Sedna
Inuit · deity · mythic · Recorded classification
Inuit mistress of the sea and its animals; dwells on the sea floor ruling the dead in Adlivun.
Domains
- sea sea mammals
- underworld adlivun
Powers
- Withhold seals, walrus and whales from hunters
- Detect broken taboos as filth tangled in her hair
- give rise to the sea-mammals from her severed finger-joints
Epithets
- Takánakapsâluk 'the terrible/great one down there' — the sea-woman mistress of sea-mammals at the ocean floor, whose anger withholds the game and whom the angakkuq must placateRasmussen, Knud. Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos (Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition vol. VII.1), Gyldendal, 1929 (primary ethnography)
- Nuliajuk 'the ever-copulating one / the poor wife' — Netsilik name of the sea-woman, mother of the sea-beasts and mistress of both sea and land animalsRasmussen, Knud. The Netsilik Eskimos (Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition vol. VIII), Gyldendal, 1931 (primary ethnography)
Sources
- existence: Rasmussen, Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos (1929) (primary); Boas, The Central Eskimo (1888) (primary)
- finger-joints-become-sea-mammals: Rasmussen (1929); Boas (1888) (primary)