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Updated: May 25, 2025
Now the Tupilak thought: "I must try another way. Perhaps it will be better to go through the earth." And when it tried to go through the earth, so much was easy; it only remained then to come up through the floor of the house. But the floor of the house was hard, and not to be got through. Therefore it tried behind the house, and there it was quite soft.
And now Nukúnguasik went up to them, and there lay the Tupilak, still alive, and nibbling at the body of the dead man. But the brothers buried him there, making a mound of stones above him. And then they went home. Nukúnguasik lived there as the oldest in the place, and died at last after many years. Here I end this story: I know no more. A strong man had land at Ikerssuaq.
And then it was clear that he was making a Tupilak, and stood there now telling it what to do. But suddenly Nukúnguasik slapped him on the side and said: "But where is this Nukúnguasik?" And the man was so frightened at this that he fell down dead. And then Nukúnguasik saw that the man had been letting the Tupilak sniff at his body. And the Tupilak was now alive, and lay there sniffing.
At these words, the other began again to speak: "Now that my anger has awakened, I will make a Tupilak for that miserable Qujâvârssuk." But the other said to him: "Why will you do such a thing? Look; their gifts are so many that we must carry the load upon our heads." But that comrade would not change his purpose, not for all the trying of the other to turn him from it.
He lifted one leg and stepped into the kayak, and this the Tupilak saw, but when he lifted the other leg to step in with that, he disappeared entirely from its sight. And all through the day it looked for him in vain. At last it swam in towards land, but by that time he had already reached home, and drawn the kayak on shore to carry it up.
Now the Tupilak had no fear but that next day, when he went out, it would be easy to catch and eat him. And therefore, when it was no later than dawn, it was waiting outside his house. When Qujâvârssuk awoke, he got up and went down to his kayak, and began to make ready for hunting. He put on his long fur coat, and went down and put the kayak in the water.
He had a catch of two seal, and there lay the Tupilak staring after him. When it was evening, Qujâvârssuk went to rest. He slept, and awoke, and got up and made things ready to go out. And at this time the Tupilak was waiting with a great desire for the moment when he should put off from land.
And having thus found food, the Tupilak felt well and strong and very cheerful, until at last it began to think thus: "All the other Tupilaks will certainly call this a shameful thing, that I should have killed the one who made me." And it was now so troubled with shame at this that it swam far out into the open sea and was never seen again. And men say that it was because of shame it did so.
And because of all these happenings, it had now become so angered that it swam back at once to the man who had made it, in order to eat him up. And when it came there, he was sitting in his kayak with his face turned towards the sun, and telling no other thing than of the Tupilak which he had made.
From under a pile of skins Sipsu, his chant subsiding, brought forth a bundle. Opening it, he revealed a collection of old bones; there were the bones of musk oxen, seals, walrus and smaller animals. "Yah-hah-hah! I shall create a tupilak!" he crooned vindictively. "I shall create a tupilak! And from the depths of the waters the tupilak shall see Ootah. Yah-hah-hah!
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