"Skraeling "history"" Topic

link (edit: Fixed the link)

With the popularity of the Skraelings as an army in Saga, Tom decided to write a bit about them.

To quote one piece of the article: "…you could base designs on historical tribes, of course, but the distance between contact and the Skraeling Age is 500 years -- roughly the same as that between Martin Luther and George W. Bush. So for good or ill, your Skraelings will be mostly a product of your imagination, not history. "

There is a difference between 'any damn way you like' and 'according to your best judgement'.

That is a distinction often lost on TMP.

Steve, the link is truncated somehow…

I get "Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist. " when clicking on what has been webified.
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Tim

Sorry guys- fixed the link!

There is a difference between 'any damn way you like' and 'according to your best judgement'.

That is a distinction often lost on TMP.

Of course! That message shouldn't be lost in the tongue in cheek delivery of course. We aren't saying paint them blue like the lil' dudes in Avatar! :)

OK.. so why not paint them blue?

They had a predilection to painting themselves. They may not originally had blue paint, but since they are somehow fighting in Dark Ages England now they should have access to woad, right? :-)

I'm convinced :)

Yeah, there's not a whole lot of information on them other than some passages in the Vinland Saga I think. You could take it in a fantasy direction or try to be as accurate as possible with North American Indians. Personally I always imagined them as early Iroquois.

It's interesting how the word "Skraeling" doesn't even have a clear definition. I've read that it could mean either "Shrieker" or "Wretch", so even the term can be somewhat debatable.

If you are planning on doing SAGA in 15mm, Kurasan has some great early Iroquois that would fit in great! It might not be completely accurate but it could work.

link

For skin colour, the Beothuk used red ochre on their bodies so much that their skeletons were red. When I was a kid in the 60s and 70s, the museum here had such a skeleton on display but it was removed later in the 70s or 80s as native sensibilities felt uncomfortable about the display and probably rightly so.

Any way, whatever colour red ochre is would be a good colour. they were referred to as "red Indians" but I don't know for sure if this was the origin f the 'red" description throughout North America or if other native cultures used red ochre – I don't think the Mi'kmaq did but I could also be wrong there. In our school history, the red skin was a particularly striking colour apparently.

That was a very good article by Tom.

I am not certain about the native peoples in Labrador – there were a group of people call the tunnit, or tunit, I believe, which may b the Dorsets. The Inuit oral histories indicated were wiped out by the Inuit when they arrived.

However I don't see any indication of Inuit in Labrador; nowadays, the Innu and the Inuit are two separate groups. It may be the source maps Tom used may have combined these peoples together, but I don't know very much about this area.

Cool beans!
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Tim

There are some illustrations done by inhabitants of Greenland and they show themselves in red and the Vikings in green in a violent clash (and other images).

I don't think that is the origin of the phrase "red man". I met a full blood Seneca I think it was, Iroquois League any way, and he had a distinctive red tone to his skin. I'm sure that is the origin of the phrase. Out here in California there is so much mixture with the natives from the Spanish that it is impossible to see the connection. At least in my experience. A few lookers, though, with some fine curves.

My Great-Grandfather, who was Cherokee had reddish skin as well.