30 september 2009, 15:26
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#35
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Banneling
Geregistreerd: 15 april 2009
Berichten: 4.566
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Bronnen over zwarte Europeanen (500-1500)
BLUE MEN (500-1500)
Citaat:
Were there ever any black Vikings?
There were trade routes between Northern Europe and Africa, India and China, so it is very likely that people from all over the world would have visited Scotland.
It is also likely that some Northern Europeans would have settled in other parts of the world and some people from Africa, India and other areas would have settled in Northern Europe. Direct evidence of this is rather hard to find, however.
There's a complication in translations of medieval records because a description of someone as "a black man" was used to mean someone with black hair, not black skin.
Norse sagas describe Africans as "Blaumenn" (blue men). There are stories of Blaumenn in Dublin and of someone called Kenneth of Niger in Scotland in the 10th Century.
http://www.lothene.demon.co.uk/faq.html#question11
In the middle ages Muslims were considered as bad or even worse than heathens, because they worshipped Muhammad, who was an Antichrist to Christians. There are not many episodes in Heimskringla that concern Muslims, or ‘blámenn’ as they are called in the sagas. King Sigurd Jorsalafar is said to have fought heathens in Spain on his way to Jerusalem. He plundered with his crew on the island of Formentera, where there was a ‘herr mikill heiðinna blámanna’. Sigurd’s men win the battle of course (Msona chs. V-VI). Heimskringla does not mention anything about Muslim beliefs, but obviously there was no need to clarify the evilness of the blámenn to the audience since the word ‘blár’ reveals that these men were very different from the heroic King Sigurd and his men. Even though blár means ‘blue,’ in this case it signifies ‘black.’ These ‘blue men’ lived in Spain or the south Mediterranean. ‘Blámenn’ refers not only to literally black men, but also to Arabs and Moors. The use of the term ‘blámenn’ indicates that the writer wanted to stress that they were of different ethnic origin than the Norse people. We should also remember, too, that in the fornaldarsögur the term ‘blámenn’ refers to earthly creatures of evil (e.g. ‘blámenn ok berserkir’ Lindow, 1995, 13-14). This ethnic implication was probably more important to the intended audience of the saga than any, rightly omitted, information about the religious beliefs of the blámenn.
http://www.dur.ac.uk/medieval.www/sagaconf/aalto.htm
Frances 488. Tue Oct 21, 2003 10:26 pm
I'm sure I read that black men were called 'blue men' by the Vikings. Also that some African tribes have no separate words for blue and green, as the differentiation is of no importance in their necessary world-view. However, they can readily recognise the difference when it's pointed out to them. The same as we don't have four hundred words for different aspects of camels, as I'm told Arabs do, only in reverse. If you see what I mean. [/QB]
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