8 - Race and Ethnicity

Summary

THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER started by considering the theme of the power of story central to Campbell's Viking Gold and the importance of individual agency. But Campbell does not present all human choices as equal. Overall, the Vikings are portrayed as being in dire need of civilizing change, encapsulated when the villain Ragnar threat-ens Redknee with the “blood eagle…the most horrific method of death known” (124, 133; original emphasis). Campbell here draws on the popular myth associated with the Vikings to epitomize them as bloodthirsty and cruel. She compounds this aggressive image by contrasting the Vikings with the Native American tribe the Vikings encounter and this kind of meeting is the most common way in which medievalist authors writing for children engage with issues of race and ethnicity.

It should be noted that race is still often used in a generalizing sense to refer to someone's ethnic heritage or skin colour, but it has been discredited by anthropologists and geneticists as unhelpfully essentialist: it creates the illusion of rigid biological dif-ferences between different groups of humans and is conducive to racism. Ethnicity is often preferred as a more neutral term which recognizes the complex cultural elements involved.

Viking Gold

In Viking Gold, Redknee encounters a strange Norseman who predicts what will happen if men try to settle the land of the Kanienkehaka: “Once the world knows about this place, they will all come in their longships. It will be made in the image of the Northlands, and everything will be as it was before” (294). The Northmen may kid themselves that they search only for freedom “from tyrants and taxes,” but they bring with them their greedy hearts and will exploit the timber and furs the land offers. A better way is promised by the Native Americans and the Christians.

Whilst Campbell here acknowledges the consequences of colonialist desire, there is an uneasy edge to some aspects of the peace that is evidently viewed as desirable. For instance, early on in the novel, Ragnar says that the Codex tells of the “land promised to the followers of the White Christ” (46).