Lovecraft's Library

[starblazie]

Thank you for finding the first appearance of Pnakotic manuscripts, starblazie. I went and re-read Polaris at hplovecraft.com and I think you're right, this isn't cyperhing or word-play as I was thinking. The word does come up in connection with mountains, but only peripherally. The "mythos" words in Polaris seem to be Olatho'e, a district in Lomar, located in the saddle between two mountain peaks, Pnakotic, a few more. I'd guess HP either took Lomar from Bob Howard (were they corresponding as early ar 1918?) or made it up. Olathoe MIGHT be related to Thule of Graeco-Roman lore, composed of Ola plus Tho'e put for Thule. Alos and the other names in the story do seem to point to a fascination with Greek forms. I think it's important though that the first form is Pnakotic, not Pnak, and that this is elder lore inherited from what was that name? Zlobna? From the land that gave birth to Lomar but disappeared under the advancing ice sheet. The Inutos HAVE to be related to the "Esquimaux" later in the story, but HPL is winking at us and saying, "Yes, I know, the Aeons are all askew in the Heavens," because the 26,000 years for the precession of the equinox for Polaris to return to its former position and start over is all wrong for the known facts in the settlement of Greenland: the Norse came BEFORE the Inuit proper before AD 1000 (probably more like AD 968) and while they did detect former habitations, they put the "Skraelings" to the west and south initially, until they started showing up in Upernavik and south toward the Western Settlement on the coast end of the fjords a while later.

Lovecraft did not start his correspondence to Howard until 1930 (Joshi).  And yes, the rest I still need to get through, unfortunately it may get somewhat piecemeal until I can catch up with you.      Hinrich Rink does appear in the EB, and one of his books on the Eskimo culture was published in the English language.  It does include an appendix on language, and "pnak" makes an appearance there as well.  On a side note, Lomar is also a city in Portugal.

The first known inhabitants of Greenland would've been there after 4000 BC at the earliest, so HPL is consciously treating us to a fantasy of an earlier contest between European and Asian in Greenland 26,000 years before 1918 that he knew was fantastic, and is admitting as much, but he nonetheless has the information on good authority, from Polaris. This style, a sort of meditation upon a star, a point in space, or a mundane object even--inferring a great deal from very little--, seems to share something both with Oskar Wladyslaw de Lubicz Milosz's exegetic notes to his "Arcana," specifically, verse 81, "The Tool Bag" (pg. 368-373, "Noble Traveller," Lindisfarne Press 1985), and with the Ainu folk-tales which end with the elder female storyteller focusing upon single point, usually of needlework (see Songs of Gods and Men).

That's part of the problem, Lovecraft did pull inspiration from a number of authors and sources; I am still pursuing threads from Poe, Chambers, Scott, Machen, Blackwood, le Fanu and Dunsany. 

It's difficult to tie "Pnakotic" directly with the two mountains between which Olatho'e sits; the narrator strives to remember certain sky lore contained in the manuscripts, not mountain lore. Because it is the heritage of the earlier abondoned civilization of Zlobna (?), it wouldn't seem like likely that PNAKOT would be an Inuto word here. If memory serves, Olatho'e is associated with Nir in DQ/UK.

I am not sure that as an amateur writer starting out, Lovecraft cared as much about context.  I think he let the stories provide or create the context, not the original sources.  Does that make sense?

There is an interesting Christian/Gnostic element in the story of Polaris. The protagonist in the dream is drawn out of the world, the political world, and the protagonist in the house next to the swamp is likewise drawn out of his world, and the daemon-voices the two protagonists hear on the bridge between these worlds is that neither is real. Daemon can mean teacher in old Greek. Also, the protagonist 26,000 years ago has a dream, a dream within a dream as it were, were the daemons tell him as much. A Dream Within a Dream is a very impressive poem by Poe which could shed some light on the effect at which HPL was aiming.

Probably not a coincidence then that HPL owned a book of apocryphal texts. 

[old book]

Rink was a governor of Greenland for Denmark, although I can't remember exactly how that worked, whether he was appointed by the crown or somehow worked his way up as a local governor who served under an appointed chief governor. He was a native Greenlander, although I don't remember his ethnic composition. Some of his books are on archive.org, including at least one English translation. He seems like quite the booster or activist for Greenland. That must've been about 100 years ago, though.

How does Britanica mention Pnak? Sorry if you've already explained this.

[starblazie]

Rink was a governor of Greenland for Denmark, although I can't remember exactly how that worked, whether he was appointed by the crown or somehow worked his way up as a local governor who served under an appointed chief governor. He was a native Greenlander, although I don't remember his ethnic composition. Some of his books are on archive.org, including at least one English translation. He seems like quite the booster or activist for Greenland. That must've been about 100 years ago, though.

How does Britanica mention Pnak? Sorry if you've already explained this.

Pnak is not in Britannica, but Rink is.  HPL could have come across Rink through Britannica. 

[old book]

The archive.org works by Rink I came across much earlier had ex libri/book-plates indicating they were held by libraries approximate to HPL at different times. I assume HPL connected the Old Stone Mill with the Norse, and the Greenlandic Norse sagas in North America with Cape Anne and some Inuit tribe predating the Mickmacs in New England. I have to wonder why he never used "Norumbega" as a place-name, however.

[starblazie]

The archive.org works by Rink I came across much earlier had ex libri/book-plates indicating they were held by libraries approximate to HPL at different times. I assume HPL connected the Old Stone Mill with the Norse, and the Greenlandic Norse sagas in North America with Cape Anne and some Inuit tribe predating the Mickmacs in New England.

You could very well be correct, but I again I am still playing catch up.  From what I have read, it fairly safe to assume that especially early on, Lovecraft may have drawn on much from Britannica (and other authors) for his early fiction.  Just check the entry on "Arabia" and you will find a mention of Irem, City of Pillars.  So I feel better knowing that Lovecraft might have come across Rink through Britannica, but I am still not sure of how much interest he had in Greenland as an adult.

I still think I have to wonder why he never used "Norumbega" as a place-name, however.

Ah, the vagaries of personal preference. 

[old book]

You're not implying... Lovecraft was in some manner, so to speak, IDIOSYNCRATIC, are you???

[starblazie]

You're not implying... Lovecraft was in some manner, so to speak, IDIOSYNCRATIC, are you???

Moi?  Never, ....well er, actually yes, I am. 

[old book]

Norumbega is one a whole series of mythical cities set in the New World. Someone traced several others to Marco Polo's account of Cathay. Norumbega is placed in Boston, among other places. Greenland had three major mythical ports--or more, I don't know--with odd proper names. None of these seem to come among Lovecraft's mythical places. The Tho'e of Olatho'e is about the only one I believe is traceable to Classical sources, Thule (Tool-ee or Thoo-lee), but maybe it's really something else. Seems strange Lovecraft would pick up on a single reference to Pnak in Rink but miss the motherlode of all these placenames from the early days of New World exploration and cartography, some of which seems to contain an occult lore hearkening back to aeons and civilizations forgotten of time.

[starblazie]

Norumbega is one a whole series of mythical cities set in the New World. Someone traced several others to Marco Polo's account of Cathay. Norumbega is placed in Boston, among other places. Greenland had three major mythical ports--or more, I don't know--with odd proper names. None of these seem to come among Lovecraft's mythical places. The Tho'e of Olatho'e is about the only one I believe is traceable to Classical sources, Thule (Tool-ee or Thoo-lee), but maybe it's really something else. Seems strange Lovecraft would pick up on a single reference to Pnak in Rink but miss the motherlode of all these placenames from the early days of New World exploration and cartography, some of which seems to contain an occult lore hearkening back to aeons and civilizations forgotten of time.

From what I could find out, Norumbega was placed in the area that is Boston.  Perhaps New England was not exotic enough for his elder races and old gods.

[old book]

I think Bostonians at some point decided the description of the native American city of Norumbega fit their local geography pretty well, and then what appeared to be remnant foundations of Viking longhouses or something were discovered pretty much where they supposed Norumbega should have been, and that's how that got started. I think the original myth was pretty vague, something about a city with running water set up inside a bay on a river.

Lovecraft loathe to place elder gods and such in New England? Surely you jest!

[starblazie]

I think Bostonians at some point decided the description of the native American city of Norumbega fit their local geography pretty well, and then what appeared to be remnant foundations of Viking longhouses or something were discovered pretty much where they supposed Norumbega should have been, and that's how that got started. I think the original myth was pretty vague, something about a city with running water set up inside a bay on a river.

Lovecraft loathe to place elder gods and such in New England? Surely you jest!

Yeah, I see where another source placed it firmly in Maine.  Even more surprising, I did find it referenced in Britannica.  What was that term?  Oh yeah, idiosyncratic!
 

[starblazie]

old book,
Here is an interesting find for you:

That the tornarssuk was not so great a spirit as is commonly stated seems evident from Captain Holm's account of the heathen East Greenlanders' belief. Their tornarssuk is a much less imposing creature, who dwells in the sea, and whom many people, both angekoks and others, can see and have seen. They therefore describe him with great exactitude, and have even numerous representations of him. He is long, like a large seal, but fatter than a seal, and has, among other things, long tentacles. Holm, judging from their descriptions, has come to the heretical opinion that he must be an ordinary cuttle-fish. He devours the
souls of those whom he can capture, and is often quite red with blood. One must admit that if this creature is descended from our innate conception of God, he has deplorably degenerated.

http://www.archive.org/details/eskimolife00nansgoog

The book is "Eskimo Life" by Fridtjof Nansen.  Nansen makes extensive use of Captain Frederik Holm's experience with the eskimo in Greenland, and Nansen sources this information to "Meddelelser om Grønland," but this time Part 10 (Volume 10?)  Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the volume containing the experiences of Holm on archive.org or google books.  It is Volume 11 that contains the word "pnak."

I was also able to find the entry for the Eskimo in Britannica, and Rink is listed as the very first source, but neither Nansen or Holm appear as sources to this entry.  Nansen does have his own entry as apparently he is noted for exploration of the arctic regions.

Another interesting note, there are a number of public domain books out there that either try to refute the "Esquimaux" as a devil worshipers or that try to reinforce the idea of them worshiping the devil (at least on google books).  It would have been very easy for HPL to pick up that idea for his fiction.

[old book]

There is an idea that Tornasoq (however it's spelled now) is a composite of Thor and something like the Thunder Bird of North America. There is another Inuit Greenlandic goddess who is associated with marine fertility. It is interesting if the East Greenlanders have an octopus or squid representation. Lovecraft and his correspondents would have been able to connect that with Alaskan and NW Coast cultures, and maybe with Ainu and Sea of Okhotsk myths and legends.

The problem with the volume numbers of Meddelelser om Grønland seems to be that the volumes are completely different when they are translated to English from Danish. Or at least that's the impression I got.

You probably have heard the old story about the Greenlandic Eskimos, but just in case... Contact between Scandinavia and Greenland was reestablished by the preacher man Hans Egede sometime in the 1700s. He was looking for the Norse but never found them to his satisfaction. Instead of converting the Catholic Norse Greenlanders to Lutheranism or whatever form of Protestantism it was, he claimed the land for Denmark and set about converting the Eskimo.

It was slow going, not least because he didn't speak their language and they didn't speak his. He slowly came to some knowledge of their idiom and began trying to translate books of the Bible. During the course of his ministry, he tried to explain to a gathering of Greenlanders once that Jesus came to save them from eternal damnation. The damned would roast in hell, the land of eternal fires. It was at this point that the audience's ears pricked up and they became interested. Eternal fire, always hot, down in the earth, it all sounded rather appealing. Egede had to change subjects and try a different tack.

Later when he was trying to translate the Lord's prayer, he ran up against a problem: "daily bread." The Eskimos didn't have bread or any idea what it was. Egede decided "daily seal" would have to do for the time being.

At a later point in time, the Greenlandic angekut or medicine men largely recognized Egede as a superior angekuk, and Greenlanders have been Protestants pretty much ever since. For a time the Moravian Church was very active in Greenland and I assume in competition with the Danish Church. For whatever reason the Moravians sort of cleared out not so very long ago. Archive.org has some of their translations of parts of the Old and New Testaments into Inuktikut, the Inuit dialect of Labrador and surrounding regions, which is fairly close to Kalaallisut, Western Greenlandic. The translation effort seems to have gone on for both linguistic groups at once, and the Moravians and others adapted texts in one dialect for the other dialect. Or at least that's my impression.

One of the reasons Hell appealed to the Greenlanders, besides the warmth, was that it was in the earth, under the earth. The angekut practiced soul-flight that took them into the hidden chambers under the earth where they communed with the gods and spirits, supposedly. Chthonic. Add the tentacles of the East Greenlanders' Tornasoq and you've got a good candidate for the inspiration for Cthulhu.

[starblazie]

Nope this is all pretty new to me.   
I did find an interesting reference to the goddess you mention from Rink's "Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo." 

Among the supernatural powers was another constituting the source of nourishment, supplying the physical wants of mankind. These being almost exclusively got from the sea, we cannot wonder that this power had its abode in the depths of the ocean; and its being represented as a female is probably emblematical of the continual regeneration of life in nature, as well as of economy and household management, generally devolving on women. This being is named arnarkuagsak (cor. sp. Arnarkuagssak, also signifying old woman in general); but the common opinion among the older authors, describing her as a demon of evil, is quite erroneous. She sits in
her dwelling in front of a lamp, beneath which is placed a vessel receiving the oil that keeps flowing down from the lamp. From this vessel, or from the dark interior of her house, she sends out all the animals which serve for food; but in certain cases she withholds the supply, thus causing want and famine. Her retaining them was ascribed to a kind of filthy and noxious parasites (agdleratit, which also signifies abortions or dead-born children), which had fastened themselves around her head; and it was the task of the angakok to deliver her from these, and to induce her again to send out the animals for the benefit of man. In going to her he first had to pass the arsissut, and then to cross an abyss, in which, according to the earliest authors, a wheel was constantly turning round as slippery as ice; and then having safely got past a boiling kettle with seals in it, he arrived at the house, in front of which a watch was kept by terrible animals, sometimes described as seals, sometimes as dogs; and lastly, within the house-passage itself he had to cross an abyss by means of a bridge as narrow as a knife's edge.

[starblazie]

I did find a translation of Image du Monde as mentioned in The Nameless City.   The translation was done in the 15th century so it is in Middle English, but I am posting the link here in case anyone is interested.

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ze1ZAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false