Skræling

Skræling (Old Norse and Icelandic: skrælingi, plural skrælingjar) is the name the Norse Greenlanders used for the peoples they encountered in North America (Canada and Greenland). In surviving sources, it is first applied to the Thule people, the proto-Inuit group with whom the Norse coexisted in Greenland after about the 13th century. In the sagas, it is also used for the peoples of the region known as Vinland whom the Norse encountered and fought during their expeditions there in the early 11th century. The word is most likely related to the Old Norse word skrá, meaning "dried skin", in reference to the animal pelts worn by the Inuit. William Thalbitzer (1932: 14) speculated that skræling might have been derived from the Old Norse verb skrækja, meaning "bawl, shout, or yell". In modern Icelandic, skrælingi means "barbarian", whereas the Danish descendant, skrælling, means "weakling". The term is thought to have first been used by Ari Thorgilsson in his work Íslendingabók, also called The Book of the Icelanders, written well after the period in which Norse explorers made their first contacts with indigenous Americans. By the time these sources were recorded, skræling was the common term Norse Greenlanders used for the Thule people, the ancestors to the modern Inuit. The Thule first arrived in Greenland from the North American mainland in the 13th century and were thereafter in contact with the Greenlanders. The Greenlanders' Saga and the Saga of Erik the Red, which were written in the 13th century, use this same term for the people of the area known as Vinland whom the Norse met in the early 11th century. The word subsequently became well known, and has been used in the English language since the 18th century. "Kalaallit", the name of the largest ethnic group of Greenlandic Inuit, is probably derived from skræling. In 1750, Paul Egede mentions that the Inuit used "Inuit" among themselves, but used Kalaallit when speaking to non-Inuit, stating that this was the term used by Norse settlers.