Missing settlers mystery

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34047, 10 January 1976, Page 10

Missing settlers mystery

K. W. ANTHONY

Behind this stamp from Greenland lies one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries. The ataiiip depicts Hans Egede, the missionary wno became known as "the apostle of Greenand it was issued in l*)5S on the 2uoth anniversary of his death. The fact that his was the first non-royal portrait to appear on a Greenland stamp indicates the reverence in which his memory is held.

But how could Egede receive the credit for introducing Christianity into Greenland when the Chnstian faith was established in this Arctic land even before William the Conqueror landed in England?

The Vikings settled in Greenland as early as the tenth century. Then thev ventured further west still, and discovered North America four centuries before Cnlumhus. In a place they called Vinland there was, for a short time at least, a Viking settlement. And there is now little doubt that Vinland was the modem Newfoundland.

Early in the fifteenth century, however, communications between the Greenlanders and their kinsmen in Scandinavia broke down. It was apparently 200 years before ship's again crossed from Denmark and Norway to Greenland —

tnetr crews expecting to re-establish contact with the colonists. But to their astonishment the Greenland settlements had disappeared. A few ruined buildings were to be seen, but of the settlers themselves there was no sign. Yet in Greenland there had been two major settlements which had led a continuous existence for 400 tears. They even had their own bishop and their own cathedral. And the population was some thousands strong. So what happened to them? Several theories have oeen put forward. Perhaps they were wiped out by the plague. It has even been suggested that they were slaughtered by pirates. Or perhaps the weather deteriorated and in the harsh conditions the colonists died out gradually. But the most fascinating speculation of all is that the settlers might have packed up and left for the more favourable climate of North America, and there mingled with the Canadian Indians. Ln support of this theory has been quoted the fair skin of some of the Indian tribesmen. The true solution is never likely to be kncAvn. But modem Greentand, though forming pant of Denmark, has had its own stamps since 7938 — and it is hard to examine these interesting issues without pondeijng the mysterious fate of those thousands of Viking Greenlanders who vanished long ag£.

STAjb STORY