List of Figures  ix

Acknowledgments  xi

Note on the Problematics of Word Choice and Usage  xv

Prologue. The Autobiography of a Book  1

1. The Politics of American Prehistory: Isolation versus Contact  19

2. Contact and Conflict: What the Vinland Sagas Tell Us  44

3. Anglo-America's Viking Heritage: A Nineteenth-Century romance  103

4. The New England Poets of Viking America and the Emergence of the Plastic Viking  151

5. The Challenge to Columbus and the Romance Undone  213

6. "We could not discerne any token or signe, that ever any Christian had been before": The Phantom of First Contact  257

7. Contact and Conflict Again: What Native Stories Tell Us  280

Epilogue. History Lessons  327

Notes  335

Works Consulted  379

Index  407

Winner, 2013 Thomas G. Lyon Book Award, presented by the Western Literature Association

“Reading ‘In Search of First Contact’ (Vikings, Sagas, Native Americans, Literature): Annette Kolodny. Fascinating!”—Margaret Atwood, on Twitter

“. . . . a fine book that tells a compelling story about formations of national identity in the US.”

—Judith Jesch, Times Higher Education Supplement

“Annette Kolodny’s magnum opus, In Search of First Contact, is a fascinating and often times brilliant look at the tales and theories , sometimes resembling tall tales themselves, surrounding the Vikings and the Native people they found. . . .”—Lindsey Catherine Cornum, Mixedblood Messages blog

“[An] extraordinary book…. In Search of First Contact is a groundbreaking work…. Fascinating in and of themselves, these stories challenge the dominant narrative that Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ America.”—Gale Courey Toensing, Indian Country Today

“[A] nuanced, compelling, and frankly disturbing case study of how the national origin stories we tell ourselves can inspire and then justify the worst impulses of human nature. . . . The great achievement of In Search of First Contact is not the unveiling of new and surprising revelations about what exactly happened 2,000 years ago, but rather the insightful tracing of how stories about that encounter have flourished in the American imagination for 200 years.”—Amy H. Sturgis, Reason

“Kolodny’s overall approach models a language for discussing the early American literature of cultural encounter with students. . . . In Search of First
Contact will no doubt prove an entertaining and thought-provoking
reading for research specialists and educators, scholarly and popular
audiences alike.”—Patricia Roylance, New England Quarterly

“Any skeptic of the value of reading the Vinland Sagas in an American literature course now has their work cut out for them. By turns deeply thoughtful and delightfully creative, In Search of First Contact is an impeccably researched response to those skeptics, and shows that Kolodny remains at the height of her storied career.” —Kyhl Lyndgaard, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

“This book is a ‘must read’ for anyone with even a remote interest in Vinland and the Norse explorations. . . . What makes this book so valuable is its combination of readability with (unlike so many other works on the Vikings in North America) careful assessment of the many claims put forward over the years.”—Bill Haviland, Island Ad-Vantages (Deer Isle, Maine)

“Eloquently written in a clear, jargon-free prose, generously footnoted, and containing an impressive list of works consulted, this outstanding book is bound to become a classic in the study of contact narratives and American studies in general. . . . Original in scope, meticulous in research, and provocative in analysis, In Search�of First Contact invigorates the study of American identity and culture.”—Kirsten Møllegaard, Journal of American Culture�

Winner, 2013 Thomas G. Lyon Book Award, presented by the Western Literature Association

“Reading ‘In Search of First Contact’ (Vikings, Sagas, Native Americans, Literature): Annette Kolodny. Fascinating!”—Margaret Atwood, on Twitter

“. . . . a fine book that tells a compelling story about formations of national identity in the US.”

—Judith Jesch, Times Higher Education Supplement

“Annette Kolodny’s magnum opus, In Search of First Contact, is a fascinating and often times brilliant look at the tales and theories , sometimes resembling tall tales themselves, surrounding the Vikings and the Native people they found. . . .”—Lindsey Catherine Cornum, Mixedblood Messages blog

“[An] extraordinary book…. In Search of First Contact is a groundbreaking work…. Fascinating in and of themselves, these stories challenge the dominant narrative that Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ America.”—Gale Courey Toensing, Indian Country Today

“[A] nuanced, compelling, and frankly disturbing case study of how the national origin stories we tell ourselves can inspire and then justify the worst impulses of human nature. . . . The great achievement of In Search of First Contact is not the unveiling of new and surprising revelations about what exactly happened 2,000 years ago, but rather the insightful tracing of how stories about that encounter have flourished in the American imagination for 200 years.”—Amy H. Sturgis, Reason

“Kolodny’s overall approach models a language for discussing the early American literature of cultural encounter with students. . . . In Search of First
Contact will no doubt prove an entertaining and thought-provoking
reading for research specialists and educators, scholarly and popular
audiences alike.”—Patricia Roylance, New England Quarterly

“Any skeptic of the value of reading the Vinland Sagas in an American literature course now has their work cut out for them. By turns deeply thoughtful and delightfully creative, In Search of First Contact is an impeccably researched response to those skeptics, and shows that Kolodny remains at the height of her storied career.” —Kyhl Lyndgaard, ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment

“This book is a ‘must read’ for anyone with even a remote interest in Vinland and the Norse explorations. . . . What makes this book so valuable is its combination of readability with (unlike so many other works on the Vikings in North America) careful assessment of the many claims put forward over the years.”—Bill Haviland, Island Ad-Vantages (Deer Isle, Maine)

“Eloquently written in a clear, jargon-free prose, generously footnoted, and containing an impressive list of works consulted, this outstanding book is bound to become a classic in the study of contact narratives and American studies in general. . . . Original in scope, meticulous in research, and provocative in analysis, In Search�of First Contact invigorates the study of American identity and culture.”—Kirsten Møllegaard, Journal of American Culture�

"Having long argued that English-language texts alone provide an inadequate understanding of frontier history, Annette Kolodny now challenges the Eurocentric assumptions involved in what constitutes a 'literary' source. She makes the case that North American literary history begins not with the European exploration narratives customarily taken as its start, but with 'contact texts' culled from the pictographic materials of tribes in the Algonquian-speaking Wabanaki Confederacy and from the Norse sagas with which she suggests they intersect. Kolodny's sophisticated understanding of the theoretical implications of her findings, her meticulous and fair attention to previous scholarship, and her indefatigable and innovative efforts to mine material that has not previously figured prominently in these conversations result in a book that is exciting, fresh, and more ambitious and synthetic than any previous effort to explore contact narratives."—Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities and Director of the American Studies Program, Stanford University

"In Search of First Contact contributes a great deal to scholarly knowledge of the Vinland narratives. Annette Kolodny explains what those stories help us to comprehend about the indigenous peoples of the northern Atlantic coast, and she illuminates the process by which people in Anglo-America have come to understand their own history on this continent. Her exposition of the sagas is absolutely superb. This is an outstanding and important work."—Robert Warrior, Director of the American Indian Studies Program, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and author of The People and the Word: Reading Native Nonfiction

"In Search of First Contact is a tour de force. In this masterful exploration of the Anglo-American fascination with Vikings in North America, Annette Kolodny unravels the mythology around Viking contact with the continent and explains how it has inspired Americans' search for their roots, been used politically, and served to set newcomers apart from the inhabitants already here. She brings a penetrating perspective to bear on the notion of first contact and what it might have meant both to Native Americans and to the Norse. This brilliantly written book is bound to become a classic."—Birgitta Linderoth Wallace, archaeologist and author of Westward Vikings: The Saga of L'Anse aux Meadows

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