Travel accounts, oral tradition and archaeological data: Three sources of information on XVIth C. European and Inuit encounters

Summary

The objective of my presentation is to compare and contrast three sources of information to verify the veracity of a 400 year old riddle, namely, the hostage taking of five members of the 1576 Martin Frobisher expedition. When confronted and assessed in light of archaeological data, travel accounts and oral tradition, if we use the Frobisher accounts of his voyages as an example, appear to show various discrepancies. The narrators describe clothing discovered by the 1577 expedition as being pierced by darts and conclude that these clothes might have belonged to their compatriots killed by the Inuit. The first clue that brought us to question the veracity of that specific event in the accounts is that the authors do not relate the same story. Beste reported the discovery of clothing while Settle remains silent on the subject, however, worthy of note! Do we have a fabrication? Central to that presentation is what the accounts say and what the Inuit report.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2014   •
• Questions that Will Count in the Future: Global Perspectives on Historical Archaeology

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): SYM-7,09