The `Old Woman` of the Arctic – Inuit myth and legends

By Noah Patton

The indigenous populations of the Arctic coasts of Greenland, North America and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago are predominantly made up of Inuit and Yupik populations, with other smaller groups scattered throughout. 

The folk-lore and traditional beliefs of these indigenous populations are not as well documented as other indigenous populations around the world, but the little that is known and documented shows rich and vibrant beliefs. 

Arctic Indigenous population beliefs have a surprising focus on human nature, rather than on how the world was created or celestial god-like beings. For example, there are rarely any origin stories for animals and how they came to be. Where the Aboriginal Australians have dreamtime stories for how an Echidna came to be, the Inidenous Arctic populations instead accept that these animals have always existed. 

The story which most resembles creation beliefs of other religions is based around the “Old Woman”. References to this story have been recorded from the West Coasts of Alaska to the East Coasts of Greenland, with some areas considering the Old Woman as protector or deity of sea mammals. 

It begins unsurprisingly with a woman (sometimes known as Sedna), a daughter who escaped from her Bird-Husband on her father’s boat. The Bird-Husband furiously chased the woman across the water, when the woman’s father realised the Bird-Husband was chasing her down, he threw his own daughter overboard. But, the woman managed to cling to the edge of the boat. However, the father, ruthless as he was, began to chop each of her fingers off one at a time. As her fingers sank into the ocean, they transformed into the many species of seals and whales which inhabit the ocean. Different versions of this story vary in what her fingers turn into, the Alaskan version recounts the fingers turning instead into fish, walruses, and seals, with the metacarpals becoming the whales. With no fingers left to grasp the boat she falls into the ocean, becoming the ruler of “lower world”. 

Other legends also feature this Old Woman, some say she transformed her clothes into other creatures. One recounts her creation of caribou with tusks and walrus with antlers, but the creatures with these tools were capable of killing their hunters and so she instead gave the caribou antlers and the walrus tusks.