MDDM Ch. 66 Stig's Tale: An Interpretation

[Doug Millison]

jbor:
>It is "[u]pon the second visit" (i.e. of
>the "Skraellings") that the feminine apparition presents itself to Gudrid,
>presumably as a diversion,


That may be, but there's no specific evidence of this in the text. It's not
at all clear whom the "feminine apparition" would be diverting from what.
Gudrid, feeding her child "inside the House", has no connection to the
action outside in Pynchon's text, "the new Palisado and the Sentries".

>That some are themselves "captur'd and
>enslav'd" in Ireland on the return journey is the tragic and ironic end to
>the whole venture.


Agreed.  But, what about the tragic end of those Skraelings the Northmen
slaughtered out there "upon the Cape"?


>From the primary sources which Pynchon has used here it is evident that
>these first Norse settlers in "Vineland the Good" were peaceful, or
>portrayed as peaceful, or intending to live peacefully.


Do the historical sources really show them as peaceful?  Their rep was more
in the attack, pillage, rape, and loot line, wasn't it? I'd be interested
to read where the settlers of Vineland the Good are described as peaceful.
M&D says clearly that  the Northmen commit "this first Act of American
murder", an act leads to "the collapse of Vineland the Good" (634), i.e.,
which brings an end to this colonizing attempt of the Northmen.  Pynchon
writes a rather hair-raising scene that shows how the Northmen "go out to"
the Skraelings,  track them down and attack them "upon the Cape" where "The
Sea roars against the Land, the Sea-Wind bears away the cries of the
Wounded, Blood leaps, Men fall, most of those slain are Skraellings" (633).
These Northmen appear, in M&D,  skilled at fighting and killing, ready to
fight and kill, they bring weapons.  Of course they don't want to let the
native inhabitants get ahold of their weapons -- that's what gives the
Northmen the edge, the technology, the advantage that will let their
colonizing effort succeed. I'm willing to give the Skraelings the benefit
of the doubt and assume they recognize the value of the weapons the
Northmen bring, and understand the advantage that gives the Northmen.



>There's no evidence *anywhere* to suggest that violence and murder were
>unknown amongst indigenous North Americans prior to the arrival of
>Europeans, or that they'd never used "weapons" of some description, whether
>in pre-Columbian times or after 1492.


This sounds reasonable (I'm not sure about that categorical *anywhere*, not
having taken the time for a truly exhaustive inventory of the available
resources) although most of the accounts we have come down from the
Europeans who had their own reasons for portraying their interactions with
Native Americans one way rather than another.  _France and England in North
America_ by Francis Parkman is a good example, the way it details the
savage behavior of the Native Americans and thus helps to justify the
violence that the Europeans used against them.


> Further, there's no suggestion
>anywhere in _M&D_ or in the primary source material that the Norse settlers
>were doing any "enslaving" of Native Americans.
>It takes a bit of a twisting
>of Pynchon's text ("the 'new' Continent Europeans found had been long
>attended, from its own ancient Days, by murder, slavery, and the poor
>Fragments of a Magic irreparably broken" 612) to read the Norsemen as some
>analog for evil modern imperialists in this particular instance, and as the
>source material indicates and the novel implies, some of the settlers were
>killed by the Native Americans too.


You may be reading more into Pynchon's text than may be warrented.  And you
may be assuming more than you really know about "the primary source
material" -- have you really examined it all?

For starters, history shows the Northmen to have been quite violent. Here's
an overview from a handy, reputable reference:

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=77326&tocid=0&query=vikings
Vikings
also called Norseman, or Northman,  member of the Scandinavian seafaring
warriors who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the 9th to the
11th century and whose disruptive influence profoundly affected European
history. These pagan Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish warriors were probably
prompted to undertake their raids by a combination of factors ranging from
overpopulation at home to the relative helplessness of victims abroad.

The Vikings were made up of landowning chieftains and clan heads, their
retainers, freemen, and any energetic young clan members who sought
adventure and booty overseas. At home these Scandinavians were independent
farmers, but at sea they were raiders and pillagers. During the Viking
period the Scandinavian countries seem to have possessed a practically
inexhaustible surplus of manpower, and leaders of ability, who could
organize groups of warriors into conquering bands and armies, were seldom
lacking. These bands would negotiate the seas in their longships and mount
hit-and-run raids at cities and towns along the coasts of Europe. Their
burning, plundering, and killing earned them the name vikingr, meaning
"pirate" in the early Scandinavian languages.

The exact ethnic composition of the Viking armies is unknown in particular
cases, but the Vikings' expansion in the Baltic lands and in Russia can
reasonably be attributed to the Swedes. On the other hand, the nonmilitary
colonization of the Orkneys, Faroes, and Iceland was clearly due to the
Norwegians.

To cite this page:
"Viking" Encyclopædia Britannica
<http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=77326>
[Accessed July 25, 2002].


http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?query=vikings&eu=77326&tocid=7708#7708.toc
Scandinavian invasions of Ireland are recorded from 795, when Rechru, an
island not identified, was ravaged. Thenceforth fighting was incessant, and
although the natives often more than held their own, Scandinavian kingdoms
arose at Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford. The kings of Dublin for a time
felt strong enough for foreign adventure, and in the early 10th century
several of them ruled in both Dublin and Northumberland. The likelihood
that Ireland would be unified under Scandinavian leadership passed with the
Battle of Clontarf in 1014, when the Irish Scandinavians, supported by the
Earl of Orkney and some native Irish, suffered disastrous defeat. Yet in
the 12th century the English invaders of Ireland found the Scandinavians
still dominant (though Christianized) at Dublin, Waterford, Limerick,
Wexford, and Cork.
To cite this page:
"Viking" Encyclopædia Britannica
<http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=77326>
[Accessed July 25, 2002].


Does M&D portray a non-violent, "nonmilitary colonization" by the Northmen?
There may be an opening here for an interpretation that characterizes their
settlement of Vineland as such.  But Pynchon's text presents  Northmen who
are only too quick to murder the native inhabitants of the land, they
arrive with weapons that inspire covetousness among the indigenous
inhabitants of the land.  I find the comparison of European colonists from
a later era -- those who violently colonize parts of the world that Mason
and Dixon visit earlier in this novel, for example, or their descendents in
later centuries -- to these Northmen to be appropriate.  I don't claim this
to be a final or definitive interpretation, but I do think it fits the M&D
text and historical record with less twisting and turning that jbor's, but
that's only my opinion.



> it's more likely that
>it's this notion of "murder" which is the European import rather than the
>act itself.


That could be. It would be interesting to read more about notions of
"murder" in various cultures at that time.


>As far as the female apparition of "Gudrid" is concerned, I'm not sure what
>the source of that particular element of the story is, though it's pretty
>clear that the figure is an ill omen of some sort, and one which is
>connected with the "Skraellings".


The apparition does seem to be connected with the Skraellings, but who's to
say that the native women didn't try to establish contact with the European
women in an effort to prevent the bloodshed they knew their men capable of?

Flame-free,
Doug