Inuit TraditionBody Of Water
Cumberland Sound (Kangiqtualuk)
The deep inlet on the east coast of Baffin Island, Nunavut, where Franz Boas recorded the story of Sedna and her father Anguta in 1883-84; home of the community of Pangnirtung.
About Cumberland Sound (Kangiqtualuk)
Where 'Sedna' was written down
Franz Boas spent the winter of 1883-84 among the Inuit of Cumberland Sound, based largely at the whaling station on Kekerten Island. His ethnography The Central Eskimo (1888), drawing on what people there told him, includes the account of Sedna, her fulmar husband, and her father Anguta that made "Sedna" the name by which the Sea Woman is best known outside the Arctic. The coordinates given here mark the approximate centre of the sound.
A whaling world
In Boas's time Cumberland Sound was a centre of the Scottish and American whaling trade, and Inuit worked closely with the whalers; Kekerten is now a territorial historic park. Boas also recorded the autumn feasts associated with Sedna that were held in the sound's camps.
Pangnirtung today
The community of Pangnirtung (Panniqtuuq), on the sound's northeast shore, is known for its print shop and weaving studio, whose artists have depicted the Sea Woman among many other subjects. The story Boas recorded here continues to be told and interpreted by Inuit artists of the region.
On the map
Cumberland Sound (Kangiqtualuk) among other places of the Inuit Tradition.
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.
- Franz Boas, The Central Eskimo
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.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.