to the digestive system, 'Fire,'
to the endocrene, 'Metal' to the resporatory system, 'Wood' to the immune and
'Water' to the circulatory system. In order for the Earth to remain healthy,
fire needed to be kept in balance, thus sunlight ( fire ) radiating down onto
bare, dry earth caused deserts but sunlight shining down on areas of forests
and tilled green fields produced vitality. Also wood feeds fire but fire must
be contained and kept in balance. Fire contained was a cooking hearth which
supported well being. Fire uncontained and thus out of balance, could burn down
the house. The ancient Chinese specified 'metal' for the air element, meaning
the air must have negative ions in it ( such as one finds in pristine forests)
in order for it to promote a healthy environment. The Wood element corresponds
to the immune system, thus, healthy forests (meaning rainforests, not
inflammable Eucalyptus forests,) are in fact the immune system of the
Earth! The last element, water, is dependent upon pristine forests for its
purity and thus health promoting properties. Each vital element needs forests
in order to promote health and balance, just as every society in history which
survived, such as 16th century Japan, when confronted with the bleak future
prospects associated with massive deforestation, embarked upon a similarly
massive course of reforestation.
.
[1] Encycloepaedia Britannica Online
[2] ((Myron Paine The Frozen Trail (frozentrail.org)
[3] (Norse in Greenland by Dr. Kathryn Denning York University.
www.yorku.ca/.../2140%20special%20case%20Norse%20in%20Greenland.htm)
www.yorku.ca/.../2140%20special%20case%20Norse%20in%20Greenland.htm)
[4] (Myron Paine The Frozen Trail (frozentrail.org)
[5] Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail by Jared
Diamond)
[6] Greenland Archeology - Smithsonian Institution National Museum of ...
www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/greenland/archeo.html
www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/greenland/archeo.html
[7] (Myron Paine The
Frozen Trail, quoting Mowat
1965).
[8] (Myron Paine The Frozen Trail, quoting Mowat 1996)
[9] (Myron Paine The Frozen Trail, quoting Ingman 1966)
[10] Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail by Jared Diamond.
[11] Greenland Archeology - Smithsonian Institution National Museum
www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/greenland/archeo.html
www.mnh.si.edu/vikings/voyage/subset/greenland/archeo.html
[12] (Myron Paine The Frozen Trail (frozentrail.org)
[13] (Myron Paine The Frozen Trail (frozentrail.org)
[14] (Myron Paine The Frozen Trail (frozentrail.org)
[15] (Myron Paine The Frozen Trail (frozentrail.org)
[16] (Myron Paine The Frozen Trail (frozentrail.org) quoting (Shirwin '
The Viking and the Red Man 1940)
[17] Rabbi Edward Jacques).
[18] (Myron Paine The Frozen Trail (frozentrail.org) quoting (Shirwin '
The Viking and the Red Man 1940-51)
[19] (Myron Paine The Frozen Trail (frozentrail.org)
[20] (Myron Paine The Frozen Trail, quoting Wellender
1972)
[21] (Myron Paine The Frozen Trail, quoting Brinton 1885)
[22] (The Guard blog spot By Larry Stroud, Batesville Daily Guard
Associate Editor
Published on Thursday March 15, 2007)
(600-YEAR OLD AMERICAN HISTORY
HAS OLD NORSE WORDS By Larry Stroud
Ancient American Artifact Preservation Association
February 28, 2007)
Published on Thursday March 15, 2007)
(600-YEAR OLD AMERICAN HISTORY
HAS OLD NORSE WORDS By Larry Stroud
Ancient American Artifact Preservation Association
February 28, 2007)
[23] (The Guard blog spot By Larry Stroud, Batesville Daily Guard
Associate Editor
Published on Thursday March 15, 2007)
(600-YEAR OLD AMERICAN HISTORY
HAS OLD NORSE WORDS By Larry Stroud
Ancient American Artifact Preservation Association
February 28, 2007)
Published on Thursday March 15, 2007)
(600-YEAR OLD AMERICAN HISTORY
HAS OLD NORSE WORDS By Larry Stroud
Ancient American Artifact Preservation Association
February 28, 2007)
[24] 'Larry Stroud The Frozen Trail)
[27] (Myron Paine, The Frozen Trail)
[28] (Myron Paine, The Frozen Trail)
[29] (Myron Paine, The Frozen Trail)
[30] (Myron Paine, The Frozen Trail)
[31] (America's Lost Colony: Can New Dig Solve
Mystery?
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/03/0302_040302_lostcolony_2.html by William Drye March 2 2004.)
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/03/0302_040302_lostcolony_2.html by William Drye March 2 2004.)
[32] (Voices of the First Day by Robert Lawler)
No comments:
Post a Comment