ABSTRACT
In the saga of Eric the Red it is related that the custom in Greenland was to bury men on the farms where they died, in unconsecrated ground, and to set a stake rising up from the corpse’s breast. In 1345 the Greenlanders, because of their extreme poverty, were excused by the pope the payment of a tithe, and ten years later it was reported to the king of Norway that some of the colonists were forsaking Christianity and Christian behaviour for the faith and habits of the Eskimo. There were, two contributory causes, in addition to European neglect, that had made life for the Norse in Greenland too hard to be endured. One was a gradual and serious deterioration of the climate during the centuries following the original settlement, and the other, itself a consequence of the increasing cold, was the southward movement of the Eskimo.
