‘uttering of loud cries’, this is a trait far more easily reconciled with the idea of an Indian than a Christian ceremony. What is described as an ‘Indian Flag’, adorned it is true with feathers in place of bunting, is figured in Schoolcraft’s book at Plate 13 of vol. iii, and it is difficult to think how else any one could describe it, while other instances of poles and flags will occur to the reader of almost any work on the North American Indians. On the whole there seems no very violent improbability in thinking that some Indian ceremony on the mainland might be referred to in some such language as is here attributed to the Skræling prisoners. It will be convenient, before closing this chapter, to sum up the conclusions at which we have arrived. 1. At the time when savages, using stone implements and canoes, had been described and reported in Iceland, no meeting with the Greenland Eskimo had taken place. 2. There was at the time no other source from which descriptions of savages could be realistically drawn, unless the Norsemen had found them in America. 3. The description of the personal appearance of the Skrælings is neutral—it will suit either Indian or Eskimo very well; it is manifestly an accurate picture of some sort of savage. 4. The canoes described resemble Indian canoes, except for the name (húdkeipar), ‘skin-canoes’. This point, however, can be explained, either by supposing a natural misconception as to the material used, or by taking the word employed to be that which the kayaks of Eskimo in Greenland, by the time the sagas were written, had brought into use as the natural word for any form of canoe. 5. The trading with furs for red cloth, the beast’s marrow mixed with blood, the sleeping under canoes, the yelling and fighting, are markedly Indian characteristics. 6. An Indian weapon in use in former times has been independently described by Schoolcraft, which exactly resembles something described in the saga. 7. The people described display terror at unfamiliar sights and sounds, e.g. a domesticated bull; they are unacquainted with civilized weapons; they are unsophisticated but vindictive. All these are genuine savage characteristics, some of them specially appropriate to Indians. 8. The waving poles cannot be satisfactorily explained as kayak paddles, and any attempt made to identify the words ascribed to the Skræling captives as Eskimo, after they had been transcribed by several generations of copyists, must necessarily be very inconclusive. 9. The ‘Hvítramannaland’ passage can be interpreted in a sense consistent with Indian customs, though any alleged statements by the savages must be regarded as most untrustworthy and extremely liable to misinterpretation.