"What drove the two groups apart was a killing. Some of the Norse men killed a skraeling who was attempting to steal weapons, which Thorfinn had forbidden as trade items."
The Skraelings, being mammals, and observers of other mammals such animals they hunted, would have been familiar with milk, even without owning livestock.
If they bought raw milk, they probably intended to use it for their children, but it seems a rather difficult trade item, as a liquid, and having a shelf life of only a day or two.
They probably were trading butter or cheese, neither of which contains enough lactose to cause problems. Fresh cheese would have been known from the stomachs of suckling animals, and might have been a prized delicacy before they were aware it could be manufactured. Butter would have been completely new to them.
http://www.editors-wastebasket.org/nexx/pro/vinland.html
"What drove the two groups apart was a killing. Some of the Norse men killed a skraeling who was attempting to steal weapons, which Thorfinn had forbidden as trade items."
The Skraelings, being mammals, and observers of other mammals such animals they hunted, would have been familiar with milk, even without owning livestock.
If they bought raw milk, they probably intended to use it for their children, but it seems a rather difficult trade item, as a liquid, and having a shelf life of only a day or two.
They probably were trading butter or cheese, neither of which contains enough lactose to cause problems. Fresh cheese would have been known from the stomachs of suckling animals, and might have been a prized delicacy before they were aware it could be manufactured. Butter would have been completely new to them.