INTRO:

Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

In contrast to the super hot weather here in the UK, which is record breaking, we’re not just being dramatic - we’re heading over to Inuit mythology to sit in the cold Arctic, or at least imagine we’re there. However, we’ll not get too close to the water’s edge to avoid the monster this week.

DESCRIPTION

Yes, we are looking at a legendary monster from this mythology, possibly the most famous in fact - the Qalupalik. These monsters are from Inuit mythology, but just to clarify, these monsters mostly come from the Inuit cultures from Alaska and Canada, in the coldest parts of the native communities.

The Qalupalik is described as a humanoid, aquatic based monster from the Arctic waters that have blue or green slimy skin, bright blue haunting eyes, long, wet hair and sharp long fingernails on their webbed hands. They are known to be very aggressive monsters, who smell of sulphur and sit and watch their prey from beneath the sheets of ice. They are predominantly female, however, sometimes they are recalled as being only male within folklore, but based on the presentation and maternal nature of the monster, we assume they are female. We also believe that there are more than one, this isn’t a solo monster that exists within the mythology, but is one of many. 

They wear a Inuit cloak called an amautik, which is something that Inuit women wear to carry around their babies, which Qalupalik would use to carry off suspecting children. 

Speaking of which, their main target is children. They would lurk around the water’s edge or thin sheets of ice, then hum to attract children nearby - then they would quickly jump out of the water, and snatch the child into the amautik into the depths of the ice cold ocean. The Qalupalik would then either eat the child after drowning them, or they would lull them to sleep in a cave under the ice, and feed off of their energy to keep them young. It’s said that the longer a child in their custody sleeps, the younger the Qalupalik becomes. The Qalupalik could kidnap multiple children to keep themselves youthful and alive - and therefore, are completely immortal.

There is also a myth that the Qalupalik can venture onto the ice in thick snow storms and find any lost children in the blizzards, which is pretty creepy, so it does match the idea of kidnapping children from these life threatening situations within this environment.

How can you tell that one is approaching other than the humming? You can sometimes hear the tap tapping of the Qalupalik on the underneath of the ice, trying to tempt the children to come over to the thinner parts of the ice. Or sometimes steam would arise from the water near where one is lurking. 

You can also see the close comparison that these monsters can have to Greek Sirens or Mermaids, especially the Siren which would make sense with the drowning myths from this mythos, and although this doesn’t really link with the childhood bit - you can certainly see the mirror of this monster.

ORIGIN:

Now onto origins, starting with etymology - and this is actually a first in the podcast, and considering we’re over 60 episodes in - that’s wild. It’s that actually, this word has not got a breakdown for etymology, and that might not be the case - but there isn’t one that I can find at all online through my research or through my reading into this monster at all. But also, due to this being a native monster, the etymology linked to the language of this culture is quite guarded, and completely, as it should be - so that’s just a side note for this. It’s definitely a new experience on the podcast at least - so it’s super interesting to not break this down.

To be honest, this also reflects on how much history and background I can give on this monster too. I can say that Inuit stories, much like other native cultures, are usually passed on orally by their communities, and not many conversations are had around these myths and legends with people outside of these cultures. Also, it might just be that these really short stories were enough to freak out kids, and so no further explanation was required, and so maybe that’s all there is to it - who knows? 

However, we can talk about why this kind of culture and history is so suppressed though, and that’s definitely due to European colonialism and the introduction of Christianity into the US, and the eradication of native people, which we all know is what happened here. The US colonisation happened by the British in 1587, where the majority of the people migrating were Brits, who were Christians from the Roman colonisation of Britain way back when - and brought this with them to the new world. The Brits were incredibly aggressive to the Native people, pushing them into inhabitable territory like these remote places such as Alaska and northern Canada, as well as introducing European diseases such as smallpox, cowpox, typhoid and cholera and had no immunity to anything like this - which murdered hundreds of thousands of native people. 

As well as this, in the 17th century, the slave trade took hold of the US - with Native people also being taken from their homes to be slaves for the white Europeans, as well as black slaves shipped in by the same people from across the world. Even to this day, native cultures across the US are attacked, racially discriminated against and pushed out of their lands by descendants of these white Europeans from way back then. 

The Qalupalik, although a native monster from most likely that same time, shows the dangers of wandering too far from home, and away from your parents, to be kidnapped by a horrific monster that would steal you away. 

You can see that this is very clearly a cautionary tale to children who live in these parts to stay away from thin pieces of ice or the water’s edge due to the freezing temperatures of the water below - and that this monster would have been a perfect story in order to keep them away in fear of being snatched by the Qalupalik. 

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Now I will say that this monster is a little more elusive this week, so these modern media bits are more of evil sea people/watery monsters that steal kids more than Qalupalik specifically. 

In art, I would really recommend looking over the illustrations from the kids books that I’ll mention in a bit, but mostly independent artwork for this week. The artwork I used for marketing this week is from the Qalupalik book and the illustrations are by Joy Ang - so I’d really recommend looking at these!

In movies, we have quite a few like; Brothers Grimm, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dagon, Humanoids from the Deep, Blood Waters of Doctor Z, Shallow Water, Aquaman, Island of the Fishmen, Cold Skin & Sweetheart.

For TV, we have; Mechamato, Doctor Who, Li’l Horrors, Monster Warriors, The Munsters, The Outer Limits, Torchwood, Ultra Q, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea & Creature from the Lake.

In video games, we have ones such as; Athena, Blood, Bloodborne, Castlevania, Resident Evil: Village, Dwarf Fortress, Terraria, Dominions 3, Splatoon, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Final Fantasy, House of the Dead 2, Megaman X, Monster Hunter, Perfect World, Resident Evil: Revelations, City of Heroes, Schwarzerblitz, The Secret World, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Dota 2, Stellaris, Darkest Dungeons, The Witcher, Warcraft & X-COM: Terrors of the Deep.

My book recommendations this week are The Hidden: A Compendium of Arctic Giants, Dwarves, Gnomes, Trolls, Faeries and Other Strange Beings from Inuit Oral History by Neil Christopher for some great Inuit mythology stories that we have access to in the Western world that they’ve very kindly shared.

However, for kids books, there are a few including the awesome The Qalupalik by Elisha Kilabuk which is mostly known for the great illustrations, and The Orphan and the Qallupilluit which again, is amazing for a kids story and great illustrations.

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed? 11:39

I’m going to say maybe for this one, the idea of a monster lurking beneath the icy waves ready to take off naughty children disobeying their parents in really dangerous situations, does make sense. Much like the Scottish myth with the Kelpies, it’s a great deterrent to keep your children away from the shore where they would 100% die of hypothermia within seconds of hitting the water. 

Although, I think it’s also possible that this monster was created by these parents to invent a monster that was horrifying enough to scare them away from that water - and from anything outside of their culture and community. It makes total sense, and as I have said in literally every monster based in the water, especially the arctic where we have so little scientific visibility, is that who knows what’s in there? We know very very little, and by those measures, how can we rule these types of monsters out fully? 

But what do you think? Did Qalupalik roam the earth? Let me know on Twitter!

OUTRO: 

Well I think this monster is a perfect mix of creepy and cool, and from a mythology that’s so awesome and one that we can’t cover too often at risk of running out of monsters, so it’s really nice to cover this week, especially when it’s this warm where I am at the moment.

Next week, we’re heading over to Mongolia for the first time ever! And we’re looking at a legendary cryptid from this part of the world, and that is the horrific looking Mongolian Death Worm! Get your Kevin Bacon cowboy hats ready for these giant Tremor worms next Thursday! 

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun though and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.