Nordic peoples

“ The first is the Nordic or Baltic subspecies. This race is long skulled, very tall, fair skinned with blond or brown hair and light colored eyes. The Nordics inhabit the countries around the North and Baltic Seas and include not only the great Scandinavian and Teutonic groups, but also other early peoples who first appear in southern Europe and in Asia as representatives of Aryan language and culture. ”

“ We honor the explorers who led the first Viking explorations at the beginning of the last millennium, and we pay tribute to the many Nordic pioneers who helped to explore and settle America's 19th Century frontiers. The Nordic and American peoples share the virtues of courage, resourcefulness, and self-reliance, and they have built nations based on the principles of liberty, justice, and equality.
Leif Erikson and his men braved the unknown and risked their lives to become the first Europeans to set foot on North American soil. ”

“ Away in the forests of Europe were the blonde Nordic peoples, hunters and herdsmen, a lowly race. The primitive civilizations saw very little of this race before 1500 B.C. Away on the steppes of eastern Asia various Mongolian tribes, the Hunnish peoples, were domesticating the horse and developing a very wide sweeping habit of seasonal movement between their summer and winter camping places. Possibly the Nordic and Hunnish peoples were still separated from one another by the swamps of Russia and the greater Caspian Sea of that time. For very much of Russia there was swamp and lake. ”

“ On the other hand, light-colored eyes are much more persistent, and this sign of Nordic admixture is found about ten times more frequently than is blond hair among such peoples as the Albanians, where all other Nordic characters except stature seem to have been lost. ”

“ It seems strange that Sergi should find traces of his Mediterranean race in Russia. Did these find their way so far northward directly from the Mediterranean area or are they merely sporadic groups more resistant to modifying influences; or are they perhaps groups which have separated from the westward migration at the Hellespont and turned northward? The Nordic peoples of Europe are perhaps after all not so far from their Mediterranean cousins. ”

“ Particularly good were the effects upon the peoples predominantly of Nordic blood. Obviously typifying as they did the prehistoric creators of white civilization, Nordics everywhere were strengthened in consciousness of genetic worth, feeling of responsibility for world-progress, and urge toward fraternal collaboration. ”

“ In the ninth century a second movement of the Northmen across Russia was going on at the same time that their establishments in England and their dukedom of Normandy were coming into existence. The populations of South Scotland, England, East Ireland, Flanders, Normandy, and the Russias have more elements in common than we are accustomed to recognize. All are fundamentally Gothic and Nordic peoples. ”

“ These peoples have neither physical, mental nor cultural characteristics in common. If one be of “Celtic” blood then the other two are clearly of different origin.
There was once a people who used the original Celtic language and they formed the western vanguard of the Nordic race. This people was spread all over central and western Europe prior to the irruption of the Teutonic tribes and were, no doubt, much mixed with Alpines among the lower classes. The descendants of these Celts must be sought to-day among those having the characters of the Nordic race and not elsewhere. ”

“ The Nordics are, all over the world, a race of soldiers, sailors, adventurers and explorers, but above all, of rulers, organizers and aristocrats in sharp contrast to the essentially peasant and democratic character of the Alpines. The Nordic race is domineering, individualistic, self-reliant and jealous of their personal freedom both in political and religious systems and as a result they are usually Protestants. ”

“ Throughout our country's history, Nordic Americans have made notable contributions to our society. From the everyday to the extraordinary, Nordic accomplishments have touched every aspect of our lives. ”

“ From the Viking voyages a millennium ago to the myriad Scandinavians who have come here in more recent times, the Nordic people have made an indelible contribution to the greatness that is America. Danes, Finns, Icelanders, Norwegians and Swedes landed on our East coast and went West, expanded our frontier, tamed the prairie and helped make America the great Nation it is today. ”

“ The slow but long-continued physical development of the Nordics has culminated in a powerful skeleton and musculature in sharp contrast to that of the Mediterranean race, to which the Nordic is more closely related than to any other. In fact, the mixture of Nordic and Mediterranean in the British Islands may possibly be one of the few advantageous racial crossings. ”

“ The chronic turmoil of both the mediæval and modern periods imposed a perpetual drain on the Nordic stock, while the era of discovery and colonization which began with the sixteenth century further depleted the Nordic ranks in Europe, since it was adventurous Nordics who formed the overwhelming majority of explorers and pioneers to new lands. ”

“ This nation is unique in its unity of race, language, religion and social ideals.
Southern Scandinavia only became fit for human habitation on the retreat of the glaciers about twelve thousand years ago and apparently was immediately occupied by the Nordic race. ”

“ Most of the Nordics are found in Germany but there are also many in the other lands of Northern Europe, such as Scotland, Sweden and Norway.
Nordics are outstanding in truthfulness and energy; action, not talk, is the Nordic motto, and hence they are predisposed to leadership by nature. ”

“ Personally the writer believes that the finest and purest type of a Nordic community outside of Europe will develop in northwest Canada and on the Pacific coast of the United States. Most of the other countries in which the Nordic race is now settling lie outside the special environment in which alone it can flourish. ”

“ The Nordic race, with all of its vigor and persistency, has {201} had a long and continuous life on account of its roving disposition and its perpetual contact with new conditions of its own choice. It has always had power to overcome, and its vigor has kept it exploiting and inventing and borrowing of others the elements of civilization, which have continually forced it forward. ”

“ Men of the Nordic race may not enjoy the fogs and snows of the North, the endless changes of weather and the violent fluctuations of the thermometer and they may seek the sunny southern isles, but under the former conditions they flourish, do their work and raise their families. ”

“ Kristiania is also the literary and art center of the Norse people. Here Ibsen lives, here Bjoernstjoerne Bjoernsen would live, if Swedish intolerance did not drive him into France. The types of men and women we see upon the streets are the finest we have met since coming over sea. Tall and well-built, light-haired and blue-eyed, the men carry themselves with great dignity. The women are, many of them, tall, their backs straight, not the curved English spine and stooping shoulders. All have good chins, alert and initiative. The Norwegians are the pick of the Scandinavian peoples. ”

“ Just as Mediterranean man in the days of his prime pushed north wherever conditions permitted, so Nordic man has pushed south, across the Alpine barrier, both in the literal and anthropological sense, and has left traces of his coming even within the territory of Mediterranean man. Just as the dark-haired Welsh and the dark-haired strain of Scottish Highlanders bear witness to the old exploits of Mediterranean man, so do the fair-haired, tall-statured Lombards bear witness to the former activity of Nordic man. ”

“ The vigor and power of the Nordic race as a whole is such that it could not have been evolved 170in so restricted an area as southern Sweden although its Teutonic or Scandinavian section did develop there in comparative isolation. The Nordics must have had a larger field for their specialization and a longer period for their evolution than is afforded by the limited time which has elapsed since Sweden became habitable. For the development of so marked a type there is required a continental area isolated and protected for long ages from the intrusion of other races. ”

“ More than 10 million Americans today can trace their roots to the Nordic countries, and their family ties, traditions, and values have strengthened the warm friendship our Nation has always enjoyed with the people of Scandinavia. ”

“ The original Wiros, then, as judged by linguistic evidence, were far from being super-men.
Another fallacy has been the belief that the Nordic is the superior person, the “white man” par excellence. The Nordic is strong, robust and courageous, and possesses certain manly qualities which are much admired; also he has taken care for some thousands of years to impress upon his neighbours that these are admirable qualities. ”

“ The Nordics first appear at the close of the Paleolithic along the coasts of the Baltic. The earliest industry discovered in this region, named the Maglemose and found in Denmark and elsewhere around the Baltic, is probably the culture of the Proto-Teutonic branch of the Nordic race. No human remains in connection therewith have been found. ”

“ Millions of people in the United States trace their origins to the Nordic countries. Their ancestors came here in search of new land, new opportunity, and the ability to work and prosper in this land of freedom and justice. Courage and an adventurous spirit brought them here; strength and determination have brought success to a great many. Those characteristics well describe Leif Erikson, the first Nordic we know to have visited North America. ”

“ Whatever may be its intellectual, its literary, its artistic or its musical aptitudes, as compared with other races, the Anglo-Saxon branch of the Nordic race is again showing itself to be that upon which the nation must chiefly depend for leadership, for courage, for loyalty, for unity and harmony of action, for self-sacrifice and devotion to an ideal. ”

“ Fringing the north and north-west border of Europe, occupying Scandinavia, and largely dominating Great Britain and Ireland (where it has overrun the earlier Iberian, or Pictish people) is the second great European race—the Nordic. It was formerly called the "Teutonic," but, as this term has been misapplied in Germany for political reasons, so as to include a large body of the last, or third, race, it is better to use the word "Nordic." The Nordic race is, like the Iberian, long-headed, but in contrast it is blond and very tall. ”

“ The Nordic race has been driven from many of its lands, but still grasps firmly the control of the world, and it is certainly not at a greater numerical disadvantage than often before in contrast to the teeming population of eastern Asia. ”

“ Erikson, who was charged by King Olaf I to spread religion among settlers in Greenland, also embodies the tradition of Nordic enrichment of the wider western world. That tradition has been memorably dramatized for Americans during the past year by the Scandinavia Today program across this country. This splendid program has given people in all parts of the United States an admiring new appreciation of the rich cultural and intellectual heritage brought to this country by Nordic immigrants and the vitality of contemporary life in the Nordic countries. ”

“ While the Alpines were everywhere overwhelmed and driven to the fastnesses of the mountains, the warlike and restless nature of the Nordics has enabled the more stable Alpine population to reassert itself slowly, and Europe is probably much less Nordic to-day than it was fifteen hundred years ago. ”

“ THE EXPANSION OF THE NORDICS The men of Nordic blood to-day form practically all the population of Scandinavian countries, as also a majority of the population of the British Isles and are almost pure in type in Scotland and eastern and northern England. ”

“ Since in Swedish and Norwegian the name has come to be applied to two such entirely different peoples as, in Norway, the Fishing Lapps and Reindeer Lapps and, in Sweden, the people of Finland, we must suppose that in the primitive Norse language it was a common designation for several non-Germanic races, whom the later Germanic immigrants in south Scandinavia drove into the wastes and forest tracts, where they [Pg 206] lived by hunting and fishing. ”

“ We should also mark this observance by recognizing the outstanding contributions that citizens of Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish descent have made to our country. Just as their ancestors did before them, Nordic Americans cherish their ties across the ocean and bring their many gifts to America's culture, progress, and prosperity. ”

“ This Nordic race is the one from which most English-speaking people come, the one whose blood runs in the veins of most first-class seamen to the present day, and the one whose descendants have built up more oversea dominions, past and present, than have been built by all the other races, put together, since the world began.
To the sturdy Nordic stock belonged all who became famous as Vikings, Berserkers, and Hardy Norsemen, as well as all the Anglo-Saxons, Jutes, Danes, and Normans, from whom came most of the people that made the British Empire and the United States. ”

“ We have but scanty remains from the midden heaps along its ancient shores to tell us about the kind of folk these early settlers were, but so far as the evidence goes it supports the supposition that the Nordic type was already in possession of north-west Europe before the dawn of the Neolithic period. We can only explain the distribution of the Nordic type along the shorelands of the North Sea, of the Baltic, and of the British seas, on the supposition of a primitive and ancient North Sea stock—made up of men of the Nordic type. ”