Ritualizing the Birth of a Nation: The Runestone History Pageant
Although the Ohman farm never became the national tourist Mecca that early civic boosters had dreamed of, the story of pre-Columbian Viking visitors became a cornerstone of a new effort to attract visitors to Alexandria. In 1933, a popular travel guide sponsored by the Continental Oil Company included Alexandria as an important roadside destination. Even in the midst of the Great Depression, locals began to express optimism about the local tourist economy: “Alexandria will be prominently mentioned in the booklet and because of the importance of the famous stone . . . hundreds of people driving through will stop and see the stone.”54
For the fortieth anniversary of the unearthing of the rune stone, the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce announced that it was sponsoring the first “Runestone Remembrance Days” celebration during the height of the tourist season in June 1938. In the months prior, weekly front-page articles informed the public of the progress of the festival preparations. The event was to include several speakers and a performance by the Odin Male Chorus from Concordia College, but the highlight of the celebration was to be the Runestone Pageant. Directed by local resident Lorayne Larson, the pageant would be a “historical drama of the first visit of white men to Minnesota.”55 Event promoters sought the support of local residents by putting out an appeal to purchase ten-dollar certificates in order to finance the advertising and decorations.56 Local residents were even asked to open up their homes to accommodate out-of-town guests.
Local historical pageants were popular throughout the United States in the early twentieth century. Besides the economic benefits they yielded for local communities, historical pageants also generated a number of cultural benefits. They fostered community loyalty through the affirmation of a common history. They also served to “express local interpretations of and participation in the drama of national history.”57 Civic boosters often saw history pageants as having the power to transform a local community. In the words of one historian, pageant promoters of the early twentieth century operated with “the belief that history could be made into a dramatic public ritual through which the residents of a town, by acting out the right version of their past, could bring about some kind of future social and political transformation.”58
Newspaper articles in the weeks leading up to the rune stone celebration conveyed a giddy enthusiasm and locals hoped the event would bring the community widespread acclaim. One article said the celebration promised to be “the most pretentious ever attempted in Alexandria.”59 Another article maintained that the historical pageant “will be generally conceded to be the finest outdoor historical drama ever presented in Minnesota.”60 More than 150 actors were to participate in the event, which promised to be “much more than an ordinary pageant.” Larson wrote the script herself and said that she “spent several months reading up on Norse sagas and the history of the Middle Ages in order to get a correct historical background for the scenes in the play and for the proper costuming of the players.”61 Event promoters anticipated large crowds; seating was made to accommodate five thousand people for each of the four nights of the pageant. Several dignitaries were scheduled to address the crowds, including a congressman, the state treasurer, the dean of St. Olaf College, and a U.S. senator. In the days leading up to the festival, banners with Viking shields and flag bunting in the colors of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark adorned the lampposts along city streets. The Chamber of Commerce distributed small replicas of the rune stone that could be displayed in homes and offices.62 The Alexandria Boat Works constructed a fourteenth-century replica Viking ship on wheels that was used to promote the rune stone celebration; it also played a starring role in the pageant.
The Runestone Pageant was divided into three episodes. The first scene took place in the court of King Magnus and dramatized the moment that Paul Knutson received his orders to lead an expedition to search for his fellow Norsemen who had “lost their Christian ways.” The second scene depicted the moment when the traveling Norsemen discovered their companions “red with blood and dead.” The final scene took place in the town hall of Rouen, France, where Holand presented the Minnesota artifact to the World Congress of Historians in 1911. In this scene, “The Runestone is brought in to the meeting by a guard of honor and noted English, Swedish, and Norwegian scientists give their opinion that the stone is authentic history.” According to pageant promoters, “Every effort has been made to give an exact historical picture to the unfolding of the interesting drama of a band of Vikings penetrating to the center of the continent hundreds of years ago.”63
Despite the enthusiastic promotional efforts, the Runestone Remembrance was nowhere near as successful as civic boosters had hoped. Newspaper articles in the days and months following the civic celebration reflect a deep disappointment over the attendance at the pageant. One article questioned how it could be “that in our city of Alexandria, with a population of 4,265, only 1,700 persons took advantage of the opportunity to see the show.”64 Another article lamented that rain “ruined” the Friday night show, but other nights were not well attended either. The state treasurer could not speak because of the rain and both the senator and the congressman were inexplicably unable to make it from Washington. Event promoters failed to raise enough money to cover expenses as had been planned.
Citizen participation in Runestone Remembrance Days became a barometer by which community leaders measured the durability of the civic religious identity of the region. As a sacred civic event reminiscent of Durkheim’s notion of a clan assembly, Alexandrians experienced several moments of “collective effervescence” and event preparations were highly charged with emotion. Civic boosters saw the success of celebratory events as tied to the long-term success of the community. This is why they interpreted the lack of attendance at the civic event as an indication that Alexandria’s citizens did not truly embrace their community. From the opportunity to host out-of-town guests to the chance to purchase loan certificates in small denominations, the civic religious leaders made a strong effort to elicit broad participation among the citizenry. Both pre-festival and post-festival rhetoric suggests that civic leaders expected that virtually everyone would attend the community ritual. Full participation in group ritual might occur in small tribal societies as conceived by Durkheim, but it rarely if ever happens in modern differentiated societies—even in small towns.
Eastward Ho! The Kensington Rune Stone Goes to Washington
During the Second World War, the Kensington Rune Stone received little press coverage. Yet, Hjalmar Holand was hard at work writing and publishing two volumes, Westward from Vinland (1940) and America, 1355–1364: A New Chapter in Pre-Columbian History (1946).65 By 1947, Holand’s tireless promotional efforts had caught the attention of the nation’s premier historical institution, the Smithsonian. In December of that year, museum officials sent a representative to Alexandria to examine the rune stone. A few weeks later, the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce, the organization in possession of the rune stone, received a letter from the Smithsonian stating: “[W]e feel that the Runestone will make an excellent exhibit specimen and is worthy of display among our national collections.”66 The artifact was promptly shipped to the Smithsonian, where it remained on display for a little over a year—February 17, 1948, to February 25, 1949.
The September 1948 article in National Geographic gave the Kensington Rune Stone a favorable endorsement, greatly expanding the artifact’s nationwide recognition. The head of the Smithsonian department of American ethnology, M. W. Stirling, is quoted as saying that the Kensington Rune Stone was “probably the most important archaeological object yet found in North America.”67 In the fall of that year, the stone had attracted the attention of another prominent scholar, Professor Johannes Bronsted, an archaeologist from Denmark. Bronsted joined Holand on a tour of several rock formations in the Alexandria area that Holand claimed were mooring stones to anchor Norse ships.68 After three months of research, the local newspaper triump
hantly reported that Professor Bronsted had officially “verified” the rune stone.69
The Kensington Rune Stone’s yearlong stay at the Smithsonian Institution was a cause for celebration among western Minnesotans. Recognition of the artifact meant recognition of their community: “The stone may have lain in relative obscurity for many years but it certainly is receiving a lot of publicity at this time, putting Alexandria and Kensington in the national and international spotlight.”70 Alexandria newspapers noted the favorable coverage in Minneapolis newspapers, Newsweek magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, and a national ABC radio broadcast. An Alexandria resident who visited the Smithsonian exhibit spent a few days observing visitors and reported that “well over 60 percent of visitors inspected the Runestone before they looked at any other historical item.” He went on to assure Alexandrians that “a very large percentage” of the people he spoke to saw the rune stone as authentic and recognized it as “one of the most important historical items in the museum.”71 The artifact was welcomed home from the Smithsonian as a celebrity. In March 1949, it was put on display at the Minnesota Historical Society, commemorating Minnesota’s Territorial Centennial. Later that summer it was featured at the state fair, where more than sixty thousand visitors viewed the exhibit over a ten-day period.72
Surely, the Smithsonian exhibit and the endorsements of Bronsted and Stirling must have been a high point for Holand and other rune stone enthusiasts. As historians Rhoda Gilman and James Smith observe, “Holand and his supporters were quick to claim that the question was at last settled.” 73 Yet it is important to note that the stone’s supporters had incorrectly concluded that the Smithsonian had endorsed the artifact.74 In a response to an inquiry by a rune stone critic, the Smithsonian acknowledged that none of its staff had the expertise to properly analyze the runic inscriptions. Therefore, “the institution has not issued any formal statement or belief as to the authenticity of the Kensington Stone.” As to the conclusions of Sterling, “our staff members as individuals have their own personal opinions.”75 By 1955, even Professor Bronsted had revised his early assessments of the artifact, concluding that the inscription “leaves some question of deliberate fraud.”76 That same year, the Smithsonian Institution also clarified its position and endorsed the updated conclusion of Professor Bronsted.
Visitors marvel at the Kensington Rune Stone display at the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce in the 1950s. Courtesy of the Douglas County Historical Society.
The most vigorous attacks levied against Alexandria’s adopted civic artifact came from Moorhead resident Johannes A. Holvik. In December 1948, the Alexandria newspaper reported that the city’s sacred artifact had suffered “a derogatory blast from a professor of Norwegian at Concordia College in Moorhead.” This article outlined Holvik’s recently publicized arguments against the authenticity of the rune stone. Holvik announced that he possessed a letter signed by a farmer who claimed in 1908 to have drilled holes in the boulders near Lake Cormorant that Holand claimed were Norse mooring stones. Holvik repeated the Masonic observation from the early twentieth century that the letters “AVM” on the runic inscription referred not to a Catholic prayer to the Virgin Mary but to “AUM” or “the supreme God” in Eastern religions. Holvik later discovered AUM written prominently in an article in a scrapbook owned by the Ohman family.
Johan A. Holvik stands near the supposed site of the rune stone discovery, circa 1950. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.
To acquire the scrapbook and other research materials from the Ohman family, Holvik visited the Ohman farm in the fall of 1949 to speak with Amanda, Ohman’s daughter. Amanda showed Holvik a copy of a book by Carl Rosander, The Well-Informed Schoolmaster (Den Kunskapsrike Skolmästaren). The volume was not noticed by earlier researchers but was inscribed by Ohman in 1891, seven years before the rune stone was unearthed. According to Holvik, this Swedish text yielded sufficient information for Olof to create the runic inscription and the book also contained the phrase “save us from evil.” This new piece of evidence formed the linchpin of Holvik’s argument and he concluded that Olof’s ability to carry out the rune stone hoax was “evidence of genius.”77 Ohman’s daughter found no consolation in her deceased father being portrayed as a brilliant deceiver. Although a direct connection cannot be proven, Amanda took her own life just over a year later, the second of the Ohman children to do so.78
Not surprisingly, Holvik’s assertions gave no solace to Alexandria’s citizens either. Holvik maintained that the Kensington Rune Stone was nothing more than a tool to generate tourist publicity.79 One local article characterized his words in terms of a military assault, stating that he had “let loose his second barrage of criticism directed at the Kensington Runestone’s authenticity.”80 Local hostility took the form of personal attacks directed toward Holvik. One article took aim at his credentials by claiming that he was a member of a “small” department of Norse at Concordia and that he had only taken a “few short courses” from the University of Oslo “during summer recess.” The article also stated: “Just why he persists in lambasting the stone’s authenticity is not known as many of the items he disputes are clearly outlined with substantiating evidence in books written by H. R. Holand.”81
Despite these protests, the Alexandria boosters were relatively unfazed by the mounting criticism of the rune stone. They took full advantage of the publicity surge to use the stone as a totemic emblem for promoting the local economy. In 1950, the Alexandria Electric Company changed its name to the Runestone Electric Association. In following years, local businesses also began to use the words runestone or Viking in their names. One of the first was the Runestone Turkey Ranch. By the end of the decade, the local business directory included the Viking Beverage Company, Viking Oil Company, and Viking Reinforced Plastics.82 The Kiwanis Club of Alexandria raised $6,500 to construct a twenty-two-ton replica of the Kensington Rune Stone. The massive stone, quarried in central Minnesota, is twelve times the size of the original. In 1951, it was installed in a small roadside park at the eastern entrance to the city on what was then State Highway 52. Tourists from the urban locales to the east typically approached Alexandria from this direction. The massive icon of Alexandria’s founding myth quickly became a popular site for family photos and visitors.
Alexandria businessmen designated the region as “Viking-Land, USA” to promote local tourism. Courtesy of the Douglas County Historical Society.
Civic leaders used other forms of visual display to evoke the power of America’s true discoverers. During the 1950s, two Viking murals were painted in prominent city buildings, one in the Runestone Electric Association headquarters and another in the lobby of the Farmers National Bank. The latter, eight by eighteen feet, depicted a scene of the fourteenth-century Norsemen at the site where the rune stone inscription was carved. One member of the Viking expedition holds a hammer and chisel to memorialize his fallen comrades on a slab of stone. Others carefully scan the horizon with weapons at hand, perhaps contemplating how to respond to imminent danger. Yet others stand in various postures of defense: some holding swords and some scanning the horizon, as if on the lookout for lurking skrælings. The tools they carry look primitive, but their lean and muscular bodies wield them with purpose and precision. The Viking men are depicted as strong, muscular, virile, and capable of overcoming seemingly insurmountable odds. In an era when more and more men were leaving behind farmwork and other forms of manual labor for desk jobs and managerial positions in town, this visual display of primeval masculinity likely helped assuage anxieties about modern men going soft.83 As civic religious iconography, these murals depict the Vikings as godlike figures with the symbolic power to overcome economic challenges and defend against threats to civic pride.84
A painted mural depicting the creation of the rune stone hangs in the Runestone Museum of Alexandria. Courtesy of Edward “Mike” Wick.
Olof Ohman as the “Real American”
Although Olof Ohman died in 1935, he continued
to live on as a symbol of rural Minnesota virtue. Arguments for the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone have been the most strident when defending the character of the stone’s discoverer. In nearly all of his volumes arguing for the artifact, Holand dedicated considerable space to defending Ohman from those who accused him of carving the inscription as a practical joke.85 Holand gave two primary reasons why Ohman was not responsible for creating a hoax. First, Ohman was not intellectually capable of fabricating the inscription, and second, his exemplary moral character and work ethic did not incline him to perpetrate a fraud. Holand asserted that Ohman “had only nine months of schooling in his life, and though he could sign his name, he had to ask for help when it was necessary to write a letter.”86 What little education he had, claimed Holand, was almost exclusively religious in content and had the purpose of preparing students for confirmation in the Lutheran church. History and geography were barely considered and “runic writing was not even mentioned.”87 Holand also emphasized Ohman’s industriousness as a farmer. Ohman was so busy transforming his hardscrabble piece of land into a productive farm, Holand argued, that he would never have had time for practical jokes. Finally, Holand claimed that anyone who had met Ohman testified to his honesty and candor, and even quoted one investigator who said that he would make “an excellent witness in a court of law.”88
Holand did more than attempt to exonerate Ohman from accusations of malfeasance. Ohman emerged as an important literary figure in Holand’s defense of the rune stone. Referring to Ohman as “the scapegoat of the Kensington inscription,” Holand holds him up as a superhuman figure, describing him as “a large and powerful man” who stood as a “representative of the stalwart pioneers who laid the foundation for America’s prosperity.”89 With Holand’s help, Ohman came to embody the quintessential Minnesota farmer: hardworking, honest, and pragmatic. Challenges to Ohman’s testimony were often received by western Minnesotans as an attack on their civic identity. In 1955, Minneapolis Star reporter George Rice wrote a series of articles to “explore the controversy concerning the Kensington rune stone.”90 Rice became interested in the rune stone after he read Holand’s 1940 book Westward from Vinland and was at first persuaded that the artifact was authentic. However, after his study of Holvik’s writings, Rice abandoned his faith in the rune stone. In his articles, Rice provided a survey of Holvik’s arguments against Holand’s theories. In general, Rice took a respectful tone toward rune stone enthusiasts, but he argued that many of them lacked basic investigative skills: “some are learned and some are simply enthusiastic about Minnesota history.”91 Rice focused on Holand’s oft-repeated claim that Ohman was incapable of faking the stone: “[t]his is, in fact, a very cornerstone of the temple of faith that has been built up around the stone.”92 Although many rune stone supporters claimed that Ohman was illiterate, he was, in fact, an avid reader, according to the testimony of his two sons. He had a small library with some books of “a high literary caliber.”93 Rice also noted that Ohman’s family had presented Holvik with books on Swedish history and runic language that would have been helpful in producing the inscription.94
Myths of the Rune Stone Page 10
