Page 223 [223]
SECOND CONTACT: PATTERNS OF “SECOND ENCOUNTERS”...
of one of the kidnapped Kalaallit so there should be an interpreter for the
next Greenland voyage. The text of the missive pegs the abducted individual,
without more ado, as “our subject.” This evinces an unambiguous identification
of Greenland as an hereditary land of the Danish crown while the action of
isolating an Aboriginal for language learning is a token of forethought and
planning as to the continuation of the just begun re-integration.”°
As an echo of this expedition, the papal legate to Brussels sent a report to
the curia, Pope Paul V, in December 1605, concerning what he named “the
Danish re-discovery of Greenland.” Importantly, this message also enlarges
upon the kidnapping of several Kalaallit: “presero alcuni degli habitanti e
senza far altro se ne sono ritornati.””’ By virtue of this letter, we also get a brief
glimpse of the physical appearance and the apparel of the Greenlanders.*®
A much later, prominent account from 1765, titled Historie von Grönland,
by Herrnhut Pietist and Greenland missionary David Cranz, describes the
kidnapping and accidentally misinforms on the later fate of these captives as
the author asserts that they staged several flights by kayak on the North Sea to
no avail, after which they just died away one by one “for sorrow” in Denmark.
As Cranz remarks that “it was impossible to learn their language, so they
could not be baptized,” he is also suggesting that the King’s efforts to teach
Danish to them, and thereby to Christianize them, came to naught” — but
Hall’s account of his subsequent, 1606 voyage contradicts this narrative.
46 “..en af woris undersaather, som wij nyligen haffuer bekommet fra wortt land Gronland
... fra de andre bliffuer affsondritt, kunde lere woris danske tungemaal ... till samme woris
sprock att lere och forstaa.” (Ibid., 14.)
17 Tbid., 14-15, document he 20.
18 “Li Groelandesi sono huomini piccoli, grossi e nericci, ma si robusti che non solo al remo
o ad altro lavoro é di forza eguale a quattro de’ nostri. Sono furiosi come bestie selvatiche;
hanno coltelli, freccie, dardi, ma armati di osso in cambio di ferro. Si servono di certe piccole
barche di pelle di cane marino.” (Ibid., 14.)
“Endlich bemachtigten sie sich auch vier wilder Manner, davon sie einen umbringen
mußten, um den andren, die gar unhändig waren, eine Furcht einzujagen. Diese Wilden
sollen mit denen, die von der Ostküste mitgebracht worden, keine Aehnlichkeit weder
in Sprache, noch Kleidung, noch Sitten gehabt haben. [...] Von dem betrübten Schicksal
der sechs Groenlaender, die man auf der ersten Reise nach Dännemark gebracht, hat man
angemerkt, daß sie ... endlich in ihren Kayaken die Flucht ergriffen haben, aber durch einen
starken Wind an das Ufer von Schonen geworfen und nach Copenhagen zuruekgebracht
worden, worauf zween von Betruebnis gestorben sind. [...] ...man konte nicht mit ihnen
sprechen; daher man sie auch nicht zur Taufe praepariren konte.” (David Cranz, Historie von
Grönland enthaltend Die Beschreibung des Landes und der Einwohner und insbesondere die
Geschichte der dortigen Mission der Evangelischen Brüder zu Neu-Herrnhut und Lichtenfels,
Barby, H.D. Ebers — Leipzig, Weidmanns Erben und Reich, 1765, 354-355. Contemporary
English translation: David Crantz, The History of Greenland: Containing a Description ofthe
Country, and its Inhabitants..., 2 vols., London, Brethren’s Society for the Furtherance of the
Gospel among the Heathens, 1767.) See also René Bonnerjea’s meticulous reconstruction of
the fate of the kidnapped in his Eskimos in Europe. How they got there and what happened
to them afterwards, London—Budapest, Bird Family Nyomdaipari Kft, 2004, Chapters 3-4,
84-105.
49
* 221 +