I have been working on a small series of drawings called, The Seven Gods of my Nightmares. (read more here: UG)

Hive account@owasco, who always asks questions that make me think, got me into comparing these works to the Greenlandish tupilak, a fearsome killer-spirit that has become synonymous with small art figurines made in whale tooth or wood. The real tupilak is a creature of the spirit realm and is only visible to the shaman.

I found the story about how this artform came to be - it is in Danish: http://www.tidsskriftetgronland.dk/archive/2001-2-Artikel04.pdf

A tupilak is a killer spirit that the shaman can create from the bones of various animals and incantations. I know them from Knud Rasmussen's stories that he collected in the Arctic around the turn of the century. Only the shaman can see the creature, but a strong spiritual person can withstand the attack by turning the tupilak around. Then it will come for the shaman who sent it.

You can see some images of the tupilak figurines here

In 1905, the Danish researcher William Thalbitzer asked the shaman Mitsuarniannga to draw a tupilak. After all, only shamans could see these creatures. Paper and pencil was not a medium Mitsuarniannga had ever used and the drawing was not made. In order for neither of them to lose face, they both pretended that the wish had not been made.

But before Thalbitzer left, Mitsuarniannga gave him some wooden figures he had made. Where drawing and writing were not part of East Greenlandic culture, carving was, so he had made the image in 3d. (my wife loved this part, being an artist that works in three dimensional objects).

Queen Margarethe II with tupilak figurines on her desk. Found here.

These little carved illustrations of what a tupilak looks like is a bit like my drawings. Grotesque, funny, creepy. The closest you can get to the mystical.

This is the second God of my nightmares. Ahhu.