Pukmis, also called Pookmis, is the spirit of a whaler drowned at sea, a being caught between life and death who wanders the coastal waters in gaunt, ghostly form. Painted a pallid white with a fish-like, half-decayed face and gills, and shaping a low wailing cry with pursed lips, he is feared by seafarers as an embodiment of the ocean's power to take the unready. Yet he also serves the community of the drowned: he is said to swallow the spirit of a lost whaler and carry it back toward the home village, releasing it during the memorial rites so the dead may be mourned. His likeness, kept in whalers' shrines and danced as a ceremonial mask, ties him to the perils and the ritual life of the whale hunt.