Myths of the Rune Stone

by David M Krueger

  91.Ibid.

  92.George Rice, “Stone’s Finder No Stranger to Books, Runes,” Minneapolis Star, April 12, 1955.

  93.Ibid.

  94.George Rice, “Where Could Ohman Learn English?” Minneapolis Star, April 13, 1955.

  95.Ralph S. Thornton, “Claims of Hoax Attacked: Backers Defend Authenticity of Runestone,” Minneapolis Star, May 18, 1955.

  96.Ralph S. Thornton, “Was Ohman a Genius? Rune Forgery Held Impossible and Illogical,” Minneapolis Star, May 19, 1955.

  97.“Runestone Tale Still Attracting News Headlines,” Park Region Echo, April 7, 1955.

  98.Ibid.

  99.“Kiwanis Talks Flays Critics of Runestone,” Park Region Echo, April 21, 1955.

  100.Ibid.

  101.“Los Angeles Times Publicizes Kensington Runestone Story,” Park Region Echo, February 12, 1957.

  102.Sean McCloud discusses how class is both externally ascribed to groups and freely chosen as a part of identity formation in Divine Hierarchies, 16–21. Arthur J. Vidich and Joseph Bensman show that small-town boosters often paint their residents as morally superior to big-city dwellers (Small Town in Mass Society, 36–38).

  4. Our Lady of the Runestone and America’s Baptism with Catholic Blood

  1.“Keep Runestone in Washington,” St. Cloud Register, May 21, 1954, 4.

  2.Holand cites the work of nineteenth-century Norwegian historian Gustav Storm, Studier over Vinlandsreiserne (Holand, Westward from Vinland, 91).

  3.Ibid., v.

  4.Anderson, America Not Discovered by Columbus, 84.

  5.See Blanck, The Creation of an Ethnic Identity, 167.

  6.Mancini, “Discovering Viking America,” 884.

  7.Ibid., 885n45.

  8.“Search Started for Old Runic Treasure,” St. Paul Dispatch, December 14, 1909.

  9.Reardon, The Catholic Church in the Diocese of St. Paul, 9. Ireland’s argument for the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone was later cited in the Minnesota Historical Society’s investigative committee’s preliminary report in 1910. See The Kensington Rune Stone: Preliminary Report to the Minnesota Historical Society by Its Museum Committee (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, December, 1910), 33.

  10.John Ireland, “Letter of the Most Reverend Bishop,” December 20, 1909, St. Paul, Minnesota, Roll 11, Letter 50, John Ireland Papers, M454, Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.

  11.Wingerd, North Country, 61, 115–20.

  12.Regan, “The Irish,” 130.

  13.Johnson, “The Germans,” 167–68. The Catholic church was instrumental in facilitating this growth. When the Benedictine monastery was founded in 1856, the region’s “German and Catholic future was assured” (Conzen, “Peasant Pioneers,” 262).

  14.Johnson, “The Germans,” 153.

  15.Reardon, The Catholic Church in the Diocese of St. Paul, 288.

  16.O’Connell, John Ireland and the American Catholic Church, 267.

  17.Ireland demanded that German-speaking parishes (and other “national” parishes) use some English. He also imposed a style of Catholicism that emphasized respect for clergy. This distinctly Irish style of Catholicism was not well received by other immigrant Catholics (Regan, “The Irish,” 144–45).

  18.Dolan, The American Catholic Experience, 202.

  19.Zeidel, “Knute Nelson and the Immigrant Question,” 335; Dolan, The American Catholic Experience, 202. As Robert Orsi notes, “Public support for war against Spain in Cuba was whipped up by anti-Catholic hysteria.” U.S. soldiers were guilty of numerous acts of desecrating Catholic sites in the Philippines (Dolan, “U.S. Catholics between Memory and Modernity,” 20).

  20.During the period from 1920 until 1966, ten of twelve governors were Lutheran. See Eric Ostermeir, “Will Minnesotans Elect a Catholic Governor in 2010?” (April 5, 2010); http://blog.lib.umn.edu/cspg/smartpolitics/2010/04/will_minnesotans_elect_a_catho.php (accessed August 9, 2014).

  21.This is not to say that Catholics did not exert significant political power in certain localities. This can be seen particularly among the Irish Catholics of St. Paul and the German Catholics of central Minnesota. See Regan, “The Irish,” 140–44, and Johnson, “The Germans,” 173–75.

  22.Reardon, The Catholic Church in the Diocese of St. Paul, 281, 283.

  23.Orsi, “U.S. Catholics between Memory and Modernity,” 22.

  24.Reardon, The Catholic Church in the Diocese of St. Paul, 289.

  25.In the terms of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology, both Catholics and Scandinavian immigrants knew that they had to play by the rules of the game. Their collective habitus had already been inculcated with the notion that origin myths generated cultural capital in American society. Protestants had their foundational religious discourse rooted in the myths of Puritan origins; now Minnesota Catholics could create their own origin myth. For a description of Bourdieu’s concept, see Rey, Bourdieu on Religion, 10–11, 154.

  26.Schaefer, “The Kensington Rune Stone,” 209.

  27.Øverland, Immigrant Minds, American Identities, 68.

  28.Ibid., 70–72.

  29.Ibid., 69–70.

  30.“Notes and Comments,” Catholic Historical Review 1, no. 4 (January 1916): 485.

  31.Ibid., 484. In 1932, the Kensington Rune Stone was also mentioned in an article from the influential Jesuit publication America: A Catholic Review of the Week. Rev. John LaFarge summarized a number of Holand’s recently published arguments about the authenticity of the artifact. LaFarge specifically endorsed Holand’s theory that the stone inscription was carved by a Catholic priest from the Paul Knutson expedition. He said that the priest’s “shuddering remembrance of the spectacle would naturally have expressed itself in those prayers which are most familiar to Catholics of all times and lands, the Hail Mary and the Our Father” (LaFarge, “The Medieval Church in Minnesota,” 323).

  32.Orsi, “U.S. Catholics between Memory and Modernity,” 24.

  33.Hatle and Vaillancourt, “One Flag, One School, One Language,” 370.

  34. Ibid., 364. See also Fergus Falls Daily News, June 6, 1924. The article estimates that there were two hundred registered KKK members in the area. See Roger Pinckney, “Klu Klux Klan Organizes Pelikan [sic] Rapids but Nobody Is Kluxed”; http://www.pelicanrapidschamber.com/historyhappenedhere (accessed October 1, 2010).

  35.This is evident in writing as late as the 1970s. An example of this can be seen in Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People.

  36.Dolan, In Search of an American Catholicism, 166.

  37.Ibid., 167. Paul Blanshard’s book, American Freedom and Catholic Power, was published in 1949.

  38.Orsi, “U.S. Catholics between Memory and Modernity,” 30.

  39.Ibid., 23.

  40.Reardon, The Catholic Church in the Diocese of St. Paul, 3.

  41.Ibid., 9.

  42.Kelly J. Baker illustrates the interplay between white racial identity and Protestant religion: “Nationalism and faith in American character combined whiteness, Protestantism, and patriotism to signify who American citizens really were” (Gospel acccording to the Klan, 190).

  43.Reardon, The Catholic Church in the Diocese of St. Paul, 8.

  44.Ibid., 10.

  45.Orsi, “U.S. Catholics between Memory and Modernity,” 27.

  46.“Priest Historian Calls Kensington Runestone Genuine,” Park Region Echo, November 11, 1952.

  47.“At School Dedication, Bishop Bartholme States Church Has a Right to Teach, Praise People and Priests,” Saint Cloud Visitor, December 8, 1957.

  48.Ibid.

  49.Herzog, The Spiritual-Industrial Complex, 6.

  50.Ibid., 61.

  51.Winsboro and Epple, “Religion, Culture, and the Cold War,” 217.

  52.Historian T. Jeremy Gunn observes that Cold War civic religion in the United States placed a priority on three values: governmental theism, military supremacy,
and capitalism as freedom (Spiritual Weapons, 8–11).

  53.According to Roman Catholic Code of Canon law, diocesan bishops are authorized to designate sacred spaces as shrines. An apparition of Mary is not required: Code of Canon Law, “Shrines,” http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P4J.HTM (accessed September 30, 2010).

  54.“Many Attend Catholic School Open House,” Park Region Echo, November 19, 1957.

  55.The placement of the shrine in the new Catholic school drew national attention and was even noted in the “World of Religion section of the Philadelphia Inquirer, December 30, 1957.

  56.A picture and caption can be found in the St. Cloud Visitor from December 8, 1957.

  57.Yzermans, The Spirit in Central Minnesota, 1:378.

  58.Ibid., 379.

  59.Larson, History of the Red River Valley of the Augustan Lutheran Church, 15–16.

  60.Sprunger, “Mystery and Obsession,” 145.

  61.Ibid.

  62.Wahlgren’s appropriation of Holvik’s claim is found in The Kensington Stone, 162–73.

  63.Henry Retzek, “No Mystery Solved, but Scholar Attacked, Says Critic of Runestone Book,” St. Cloud Visitor, July 26, 1959.

  64.Yzermans, The Spirit in Central Minnesota, 2:792.

  65.Holand, A Pre-Columbian Crusade to America, 151. The site is located approximately five miles northeast of Sauk Center in Section 26 of Birchdale Township, Todd County. Most residents in this area are Catholic and of German descent. Holand first published his research of his “Altar in the Wilderness” in his 1946 book America, 1355–1364.

  66.Holand quotes from the Catholic Encyclopaedia for guidelines on portable altars (Holand, A Pre-Columbian Crusade to America, 154).

  67.Ibid., 157.

  68.Gary M. Suow, “Sauk Lake Altar Stone: Giant Rock on Sauk Lake May Be a Symbol of Worship,” St. Cloud Daily Times, November 29, 1956.

  69.Yzermans, The Spirit in Central Minnesota, 2:657.

  70.Leonard and Bemetta Green to Dr. Piroch, May 22, 1995, Kensington Area Heritage Society Archives.

  71.“Is the Chokio Stone of Viking Origin?” Morris Tribune (Morris, Minnesota), September 24, 1970.

  72.“Catholic Historian Studies Local Altar Stone,” Chokio Review (Chokio, Minnesota), September 24, 1970, 10.

  73.Landsverk, Ancient Norse Messages on American Stones; “Landsverk Is Impressed by Altar Stone,” Chokio Review, May 13, 1971, 2.

  74.“Dahm Featured in Herfindahl Paintings,” Chokio Review, March 21, 1974. It is not known if Dahm was affiliated with a religious tradition.

  75.Gilman and Smith, “Vikings in Minnesota,” 4.

  76.Ibid.

  77.Bishop Speltz also presided over a Mass at the Ohman farm on August 15, 1981.

  78.“Altar Rock to be Re-dedicated in Celebration of Mass this Sunday,” Sauk Centre Herald, August 7, 1975.

  79.Schaefer, “The Kensington Rune Stone,” 333.

  80.Orsi, “U.S. Catholics between Memory and Modernity,” 11.

  81.Popular Marian figures such as the “Madonna of 115th Street” and “Our Lady of Charity” were successful because they embodied both ethnic and religious identity (Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street; Tweed, Our Lady of the Exile).

  82.This likely explains why Catholic Americans have not widely embraced Leif Eriksson as a Catholic “founder of America” despite the efforts of some Catholic historians. Appeals to Leif Eriksson have been primarily advanced by Scandinavian Protestants, who ironically overlooked the Catholic identity of the Viking explorer.

  83.Øverland, Immigrant Minds, American Identities, 185.

  84.Rasmus B. Anderson, “Thinks Rune Stone Fake,” Minneapolis Journal, June 2, 1910, 7.

  85.See Meinberg, “The Norse Church in Medieval America,” 179–216; LaFarge, “The Medieval Church in Minnesota,” 323.

  86.The article acknowledges that “not all the Scandinavian scholars are agreed on the authenticity of this text,” but nevertheless, “the internal evidence seems to be all in its favour; and nothing has been found so far to contradict its contents” See “Saint Paul (Minnesota),” Catholic Encyclopedia 13 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912); http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13366b.htm (accessed August 11, 2014).

  87.Protestants were sometimes irritated by the Catholic claim about the rune stone. When Kensington Runestone Park was opened to the public in 1975, Minnesota’s secretary of state gave a dedication talk that specifically noted the Catholic faith of the Viking explorers. According to an interview with the priest of Our Lady of the Runestone Church, “a few local Lutherans were so scandalized that they rejected both the stone and the whole idea of a local Viking presence” (Hughey and Michlovic, “‘Making’ History,” 350).

  88.One Lutheran historian disparaged the character of Holand’s Catholic Vikings (Larson, History of the Red River Valley of the Augustana Lutheran Church, 15–16).

  89.The Kensington Rune Stone: Preliminary Report to the Minnesota Historical Society by Its Museum Committee (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1910), 61.

  90.Protestant views of Catholics in the 1950s began to shift and the faith of the latter was increasingly imagined by the former to be a legitimate path to becoming “American.” Writing in 1955, sociologist Will Herberg writes of the United States’ “triple melting pot,” in which Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism came to be recognized as legitimate means to be recognized as “American” (Protestant, Catholic, Jew, 6).

  5. Immortal Rock

  1.Herzog, The Spiritual-Industrial Complex, 170–71.

  2.Gaustad and Schmidt, The Religious History of America.

  3.Gunn. Spiritual Weapons, 2.

  4.Gunn takes care to distinguish his concept of American national religion from Robert Bellah’s understanding of American civil religion. According to Gunn, the latter evokes “God” in a way that is a “less spiritually evocative and more politically insistent ‘spiritual weapon’ to attack atheistic communism” (ibid., 9).

  5.Ibid., 8–9.

  6.Park Region Echo, August 28, 1958.

  7.“4,000 Attend Lake Geneva Bible Camp,” Park Region Echo, July 8, 1958.

  8.“Huge Crowd Jams Alex Fairgrounds for Prayer Crusade,” Park Region Echo, September 25, 1958.

  9.Minnesota statehood and the founding of the city of Alexandria by the Kinkaid brothers both occurred in 1858.

  10.“Henry Moen Tells Runestone Story,” Park Region Echo, September 9, 1958.

  11.“More Evidence on Runestone Now on Display at Alex Chamber,” Park Region Echo, July 12, 1955.

  12.Maugridge S. Robb, “The Runestone . . . Douglas County’s Most Famous Relic,” Park Region Echo, June 12, 1958. The following quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are from this article.

  13.This rhetorical strategy is reminiscent of Pierre Bourdieu’s notion that the powerful try to naturalize the arbitrary. See Rey, Bourdieu on Religion, 53–55. In this instance, the rune stone defender makes “concrete” what is ultimately an imagined history.

  14.The centennial edition also reprinted an Alexandria Post article from July 21, 1876, that describes the “dreadful slaughter” that culminated in the death of General George Custer. See also “An Army Scout Tells the Story of Gen. Custer’s Last Stand,” Park Region Echo, June 12, 1958.

  15.Dorcy, “Ave Maria, Save Us from Evil,” 42.

  16.Ibid.

  17.Gunn, Spiritual Weapons, 1.

  18.Preus wrote this article as part of a series on the history of religion in the state for the Minnesota Farmer magazine (“Runestone Story Gets a New Play,” Park Region Echo, March 11, 1958).

  19.Faster, “A Cross to Bear,” 103.

  20.Ibid., 106.

  21.“Runestone Story Gets a New Play,” Park Region Echo, March 11, 1958.

  22.Salverson was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to Icelandic-born parents. Starting in the 1920s, she wrote novels about immigrant pi
oneer life on the Canadian prairie. One of the major themes of her writings is the long-term cultural and spiritual consequences of immigration. See Bookrags Staff, “Laura Goodman Salverson,” http://www.bookrags.com/biography/laura-goodman-salverson-dlb/ (accessed October 1, 2010). Four years before Salverson’s book was published, Elizabeth Coatsworth published her novel Door to the North: A Saga of Fourteenth-Century America. Her novel was published as part of the “Land of the Free Series,” which told stories of heroism from various groups that settled in the United States.