The Hidden

Neil Christopher

Description

Forget fairies and forget vampires! Let yourself be drawn into the dark world of the shape-shifters, ogresses, trolls, and demons of the Canadian Arctic. This collection of field notes meticulously documents the dark side of Inuit legends, complete with hideous monsters and unspeakable deeds. Each creature is brought to life by the stunning illustrations of Mike Austin, a world-renowned tattoo artist. The Hidden exposes the dark beings that lurk in Arctic shadows. This gothic, illustrated book is destined to become a collector's item for any reader interested in dark folklore.

Sujets

• Inuits
• Nunavut
• Folklore
• Iqaluit
• Country
• Arctic
• Aborigine
• Columbus Day
• Indigenous
• Indigenous People's Day
• Inuit
• Esquimal
• Young Adult Fiction
• Ethnic
• Fairy Tales

Informations

• Publié par: Inhabit Media
• Date de parution: 04 juin 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781772273830
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

The Hidden
Also by Neil Christopher
The Country of Wolves
Ava and the Little Folk (with Alan Neal)
Arctic Giants
Unikkaaqtuat: An Introduction to Inuit Myths and Legends
Kappianaqtut: Strange Creatures and Fantastic Beings from Inuit Myths and Legends, Volume One
Stories of the Amautalik: Fantastic Beings from Inuit Myths and Legends
Taiksumani, Volume One
Taiksumani, Volume Two
The Hidden
A Compendium of Arctic Giants, Dwarves, Gnomes, Trolls, Faeries, and other Fantastic Beings from Inuit Oral History
Researched and Written by
Neil Christopher
Illustrated by
Mike Austin
Published by Inhabit Media Inc.
Nunavut Office - P.O. Box 11125, Iqaluit, Nunavut X0A 1HO
Ontario Office - 146A Orchard View Blvd., Toronto, Ontario M4R 1C3
www.inhabitmedia.com
Text copyright 2014 by Neil Christopher
Illustrations copyright 2014 by Mike Austin
Editor: Louise Flaherty
Art Director: Neil Christopher
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrievable system, without written consent of the publisher, is an infringement of copyright law.
Printed and bound in Hong Kong by Paramount Printing Co.
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage Canada Book Fund.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Christopher, Neil, 1972-, author
The hidden : a compendium of Arctic giants, dwarves, gnomes, trolls, faeries, and other strange beings from Inuit oral history / by Neil Christopher ; illustrated by Mike Austin.
ISBN 978-1-927095-59-1 (bound)
1. Inuit--Folklore. 2. Inuit mythology. 3. Oral tradition--Arctic regions. 4. Supernatural. I. Austin, Mike, 1968-, illustrator II. Title.
E99.E7C5463 2013 398.2089 9712 C2013-905418-9
For my two favourite monsters - Isabelle and Tauja (Mia-Laure)
NC
The drawings within these pages are dedicated to the three men I admire most, Farley Mowat, Mr. Deller, and my dad . . . and, of course, my mom .
MA

Contents
Foreword
Editor s Notes
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Glossary
Creators of the Beasts of Land and Sea
Nuliajuq
Qimmiit Arnangat
Tuktut Igviat
Iqallijuq
Lumaajuuq
The Great Giants of the North
Inukpasuksuk
Nuvuja
Inukpasarjujuk
Kayarissat
End of the Great Giants
The Lesser Giants of the North
Ijiqqan
Kulluittuq
Sikuliasuujuittuq
The Giant of Kangiqsuaq
Avappasugruk
Ahungahungaaq
Tuniit
Ogresses, Hags, Child-Snatchers
Amautaliit
Amajuqsuk
Mangittatuarjuk
Kukiijariaqtukkit
Nahaingaijaq
Igalilik
Aasivak
Trolls, Demons, Savage Tribes
Mahahaa
Nakasungnaikkaq
Kukilialuit
Katutarjuk
Tuutarjuit
Narajat
Kajjait
Amaruq
Palraijuq
Arngnasiuti
Amarurluut
Akla
Inukturniq
Denizens of the Sea Coastal Regions
Taliillajuut
Tuutaliit
Iqaluup Nappaa
Qikiqtarluut
Aasivarluut
Qallupilluit
Nanurluit
Uugarjuaq
Arctic Little Folk Other Small Inhabitants
Inuarugligat
Inuarullikkat
A liarusiq
Inuarugligaarjuit
Tuniqtat
Uijjuit
Strange, but Benevolent, Beings
Inurluit
Ignatsukkuaq
Taaliqqat
Tunnittuarjuit
Ijirait
Kiviuq
People of the Moon Elementals
Taqqiq
Ululijarnaat
Naarjuk
Closing Comment
About the Author
About the Illustrator
Foreword
Is it safe to say that everyone knows what a faery is? Initially, the answer might seem to be yes, until we look at specific definitions. Some folks might associate the word with a tiny being with butterfly wings. Others might imagine a sort of Irish leprechaun. Still others might envision a Scandinavian elf, tall and noble.
Our point is that, in order to properly appreciate an imaginary being, as with a concept, one must receive the being within the context of a tradition. One would think that a well-established tradition, such as that of Inuit, with their monsters born of Arctic snow and desolation, would stand out better than most. No such luck. Mostly through the disinterest of missionaries and explorers, the earliest accounts of fantastic beings were stripped of all Inuit flavour, becoming rendered as dwarves, elves, sprites, etc. If the desire for brevity is of utmost importance, this presents no problem. But can ogre really delineate the nature of an amautalik , a huge, kidnapping hag, covered in giant lice? Can devil represent the mahahaa , loping and laughing madly, tickling its victims until they are but frozen corpses? Some groups of Inuit viewed the ijiraq as a shadowlike being, able to assume the form of a caribou, possibly even mimicking a normal human (until you notice that its eyelids blink sideways, that is). We discard the living feel of the entity, however, if we allow it to be exsanguinated with the bland label of ghost. To this day, some Inuit believe in the reality of bears too large to emerge from the sea. In our opinion, only the name of nanurluk , or similar traditional names, can do justice to this creature.
The Arctic, after all, is an exceptional environment. And while Inuit were and are human, their Arctic homelands have wrought in them a particular kind of perception. Indeed, one of the reasons we value an effort such as is represented by this book, is that it presents the imaginal beings of precolonial cosmology without corruption. Hopefully, the reader will enjoy knowing that the monsters and other creatures denoted in this sort of Inuit fantasy bestiary are pure as the very Arctic snow. That is, they are gathered through the painstaking effort of Neil Christopher, via a promising form of research that has emerged only of late: listening to Inuit elders. This book, as with similar works by Christopher, are pioneering a new form of folkloric and mythological discussion; one based on primary sources, and free from jingoistic contamination.
As for the artwork: a hazard of illustration, it might be said, is that it does not so much illustrate as interpret. In this sense, the illustration of images produced by another person s mind s eye is not unlike translation of concepts between languages. An illustrator is in much the same boat as a linguistic interpreter-translator, faced not with symmetrical exchange of one term for another, but with the struggle to use his or her own mind s eye in bringing the distinct mentalities of others together-that is, making John s head, however weird, understandable to Jane. For this reason, we were delightfully surprised when we first encountered the illustrations of Mike Austin. As writers on Inuit myth and folklore, we were struck, for example, by his depiction of Nuliajuq (also known as Sedna , among many alternate names). Here was no oceanic version of a benevolent Mother Goddess. No feminine Creator. Here was sacred feminine, all right, mother and mistress of the sea mammals, but with none of the New Age gentility with which non-Inuit peoples had hitherto preferred to colour her. Austin s figure was howling. She was like a sentient whirlpool, twisted with grief and rage, hair astream as if it were the purest resentment emanating from her broken mind against humanity. She was nothing anyone would willingly pray to, but only grovel before, since she could withdraw food at will. In other words, she was the Nuliajuq we had been writing about for years. And Austin, in understanding and finding her through his art, was instantly our hero.
Since that time, Austin s work has never disappointed us. Whether in depicting abominations with claws as long as their legs, or dog-human hybrids peering from hoods, Austin consistently displays an unusual reverence for his subject matter. Unlike the occasional illustrator who may succumb to the temptation to interpret Inuit imaginings along Eurocentric lines (that which governs most fantasy art), Mike seems to bear a strange and delightful tendency to view his subject matter as though it were real. Perhaps it should not be surprising to think that a person who takes the time to travel to the Arctic, getting to know the people (even doing traditional tattoos for free), is one who regards his illustrations as life, rather than fiction. If this is the way Austin feels, we would say he s right-for the strange beings of Inuit fancy are alive; at the very least, insofar as they are facets of cultural vibrancy.
In short, the spirit of all such aforementioned work honours that best part of Inuit life: the imagination, and therefore the mind. For that, we are grateful.
Pijariiqpugut .
All we have to say.
Rachel A. Qitsualik-Tinsley and Sean A. Qitsualik-Tinsley
Iqaluit, Nunavut, 2013
Editor s Notes
Whenever possible, the original Inuktitut orthography is used in this text without modification. However, when the original Inuktitut orthography is confusing, the term has been rewritten using the current standardized Inuktitut writing system.
Although Inuit stories do vary from region to region, many stories are similar, with only slight variations. Whenever it was unclear if stories and characters were unique, or simply regional variations of each other, we have erred on the side of diversity by including them.
Preface