Qalupalik

Qalupalik is an Inuit mythological creature. It is a human-like creature that lives in the sea, with long hair, green skin, and long fingernails.^[1] The myth is that qalupaliks wear an amautiit (a form of pouch that Inuit parents wear to carry their children) so they can take babies and children away who disobey their parents.^[2] The story was used to prevent children from wandering off alone, lest the qalupalik take them children in her amautik underwater and keep them forever.
Qalupaliks are said to make a distinctive humming sound; therefore, they can be heard before they appear.

In culture

Film

• Ame Papatsie adapted the myth as a stop motion animation short Qalupalik (2010), produced by the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation and the National Film Board of Canada through its Nunavut Animation Lab. The film made its world premiere at the 2010 Terres en vues/Land InSights festival.^[3][4]

Books

• Popular Canadian children's book author Robert Munsch featured the Qalupalik in his book "A Promise is a Promise", co-authored by Inuit writer Michael Kusugak and illustrated by Vladyana Krykorka. The protagonist of the story is caught by the Qalupalik and promises to bring all her siblings to them if only they let her go. The Qalupalik agree, and the child confesses her promise to her parents, who help her outsmart the monsters.

Fine art

• Ningeokuluk Teevee exhibited the painting, Legend of Qalupalik (2011), at Spirit Wrestler Gallery.^[5]

Television

• In Helix: "Survivor Zero" (season 1, episode 7), Anana, an Inuit policewoman whose brother Miksa went missing when they were children and who is investigating the Arctic biostation as the possible location where 31 stolen children were taken, tells Sergio Ballesaros she and other children were cautioned to stay near their people's hunting sites, lest the Qalupalik steal them; she likens the Qalupalik to the bogeyman. Sergio, in turn, confides that children from the favelas in his hometown, Espírito Santo, Brazil, also went missing and implied he was one of them.

References

1. Wolfson, Evelyn. Inuit Mythology. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Pub, 2001. ISBN 0-7660-1559-9
2. Millman, Lawrence, and Timothy White. A Kayak Full of Ghosts Eskimo Tales. Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1987. ISBN 0-88496-267-9
3. "The NFB points up the 20th anniversary of the First Peoples' Festival with 10 new films, including two world premieres". Press release. National Film Board of Canada. 1 June 2010. Retrieved 7 November 2011.
4. Papatsie, Ame. "Nunavut Animation Lab: Qalupalik" (Animated short). NFB.ca. National Film Board of Canada. Retrieved 7 November 2011.
5. Teevee, Ningeokuluk (2011). Legend of Qalupalik. Spirit Wrestler Gallery.

Further reading

• Elisha Kilabuk. The Qalupalik ISBN 1-926569-31-8
• LLC Books. Inuit Legendary Creatures: Qiqirn, Akhlut, Ijiraq, Amarok, Saumen Kar, Tizheruk. ISBN 1-158-65008-6
• Rink, Henry (1875). Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo (with a Sketch of their Habits, Religion, Language and other Peculiarities). London. Reduced to HTML by Christopher M. Weimer, April 2003.
• Millman, Lawrence, and Timothy White. A Kayak Full of Ghosts Eskimo Tales. Santa Barbara: Capra Press, 1987. ISBN 0-88496-267-9
• Norman, Howard A., Leo Dillon, and Diane Dillon. The Girl Who Dreamed Only Geese, and Other Tales of the Far North. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1997. ISBN 0-15-230979-9
• Spalding, Alex. Eight Inuit Myths = Inuit Unipkaaqtuat Pingasuniarvinilit. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada, 1979.
• Wolfson, Evelyn. Inuit Mythology. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow Pub, 2001. ISBN 0-7660-1559-9