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{{short description|Mythological creature from Inuit mythology}}
{{AI-generated|date=September 2025}}
The '''Adlet''' (or '''Erqigdlet''') are a race of creatures in the [[Inuit mythology]] of [[Greenland]], as well as the [[Labrador]] and [[Hudson Bay]] coasts. While the word refers to [[First Nations in Canada|inland native American tribes]], it also denotes a humanoid dog-legged tribe.<ref name="BoasThe">Boas, "The Central Eskimo" 640.</ref> The lower part of the body of the canine Adlet is like that of a dog and their upper part is like a man's. All Adlet run quickly, and their encounters with men usually end with [[Human|man]] as the victor.<ref>Boas, "The Folklore of the Eskimo" 512.</ref>

In Inuit lore, they are often portrayed as in conflict with humans, and are supposed to be taller than Inuit and white people.<ref>Boas, "The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay" 524.</ref> In some stories they are cannibals.<ref>Green 72.</ref> Inuit from [[Labrador]] use the term Adlet, tribes west of the [[Hudson Bay]] use the word Erqigdlit.<ref name="BoasThe" /> The monstrous race begotten by the Adlet was identified with inland Native Americans by the Labrador and Hudson Bay tribes; Inuit from [[Greenland]] and [[Baffin Land]], which had no native American neighbors, use the term to refer to the half human, half canine creatures.<ref>Hodge 14.</ref>

An etymology of the word is proposed by H. Newell Wardle: ''adlet'' might come from ''ad'', "below," and thus denote "those below." Alternatively, he argues, it might come from the stem ''agdlak'', "striped, streaked," thus "the striped ones," in reference to American Indians who lived to the west and painted their faces. "Erqigdlet" might be a derogatory term denoting the same people.<ref>Newell Wardle 577-78.</ref> ''Atlat'' means "others," denoting American Indians from the Inuit perspective,<ref name="RinkThe">Rink, "The Girl and the Dogs" 181.</ref> though Newell Wardle considers this possibility secondary and deriving from phonetic similarity.<ref>Newell Wardle 578 note 1.</ref>

==Origin==
[[Franz Boas]], an ethnologist who recorded many [[Inuit]] stories, gives an account of the origin of the Adlet; he had heard the story in [[Baffin Land]], specifically in [[Cumberland Sound]] from an Inuk named Pakaq. His transcription, a translation by H. Rink, and an explanation (by Boas) were published in ''[[The Journal of American Folklore]]'' in 1889.<ref>Boas and Rink, "Eskimo Tales and Songs."</ref>  The Inuit of [[Greenland]], according to Rink, tell the same story as those in Baffin Land.<ref>Rink, "Tales and traditions of the Eskimo" 471; Boas and Rink, "Eskimo Tales and Songs" 123.</ref> The story is often referred to as "The Girl and the Dogs" on the west coast of Greenland; on the east coast of Greenland it is known as "The Origin of the Qavdlunait and Irqigdlit" (that is, Scandinavians or Nordic people and Indians).<ref name="RinkThe" />

A woman, Niviarsiang ("the girl"), lives with her father, Savirqong, but will not marry, and hence is also called Uinigumissuitung ("she who wouldn't take a husband"). After rejecting all her suitors, she marries a dog, Ijirqang, with white and red spots. Of their ten children, five are dogs and the others are Adlet, with dog's bodies for their lower half and man's bodies for their upper half. Since Ijirqang does not go hunting and the children are very hungry, it falls to Savirqong to provide for the noisy household. At last he puts them into a boat and carries them off to a small island, telling Ijirqang to come and get meat daily. Niviarsiang hangs a pair of boots around his neck and he swims ashore, but Savirqong, instead of giving him meat, puts stones in the boots and Ijirqang drowns. In revenge, Niviarsiang sends the young dogs over to gnaw off her father's feet and hands. He, in return kicks her overboard when she happens to be in his boat, and when she hangs on the gunwale he cuts off her fingers, which, when they fall in the ocean, turn into [[whale]]s and [[Pinniped|seals]].<ref>Boas, "The Central Eskimo" 637. This aspect of the Adlet myth is similar to an element in the mythology of [[Sedna (mythology)|Sedna]], the Inuk goddess of marine animals. See Newell Wardle, "The Sedna Cycle: A Study in Myth Evolution."</ref>

Since Niviarsiang is scared her father might kill the Adlet, she sends them inland, and from them a numerous people springs. The young dogs she sends across the ocean in a makeshift boat, and arriving beyond the sea they became the Scandinavian ancestors.<ref>Boas, "The Central Eskimo" 637.</ref>

==Anthropological interpretation==
One interpretation of the phenomenon of the Adlet (and the theme of the "Dog Husband") sees the difference between the dog-like children and the other, the Adlet, as crucial. The dogs are sent overseas and will return as white Scandinavians to bring things favorable to the Inuit, whereas the Adlet, "swift runners of an aggressive disposition," become a kind of inland spirit, to be kept at bay. Thus, the "Dog Husband" myth carries the value of a [[cargo cult]]: "by offering their [sexual] favors to the dog-like Whites aka Nords, the Inuit daughters serve as mediators in obtaining their desirable goods."<ref>Sonne 20.</ref> A reading of the account as a "Whaler myth," in a culture in which the Inuit were economically dependent on the mechanically superior products supplied by the Scandinavian whalers, the story transforms material dependence on the white whaler into a reciprocal relationship, whereby the Scandinavian Nord comes back to repay his mother.<ref>Sonne 26.</ref>

Franz Boas and Hinrich Rink offer two options for the occurrence of a legend explaining the origin of whites aka Nordic people. Either the tradition dates back to when the Inuit first made contact with Scandinavians (which they consider highly unlikely), or, more likely, it is the adaptation of an already existing tradition, modified to account for the coming of the Scandinavians aka Nords.<ref>Boas and Rink 126-27.</ref> [[Signe Rink]] proposes a similar explanation in a hypothetical historical narrative that also takes linguistic evidence into account.<ref>Rink, "The Girl and the Dogs" 184-86.</ref>

The "Dog Husband" theme is paralleled in other tribal mythologies. The [[Dakelh]] (formerly known as the "Carrier tribe"), the indigenous people of the inland of [[British Columbia]], tell a number of similar stories. In one of those stories, a woman suspects she is being violated nightly, and throws a little bag of vermilion paint on the violator; the next day, she identifies him as a big dog, and later gives birth to four dogs.<ref>Morice 28-29.</ref> Father Morice, writing about this and other stories he had been told by the Carrier people, posits that there might be "a sort of national tradition among the hyperborean races of America, since even the Eskimo have a story which is evidently the equivalent of it," proceeding to summarize the account as given by Franz Boas in "The Central Eskimo" (1888).<ref>Morice 35.</ref> Similar stories (both about the Adlet and the woman who marries a dog) are told on the Siberian side of the [[Bering Strait]], among the [[Chukchi people|Chukchi]].<ref>Bogoras 671.</ref>

==Adlet stories==
A number of stories containing Adlet were written down by ethnographers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

==="The Tornit and the Adlit"===
Many tales were told by the "Smith Sound Eskimo," an Inuk from [[Smith Sound]] who was in [[New York City]] in the winter of 1897–1898, and published by A.L. Kroeber for the ''[[Journal of American Folklore]]''. Two Tornits (another fabulous race from Inuit lore) find themselves among savage and cannibalistic Adlet. They sneak out at night and as they are leaving they cut the thongs on the Adlet's sledges that fasten the crossbars to the runners. The dogs start barking, but as the Adlet mount their sledges the runners fall off and the Tornit get away.<ref>Kroeber 167-68.</ref> The same Smith Sound Eskimo also told a variant of the Adlet story related by Boas in "The Central Eskimo." In this version, the Tornit are the woman's offspring as well,<ref>Kroeber 168-69.</ref> but Kroeber remarks that they are "ordinarily not connected with this tale."<ref>Kroeber 169 note 3.</ref> Other stories told by the Smith Sound Eskimo, such as "The Origin of the Narwhal," also contain murderous Adlet.<ref>Kroeber 170-71.</ref>

===Aselu===
In Inuit folklore from [[Point Barrow]], [[Alaska]], there exists a tale of a dog named Aselu who plays a central role in an unusual origin story.<ref>Murdoch 594-95.</ref> Aselu is bound to a stick but manages to free himself by gnawing through it. After gaining his freedom, he enters a dwelling where he has intercourse with a woman. This union results in offspring who are both human and canine in nature, underscoring themes of interconnection between humans and animals in Inuit belief. This story, while not explicitly involving the Adlet, shares a similar theme of hybrid beings, with humans and dogs sharing bloodlines, hinting at an ancestral bond that may also extend to the Adlet's mythical origins.

=== The Origin of the Narwhal" ===
Another tale featuring the Adlet is "The Origin of the Narwhal," also told by the same Smith Sound Inuk. This story, while primarily concerned with explaining the existence of the narwhal, includes a reference to the Adlet as merciless hunters or murderers. The presence of the Adlet in stories that revolve around creation or origin myths reflects the danger and struggle inherent in Inuit life, where survival is constantly threatened by the unknown and the untamable forces of nature.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kroeber |first=A. L. |url=https://archive.org/details/bulletin-american-museum-natural-history-12-265-327 |title=The Eskimo of Smith Sound |last2=Boas |first2=Franz |last3=Peary |first3=Robert E. |date=1900 |language=English}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==Literature cited==
*{{cite journal|last=Boas|first=Franz|title=The Central Eskimo|journal=Annual Reports|year=1888|volume=6|pages=470–666|publisher=[[Bureau of American Ethnology]]}}
*{{cite journal|last=Boas|first=Franz|title=The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay|journal=[[Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History]]|year=1907|volume=15|pages=4–570|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UYNCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA524|access-date=25 July 2010}}
*{{cite journal|doi=10.2307/533321|last=Boas|first=Franz|author2=Hinrich Rink|title=Eskimo Tales and Songs|journal=[[Journal of American Folklore]]|year=1889|volume=2|issue=5|pages=123–131|jstor=533321}}
*{{cite book|last=Boas|first=Franz|title=Race, language, and culture|year=1982|publisher=U of Chicago P|isbn=978-0-226-06241-9|chapter=The Folklore of the Eskimo|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BnEV5JwQFhoC&pg=PA512}}
*{{cite journal|doi=10.1525/aa.1902.4.4.02a00020|last=Bogoras|first=Waldemar|title=The Folklore of Northeastern Asia, as Compared with That of Northwestern America|journal=[[American Anthropologist]]|year=1902|volume=4|series=new series|issue=4|pages=577–683|doi-access=free}}
*{{cite book|last=Green|first=Thomas A.|title=The Greenwood Library of World Folktales: North and South America|year=2008|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=978-0-313-33787-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PHfYAAAAMAAJ&q=Adlet}}
*{{cite book|last=Hodge|first=Frederick Webb|title=Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico|year=1907|publisher=Government Printing Office|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ICpUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA14|isbn=1-58218-750-9}}
*{{cite journal|doi=10.2307/534175|last=Kroeber|first=A.L.|title=Tales of the Smith Sound Eskimo|journal=[[The Journal of American Folklore]]|year=1899|jstor=534175|volume=12|issue=46|pages=166–82|publisher=[[American Folklore Society]]}}
*{{cite journal|last=Morice|first=Father|title=Three Carrier Myths|journal=[[Transactions of the Canadian Institute]]|date=October 1896|pages=1–36|publisher=[[Royal Canadian Institute]]}}
*{{cite journal|doi=10.1086/274287|last=Murdoch|first=John|title=A Few Legendary Fragments from the Point Barrow Eskimos|journal=[[The American Naturalist]]|year=1886|volume=20|pages=593–99|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=krwUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA593|access-date=26 July 2010|publisher=[[American Society of Naturalists]]|issue=7|doi-access=free|url-access=subscription}}
*{{cite journal|doi=10.1525/aa.1900.2.3.02a00100|last=Newell Wardle|first=H.|title=The Sedna Cycle: A Study in Myth Evolution|journal=[[American Anthropologist]]|year=1900|volume=2|series=new series|issue=3|pages=568–580|jstor=658969|doi-access=free}}
*{{cite book|last=Rink|first=Hinrich|title=Tales and traditions of the Eskimo: with a sketch of their habits, religion, language and other peculiarities|year=1875|publisher=W. Blackwood and Sons|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KDNCAAAAIAAJ|author2=Robert Brown|access-date=26 July 2010|isbn=0-486-29966-X}}
*{{cite journal|doi=10.1525/aa.1898.11.6.02a00030|last=Rink|first=Signe|title=The Girl and the Dogs: An Eskimo Folk-Tale with Comments|journal=[[American Anthropologist]]|year=1898|volume=11|issue=6|pages=181–87|jstor=658452|doi-access=free}}
*{{cite book|last=Sonne|first=Birgitte|title=The Acculturative Role of Sea Woman: Early contact relations between Inuit and Whites as revealed in the Origin Myth of Sea Woman|year=1990|publisher=[[Commission for Scientific Investigations in Greenland]]|isbn=978-87-635-1198-8|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Esc-457eWJUC&pg=PA25|access-date=26 July 2010}}

{{Inuit religion}}

[[Category:Inuit mythology]]
[[Category:Inuit legendary creatures]]
[[Category:Mythological dogs]]
[[Category:Mythological human–animal hybrids]]