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Monday, April 22, 2013

LENAPE EPIC SUMMARY


Excerpt from 
CHAPTER 18
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Lost Histories
Aidon Aakelas


GREENLAND NORSE 
become  LENAPE (Algonquin)


This excerpt from Chapter 18 of Rainforest Rejuvenation is an excellant, independent summary of the transformation of the Norse in America to become the Lenape in America, who were devastated by the English Invasion.  This excerpt retains Ms Aakelas' words without alteration.

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.
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The fate of the Greenland Viking colony had been an unsolved enigma for centuries.
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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.
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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.
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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]
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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] 
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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.
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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.
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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]
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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.
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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]
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Thus, Bardsen found a settlement, completely abandoned, with the valuable livestock left roaming untended. So what became of the Greenland Norse?
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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?
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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.
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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. 
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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.
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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.
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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
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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?
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 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.
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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]
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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]
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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]
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The Leni Lenape, once in America, adhered to the principles of their 'pure' Christian faith. 
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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]
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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.
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 (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.)
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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.'
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 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]
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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.
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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.
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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]
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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.
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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]
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In about 1821, a dying Leni Lenape historian, a veteran of the revolutionary war, had preserved 186 memory stick pictograms of the Waalum Aarum.
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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,"
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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.
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The resulting Walum Olum,[21] caused a lot of both interest and confusion, some calling it a fake.  
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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.
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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]
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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.'
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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]
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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.
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(Another, rather obviously Norse sourced Algonquin word is moccassin, from the Old Norse 'maca sin,' meaning things which are paired!)
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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. 
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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.
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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.
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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.” 
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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).
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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)
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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.”
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*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.
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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.
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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.
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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) 
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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. 
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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. 
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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.'
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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.'
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The migration of the Leni Lenape is one of the great endurance feats of any migration.
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It has been called impossible but the Norse were rugged, hardy and desperate.
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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.
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(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).
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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. 
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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.
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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).  
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3.17
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On the wonderful slippery water,
On the stone hard water, all went
On the great tidal sea,
Over the [puckered pack ice]
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3.18
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[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
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3.19
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​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
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3.20
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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
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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. 
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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.
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 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.
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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.
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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)
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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)
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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) 
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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]
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  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]
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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.
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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)'
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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]
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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.
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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.
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(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).
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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]
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 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]
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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.
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  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.)   
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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.
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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]
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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. 
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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.
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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. 
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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. 
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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]
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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)
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This culture would have existed alongside some very 'primitive' cultures indeed.
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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. 
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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.  

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