Sedna

Sedna (known dialectally in Eastern Inuktitut as Sanna, and venerated as Nuliajuk among the Netsilik and Takannaaluk in the Iglulik region) is the paramount marine deity and ruler of the oceanic underworld in Inuit cosmology and religion. As documented in foundational field research by Franz Boas on Baffin Island and by Knud Rasmussen during the Fifth Thule Expedition, Sedna was originally an earthly maiden who spurned human suitors until being lured into marriage by a northern fulmar disguised as an accomplished hunter. Carried away to a desolate sea crag and confined to a filthy nest of feathers, she was eventually rescued by her father in a skin boat (umiaq). The enraged fulmar pursued them, beating its wings across the water to conjure a tempest that threatened to capsize the craft. In blind panic to save his own life, the father cast Sedna into the violent sea; when she seized the gunwale with a desperate grip, he repeatedly struck her hands with a bone knife, severing the joints of her fingers. As the amputated phalanges sank into the freezing water, the fingertips were transformed into ringed seals (netseq), the middle joints into bearded seals (ugjuk), and the remaining knuckles and palms into walruses (aivik) and whales (arveq). Plunging into the oceanic abyss, Sedna established her court at the floor of the sea in Adlivun, guarded by a fierce dog. When human hunters violate sacred subsistence taboos (aglerneq) or fail to observe birth and mourning prescriptions, human sins materialize as foul grime and vermin infesting Sedna's hair. Having no fingers to comb her tangled locks, Sedna suffers and retaliates by imprisoning the sea mammals within her underwater pool, inflicting famine upon the Arctic encampments. Restoring the ecological balance demanded the courage of the shaman (angakuq), who undertook a trance descent to the ocean floor to wash the goddess, comb her matted hair with ivory, and negotiate the release of the game.

7 min read · Reviewed on September 30, 2026 · How we research

The seal, the icy waves, the severed fingers and the black hair

Primary sources

• Boas, Franz, The Central Eskimo (Sixth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology). translation: Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1888. read
• Rasmussen, Knud, Intellectual Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos (Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921-24, Vol. VII, No. 1). translation: Gyldendalske Boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, Copenhagen, 1929. read
• Rink, Henry, Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo: With a Sketch of Their Habits, Religion, Language and Other Peculiarities. translation: William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1875. read

Studies

• Boas, Franz, The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay (Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. XV). American Museum of Natural History, New York, 1901. open
• Laugrand, Frédéric & Oosten, Jarich, Inuit Shamanism and Christianity: Transitions and Transformations in the Twentieth Century. McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal & Kingston, 2010. open