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Overview

Boas distinguishes the Davis Strait account from an Iglulik account in which the dead soul departs immediately. In the former, the soul lingers around its body for three days before descending to Sedna’s house. During its stay in Adlivun it is called tupilaq and may roam near villages in the form of a person wearing wide, shabby clothing. Its touch is said to kill and its appearance to bring sickness or misfortune. When an angakoq announces its presence, people remain inside, since the being cannot enter their houses.

This dangerous condition is temporary: after the soul becomes an adliparmio, it rests and is no longer feared as a tupilaq. Boas explicitly contrasts this revenant with the constructed enemy-killing being called tupilaq in the Greenland material he cites from Rink, adding that he did not encounter that construction account among his central Canadian interlocutors. That historical observation is not a claim about every Inuit community or later period. The shared spelling therefore links a documented comparison rather than making the two descriptions one composite creature.

Unsettled human soulLoose ragged clothingCannot enter housesDanger ends after onward passage
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Origins & earliest records

Franz Boas published this account in The Central Eskimo (1888), based on his Canadian Arctic fieldwork and expressly attributed earlier reports. No individual narrator is named for this selected story.

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Records & interpretation

Religious ideas, immediately before The Tornait and the Angakut (p.591): complete Davis Strait tupilaq passage and explicit Greenland comparison.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    The Central Eskimo

    Franz Boas, collector · 1888

    Religious ideas, immediately before The Tornait and the Angakut (p.591): complete Davis Strait tupilaq passage and explicit Greenland comparison.

Family & connections

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References

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  1. Primary textBoas 1888: Religious ideas, immediately before The Tornait and the Angakut (p.591): complete Davis Strait tupilaq passage and explicit Greenland comparison.Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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