Anningan- Inuit SpiritSpirit
Also known as: Aningan, Igaluk, Anniqa, Tarqeq, and Tarqiq
Description
Anningan chases his sister Malina across the sky and can never catch her — condemned for the violation that drove her to flee. He grows thin from hunger as he pursues, forgetting to eat, and the moon wanes. When he stops to feed, the moon vanishes. Then the chase begins again.
Mythology & Lore
The Soot and the Torch
During the dark winter gatherings, when communities crowded into the communal house, young people would put out the lamps and find each other by touch. No one knew who they held.
Anningan found his sister Malina in that darkness. He came to her again and again, and she did not know who he was. She smeared soot on her hands to mark him. When she relit the lamps, her brother's face was streaked black. Rasmussen recorded what she did next: she seized a burning torch and ran. Anningan grabbed his own and chased her. His flame went out as he ran. Both rose into the sky, Malina blazing as the sun, Anningan following with his dead torch as the moon.
The Chase
He has never caught her. Rink and Boas both recorded that Anningan pursues Malina across the sky without rest, so consumed by the chase that he forgets to eat. Night by night, his body thins. The moon wanes. When hunger finally forces him to stop and feed, the moon goes dark. Then he fills again and resumes, and the cycle starts over.
During the polar winter, when Malina dropped below the horizon and did not return for months, Anningan's light was all the Arctic had. Hunters crossed the snow and ice by his reflected glow. Coastal families watched his phases to read the tides. He was a figure of shame and violation, but his light kept people alive in the long dark.
Relationships
- Family
- Enemy of