Conjecture about Vikings in Brazil in the 1840s
Exchanges between Brazilian and European intellectuals about the possible presence of Vikings in Brazil sheds light on an era
Summary: In 1840s, letters between Brazilian and European academics and selected journal publications show that intellectuals at the time explored the possible presence of Vikings in Brazil. Spurred on by nationalist ideas, they tried to fill the gaps in their knowledge through making conjectures based on a range of what may seem to us today as fanciful evidence. Their exchanges point to a way of history-making that fits in with a desired narrative at a particular time and context, and shows that the alure of the Vikings is not only a contemporary phenomenon.
Potential new original story sparks interest in Brazil
Carl Christian Rafn (1795-1864) was a Danish historian who translated medieval Norse literature including the Icelandic sagas, and was one of the founders of the Royal Nordic Society of Antiquaries - Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab - which was founded in 1825. In Antiquitates Americanæ published by the Society, he argued that the Vikings had reached the east coast of the United States in New England. He claimed that the Icelandic sagas contained elements which suggested the Vikings had navigated across the north Atlantic, and that archeological evidence also existed: the Dighton inscriptions and the Newport Tower, both on Rhode Island in New England. The inscriptions were later found to be made by the indigenous populations, and the tower of colonial origin. Interestingly, Rafn received interest and intellectual support from Brazil for his research.
The Brazilian Historic and Geographic Institute (Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, IHGB) was founded in 1838 in Rio de Janeiro and an important part of its mission – at least at that time – was to record the national memory; it was to provide the country with a unique and coherent past, primarily in order to support the consolidation of the Brazilian Empire. Identifying the place of the nation, with what criteria and from what moment it began were the main questions raised by the members of the IHGB. This searching echoed and was arguably bolstered by nineteenth-century national romanticism in Europe. Brazilian sites of archeological interest at the time included those with inscriptions that were difficult to decipher. In a similar way to the supposed evidence relating to the inscriptions Rafn conjectured were of Old Norse origin in New England, intellectuals in Brazil wanted to evoke a narrative behind these intriguing archeological sites. Examples included those at Pedra da Gávea in Rio de Janeiro and those found in the so-called lost city of Bahia.
There were potential advantages to uncovering a new origin story for Brazil stemming from the Vikings, as it was potentially a link to Europe and an alternative to other origin stories originating from Brazil’s indigenous populations. Much of the intellectual elite of the 1830s and 1840s in Brazil were Eurocentric and influenced by colonialist ideas. Against this background, several members of the IHGB became interested in the theory of a possible Nordic presence in America before Columbus, and wished to pursue this line of thinking in respect of Brazil. These included Pedro II of Brazil, who was one of the Institute’s founding members. Rafn’s Antiquitates Americanæ was summarised in the journal of the Brazilian Historic and Geographic Institute (Revista do IHGB) in 1840.
Exchanges of letters and ideas: Conjectures and investigations
The correspondence about the Brazilian inscriptions and Rafn’s conjectures about the Vikings being in New England, although of short duration, sheds light on the thinking of some of the intellectuals at the time, and how intellectuals from around the world and a range of disciplines communicated with one another about different archeological remains. In 1839, the IHGB received a letter suggesting that the inscriptions on the Pedra da Gávea were “possibly runic”, a conclusion the writer reached after studying Carl Rafn’s book Antiquitates Americanæ. The letter was sent by a professor and a natural scientist from the Czech Republic who had been a court librarian in Brazil and served as professor of German to Pedro II of Brazil called Rochus Schüch. That the cave paintings (all figurative but of indigenous origin), or the language of contemporary indigenous people could bear the marks of an ancient culture of the Old World, could have been incredibly convenient for the civilising purposes of the IHGB, which at that time was interested in separating itself from its Portuguese, African and indigenous past. The Nordic peoples could be considered more civilized crucially because they were able to claim the use of alphabetic inscriptions, a defining intellectual and civilizational parameter.
Peter Wilhelm Lund was a Danish paleontologist, zoologist, and archeologist, who had been living in Minas Gerais in Brazil since 1825 and knew Carl Rafn. He appeared to have encouraged the IHGB to maintain correspondence with the Royal Nordic Society of Antiquaries, and Pedro II of Brazil as well as other IHGB members joined the Nordic society. Lund spent a lot of time in Brazil throughout his life and examined dozens of traces of rock art in Minas Gerais with Peter Claussen, for example. Lund translated into Danish an archeological document from the National Library of Brazil which provided information about an eighteenth-century expedition to the so-called lost city of Bahia, which was later given up as fanciful. Nevertheless, Lund explored the idea of this city actually existing, with its ruined squares, temples, sculptures and houses, all in a classicist style, as well as the existence of coins and inscriptions found at the site. The document describing the city was reproduced in Revista do IHGB and subsequently Lund’s Danish translation was published in the Nordic journal Antiquarisk Tiddskrift in the 1840s. In correspondence with Januário da Cunha Barbosa, secretary of the IHGB at the time, Lund stated:
“(...) a discovery of the highest importance for the ancient history of Brazil (...) if the hypothesis of an illustrious member of the Institute who attributed these monuments to the ancient Scandinavians is verified” (original in Portuguese, manuscript, 1839, Ny Kgl. Samling 2677).
The French Scandinavianist Pierre-Victor Lerebours conjectured in 1841 the possibility that the lost city was a center of Icelandic origin, with the statue in the description of manuscript 512 being a representation of a Norse deity: “and a statue of Thor with all his attributes, his hammer, his gauntlets and his magical belt”. An investigation financed by the IHGB tried to find the ruins of the lost city, but they failed and the ruins were eventually considered to be fanciful in the late 1840s.
Filling the gaps in historical knowledge
Spurred on by nationalist ideas, intellectuals from Denmark and Brazil tried to fill the gaps in their knowledge through making conjectures based on a range of what may seem to us today as fanciful evidence. However, these letters seem to suggest the extent to which different historical and intellectual ideas circulated around the globe, and shows that the alure of the Vikings is not only a contemporary phenomenon. Importantly, it also points to history-making that fits in with a desired narrative at a particular time and context, something today’s politicians and public commentators still do despite the vast progress of technological and research methods that have been made since that time.
Further reading:
- Birgitte Holten and Lúcia Guimarães. ‘Desfazendo as Ilusões: Dr. Lund e a suposta presença escandinava na terra de Santa Cruz’. [Dispelling Illusions: Dr. Lund and the Alleged Scandinavian Presence in the Land of Santa Cruz] Locus: Revista de História 3,1, (1997) pp. 45-62.
- Carl Christian Rafn. Antiquitates Americanæ. Hafniæ (København): Typis Office Schultziane, 1837.
- Kim Simonsen, ’The Cultivation of Scandinavism’. In: Ruth Hemstad, Jes Fabricius Møller, Dag Thorkildsen, eds. Skandinavismen : Vision og virkning. (Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, 2017) pp. 73-98.
- Peter Lund. Efterretning om en foregiven opdagelse i provindsen Bahia af en by fra oldtiden. Antiquarisk Tidsskrift. Kjöpenhavn: Bog-og Nodetrykker, 1845, pp. 143-154.
- Rochus Schüch. Carta ao cônego Januário Barbosa sobre as inscrições da Gávea. [Letter to Canon Januário Barbosa about the Gávea registrations] Rio de Janeiro: IHGB, 1839, can 140, document 54.