Source recordTranslation
Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921-24
Knud Rasmussen (with named Inuit speakers, among them Aua, Orpingalik, Netsit, and Igjugarjuk) · 1929-1932 (vols. 7-9 on Inuit intellectual culture) · Inuktitut dialects (English translation)
Translation
Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921-24
Knud Rasmussen (with named Inuit speakers, among them Aua, Orpingalik, Netsit, and Igjugarjuk)
The ethnographic reports of the expedition led by the Greenlandic-Danish Knud Rasmussen across Arctic Canada to Alaska. The volumes on the Iglulik (1929), Caribou Inuit (1930), and Netsilingmiut (1931) record the words of named Inuit speakers about the Sea Woman, the Moon Spirit, Sila, and the work of angakkuit. Invaluable, but an outsider's compilation that uses terms many Inuit now reject.
About this work
The ethnographic reports of the expedition led by the Greenlandic-Danish Knud Rasmussen across Arctic Canada to Alaska. The volumes on the Iglulik (1929), Caribou Inuit (1930), and Netsilingmiut (1931) record the words of named Inuit speakers about the Sea Woman, the Moon Spirit, Sila, and the work of angakkuit. Invaluable, but an outsider's compilation that uses terms many Inuit now reject.
Where to start
Read the Iglulik volume first; then the Netsilik volume for Nuliajuk. Pair both with Interviewing Inuit Elders, vol. 4.
Figures in the text
Heroes and divinities who feature prominently, with where they appear.
Deities and immortals
Sedna (the Sea Woman)Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos; The Netsilik Eskimosthe Sea Woman, as Takanaaluk (Iglulik) and Nuliajuk (Netsilingmiut)
SilaIglulik and Caribou Inuit volumesSila, the power of air and weather
PingaIntellectual Culture of the Caribou EskimosPinga, 'the one up there', among the Caribou Inuit
Anningan (the Moon Man)Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimosthe Moon Spirit (Taqqiq) and the story of the sun and moon siblings
Key scenes
Turning points of the work, in reading order.
The Journey to the Sea Woman
Iglulik speakers describe how an angakkuq travels to the bottom of the sea to comb the Sea Woman's hair so that she will release the animals.
Nuliajuk the Orphan
An orphan girl pushed from a raft of kayaks clings to its edge, her fingers are cut, and she sinks to become Nuliajuk, mother of the sea animals.
Stories drawn from it
Retellings in the atlas that quote or cite this work.
The Sea Woman: Sedna, Nuliajuk, TakannaalukoriginAcross the Inuit Arctic a young woman is wronged, thrown into the sea, and maimed, and becomes the keeper of the sea animals; the details, and even her name, change from region to region.
The Sun Sister and the Moon BrotheroriginA young woman discovers that the visitor who comes to her in the dark is her own brother; she flees with a blazing torch and becomes the sun, and he follows with a torch burned down to embers and becomes the moon.
About this record
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.
Dates and authorship follow standard scholarly references; for many ancient works both are approximate or disputed.