Inuit TraditionCreature
Qalupalik
- hums or calls to lure children
- carries children away in her amauti
- lives underwater
A human-like being with green skin and long hair who lives in the sea and snatches children who wander too close to the edge of the ice, carrying them away in the amauti (hood) on her back.
About Qalupalik
A warning at the water's edge
The qalupalik (plural qalupalliit) is a being from Inuit tradition in Nunavut and other regions: human-like but with greenish skin, long hair, and long fingernails, living in the sea. She wears an amauti, the woman's parka with a large pouch in the back for carrying a baby, and in it she carries away children who wander too near the water or the edge of the sea ice without an adult. Some tellings say you can hear her humming before she appears.
A story with a purpose
Stories of the qalupalik were told to keep young children away from dangerous places, the tide cracks, the floe edge, and thin ice, where a fall into freezing water would be fatal. They are cautionary, and many Inuit remember being warned about the qalupalik as children.
Told by Inuit today
The qalupalik appears in books published by Inuit-owned Inhabit Media, among them The Legend of the Qalupalik (2011), and in Inuit animation and film. She is one of the best-known figures of Inuit storytelling among younger audiences, and her story continues to be told by Inuit themselves rather than only recorded by outsiders.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Elisha Kilabuk, The Legend of the Qalupalik (Inhabit Media)
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
The danger rating is an editorial shorthand for how the myths portray the creature, not a claim made by the sources.