The Qivittoq

In Greenlandic Inuit tradition the qivittoq is one who has left the settlement to live alone in the mountains, whether cast out or in despair, and in the immense silence of the ice becomes something more than human: gaining uncanny powers, no longer quite alive, a figure to be feared on the empty land. Related is the tupilak, an avenging monster a shaman would craft in secret from bones and send against an enemy (the carved tupilaks sold today are the art that grew from that dark magic). Living folklore of the harshest inhabited country on Earth, told with respect.