Itqiirpak

Variations: Fireball

The Itqiirpak or Fireball is a creature from Alaskan Yupik folklore, notably from the Scammon Bay area. It appears as a crimson fireball flickering in the West over the sea, or, more alarmingly, as a big hand from the ocean with a mouth on each fingertip and a single large mouth in the palm of the hand.

An itqiirpak is a bad omen. It appears before terrible disasters, or it disposes of troublemakers directly.

A male itqiirpak was said to have burned through the entrance of a qasgiq (men’s house) and killed bad-mannered children there. It caught the children and dragged them out to eat them; all that could be heard was the crunching of their bones as the itqiirpak devoured them. When the men returned they saw the itqiirpak jumping up and down on the ice, looking like a fire. The monster was then slain by the men who left a swinging blade-trap for it. The female-hand remained at large and appeared whenever people were to die.

More modern itqiirpak stories tell of the fireball appearing before tragedies in the community, such as the drowning of two children in the Kun River in 2007. Simon saw the itqiirpak as a metaphor for tragedy and a cultural explanation for inexplicable tragedy.

References

Jacobson, S. A. ed. (2012) Yup’ik Eskimo Dictionary, v. I. Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Simon, K. A. The Meaning and Use of Narratives in a Central Yup’ik Community: The Scammon Bay ‘Fireball Story’. In Daveluy, M.; Lévesque, F.; and Ferguson, J. (eds.) (2011) Humanizing Security in the Arctic. CCI Press, Edmonton.

17 Comments

  2. ****ing christ, no **** it’s a bad omen, it either means you’re having the worst trjp ever or you’re about to atone for your sins by being eaten by the HAND. Imagine you go to Alaska to witness a beautiful sunset over the sea and you end up seeing this monstrosity instead. Happy Halloween indeed. XD

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