Adlivun

A dog lies across a doorway under the earth. When the dead arrive it shifts, only a little, just enough to let a soul squeeze past, and then settles back. Inside, a man with one eye lies on the sleeping ledge under a heap of worn-out skins. He does not get up. He never moves while he is in the house. The newcomer has to lie down beside him for a whole year, and all that year he pinches.

That is Adlivun, as the Inuit of Cumberland Sound and the Davis Strait coast of Baffin Island described it to the German-born anthropologist Franz Boas, who spent 1883 and 1884 among them and published the account in *The Central Eskimo* in 1888. Boas is the source for the name. The word means “those who live beneath us”: the dead first, and by extension the country they live in. It is a place defined by its inhabitants, which is fair enough, because the inhabitants are the reason anyone cared.

The country has an origin story, and it is a grim one. A proud girl named Sedna turned down every man who came to court her, then went away over the sea with a fulmar who promised her a tent of fine skins and a lamp that was never empty. His tent turned out to be fishskin full of holes. When her father came to fetch her home, he killed the bird, and the other fulmars raised a storm against the boat. To save himself he threw Sedna overboard, and when she clung to the gunwale he cut off her fingers joint by joint. The pieces fell into the sea and became whales and seals. Back on shore, Sedna set her dogs on him while he slept, and they gnawed off his hands and feet. He cursed himself, his daughter and the dogs. The earth opened and swallowed the hut, the father, the daughter and the dogs together, and they have lived in Adlivun ever since, with Sedna as its mistress.

What the record describes down there is not a landscape but a house. It is large, and there are no deerskins in it. Sedna and her father each keep one side. He is crippled, lies on the ledge and never moves while he is indoors; like her, he has only one eye. Her dog guards the entrance. The dead that her father seizes are carried to this dwelling, and Boas called it a dismal abode. No one described the walls, or the light, or whether there was any.

Not everyone goes there. The Baffin Inuit sorted the dead by how they died. People killed by accident or by violence, and women who died in childbirth, went up to Qudlivun, “the uppermost ones”, a happy land full of deer that are easy to catch and never touched by ice or snow. Those who died of disease, or who had offended Sedna by breaking her rules, went down to her. Murderers and others who had broken human law never left her house again. The rest, after their year beside the old man, went on down to Adliparmiut, where they lived comparatively at ease, hunting whales and walrus, though almost always troubled by ice and snow. Boas noted that the paired names hinted at a whole ladder of worlds stacked one below the other, and added that he could find no fuller description of it.

The journey starts slowly. On the Davis Strait coast, the soul was said to linger around its body for three days, unable to leave. Then it went down to Sedna’s house. For as long as it stayed in Adlivun it was a tupilaq, pictured as a man in wide, loose, shabby clothing, and it was dangerous. It roamed around the villages. It could not come into the houses, and if the angakoq announced that one was outside, nobody would step out. Its touch killed at once and the sight of it brought sickness. Only when it passed on and became one of the people of Adliparmiut was it at rest, and stopped being feared.

The underworld did not stay underground. Late in the autumn, when gales broke up the new sea ice and the floes ground against each other with loud crashes, people heard spirits in the air, and the tupilaq came knocking wildly at the huts. The worst visitor was Sedna herself, who rose from under the ground. Driving her back fell to the most powerful angakoq. In a large hut a rope was coiled on the floor to leave a small opening, the breathing hole of a seal. One angakoq stood beside it with a seal spear in his left hand and another held the line, while a third sat at the back and sang to lure her up. At last he heard her heavy breathing as she came up through the hard rock. She was harpooned, and she sank away in fury, dragging the harpoon after her while the two men hauled with all their strength, until she tore free and went back down to her dwelling in Adlivun. All that was left was the blood-spattered harpoon, which they showed around with pride. The next day there was a great feast, but everyone wore amulets on the tips of their hoods, because a wounded Sedna was angrier than ever.

Other observers heard neighbouring versions, and they do not agree. The explorer Charles Francis Hall, who travelled on Frobisher Bay in the early 1860s, was told of an Adliparmiut that was always dark, with no sun, snow always flying, terrible storms and a great deal of ice, where the unkind and the unhappy went and stayed forever. Lyon, who was at Iglulik with Parry’s expedition, heard of a lower world called simply Adli, four lands deep, where the first three levels had skies so low a man could not stand upright and the fourth was a good land of endless summer. In one Greenland tradition the good land was below and the souls reached it by sliding for five days down a rock slick with blood. Boas warned that an earlier visitor, Kumlien, had carried Greenland tales across to Cumberland Sound, and he trusted none of his statements on the subject.

A popular modern summary has Adlivun as a place where every soul is purified before rising to a land of the moon. The Baffin record does not say that. In Boas’s account, the upper world goes straight to the violent dead, Adlivun keeps the rest for a year, and the worst of them never leave.

Adlivun’s power is simple: it holds the dead. Its limits are just as plain. The dog lets souls through. The year runs out. Even Sedna, rising into the villages, can be met with a harpoon and sent home bleeding.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Adlivun in Inuit mythology?

Adlivun is the underworld of the Inuit of Cumberland Sound and the Davis Strait coast of Baffin Island, as recorded by Franz Boas in *The Central Eskimo* (1888). The name means “those who live beneath us” and refers both to the dead and to the country under the ground where they live. Sedna is its mistress.

Who rules Adlivun?

Sedna rules Adlivun and lives there in a large house with her father, who carries the dead down to it. When invoked as mistress of the underworld she is called Idliragijenget. Her dog lies across the threshold and moves aside only a little to let the souls in.

Who goes to Adlivun after death?

According to Boas’s Baffin Island informants, people who died of disease or who had offended Sedna by breaking her rules went to Adlivun. People who died by accident or violence, and women who died in childbirth, went instead to the happy upper land of Qudlivun. Murderers never left Sedna’s house, while the other souls moved on after a year to Adliparmiut, a deeper country where life was easier.

How long do souls stay in Adlivun?

Souls stay in Adlivun for one whole year, lying beside Sedna’s father, who pinches them. On the Davis Strait coast the soul first lingers around its body for three days before going down. While it is in Adlivun it is a dangerous ghost called a tupilaq, and it is only at rest once it passes on to Adliparmiut.

How did Sedna come to live in Adlivun?

In the Baffin Island story recorded by Boas, Sedna’s father threw her out of his boat and cut off her fingers, which became whales and seals. Sedna later had her dogs gnaw off his hands and feet, and when he cursed them all the earth opened and swallowed the hut, the father, the daughter and the dogs. They have lived in Adlivun ever since.

Related Entries

Sedna, Tupilaq, Qiqirn, Adlet, Qalupalik, Aningaat and Siqiniq, Mictlan, Xibalba, Duat, Hel, Tartarus, Elysium