Tuktu- Inuit SpiritSpirit"Master of Caribou"

The Migration

Caribou crossed the tundra in herds so vast they darkened the ground. They moved between calving grounds and winter ranges along routes that had not changed in thousands of years, and inland Inuit communities staked their lives on those routes. Families positioned themselves at river fords and lake narrows where the animals bunched together and could be taken.

Tuktu governed when the herds moved and where they went. The caribou did not simply wander into a hunter's range. They came because Tuktu sent them, and they came as a gift. The hunter who killed cleanly and shared the meat honored that gift. The hunter who was wasteful or greedy did not. When herds failed to appear at the expected crossings, the cause was not weather or accident. Tuktu had seen something wrong and withheld the animals.

Amarok, the great wolf, served the herds by culling the weak and sick. Without the wolf, caribou grew feeble. Without caribou, the wolf starved. Tuktu and Amarok held each other in balance, and the Inuit who hunted alongside the wolf understood their place in that order.

The Return

When a caribou was killed, its inua left the body and descended to Adlivun, where it was tended until ready for rebirth. The soul then rose in a new caribou body and rejoined the herds on the tundra above. The herds were not a finite resource being depleted. They were a cycle of death and return. Provided the hunter had treated the animal properly, its inua would come back. Provided it came back, there would always be caribou.

Caribou hide kept the Inuit alive. Its hollow hairs trapped warmth no other material could match, and without caribou-skin clothing, the Arctic interior was uninhabitable. The women who scraped and stitched the hides worked with Tuktu's gift in their hands. Every parka sewn was proof that the relationship held.