qulliq

It is uncertain in which period the seal-oil lamps began to be used. They are part of a series of technological innovations among the Arctic peoples whose introduction and spread has been partly documented. Oil lamps have been found in sites of Paleo-Eskimo communities dating back to the time of the Norton tradition, 3,000 years ago.{{cite book |first=Don E. |last=Dumond |chapter=Coastal Adaptation and Cultural Change in Alaskan Eskimo Prehistory |editor-first=William |editor-last=Fitzhugh |title=Prehistoric Maritime Adaptations of the Circumpolar Zone |location=The Hague |publisher=Mouton |year=1975 |isbn=0-202-33075-3 |page=168 }} They were a common implement of the Dorset culture and of the Thule people, the lamps manufactured then showing little changes compared with more recent ones.{{cite web|url=http://daphne.palomar.edu/ais130/Lectures/fnorth.htm |title=Far North Traditions|archive-date=10 September 2004|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040910195409/http://daphne.palomar.edu/ais130/Lectures/fnorth.htm}}

In Inuit religion, the story the Sun and the Moon involves the Sun carrying a {{lang|iu|qulliq}} oil lamp.{{Cite web|url=https://ecuip.lib.uchicago.edu/diglib/science/cultural_astronomy/cultures_inuit-4.html|title=eCUIP : The Digital Library : Science : Cultural Astronomy|website=ecuip.lib.uchicago.edu|access-date=14 October 2023|archive-date=22 September 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220922094844/https://ecuip.lib.uchicago.edu/diglib/science/cultural_astronomy/cultures_inuit-4.html|url-status=live}}

Among the Netsilik if the people breached certain taboos, Nuliajuk, the Sea Woman, held the marine mammal in the basin of her lamp. When this happened the angakkuq had to visit her to beg for game.Rasmussen 1965:278 This story also inspired a New Year or Quviasukvik tradition in which three lamps were extinguished and relit during the first sunrise.

Historically, the lamp was a multi-purpose tool. The Arctic peoples used the lamp for illuminating and heating their tents, semi-subterranean houses and igloos, as well as for melting snow, cooking, and drying their clothes.

In present times such lamps are mainly used for ceremonial purposes. Owing to its cultural significance, a {{lang|iu|qulliq}} is featured on the coat of arms of Nunavut.

A {{lang|iu|qulliq}} was lit to commence the investiture ceremony of Mary Simon, the first Inuk, and indigenous person, to be appointed to the position of Governor General of Canada, in the Senate Chamber, 26 July 2021.{{Cite web |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mary-simon-installed-as-governor-general-1.6114622 |title=Mary Simon officially becomes Canada's first Inuk Governor General |access-date=26 July 2021 |archive-date=31 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220531112543/https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mary-simon-installed-as-governor-general-1.6114622 |url-status=live }}

The Qulleq party in Greenland is named after the lamp.{{Cite web |last=Adserballe |first=Nicolas |last2=Jacobsen |first2=Johanne Breum |date=2025-02-08 |title=Grønland står over for et skæbnevalg. Information klæder dig på til at følge med |url=https://www.information.dk/indland/2025/02/groenland-staar-skaebnevalg-information-klaeder-paa-foelge |access-date=2025-03-08 |website=Information |language=da}}

File:Descriptive booklet on the Alaska historical museum (1922) (14758775556).jpg

The Inuit oil lamps were made mainly of soapstone, but there are also some made of a special kind of pottery.{{Cite web|url=http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=488|title=Alaska Native Collections - Oil lamp|access-date=12 July 2016|archive-date=18 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220318074002/https://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=488|url-status=dead}} Sizes and shapes of lamps could be different, but most were either elliptical or half-moon shaped.{{cite web|url=http://www.alaskanative.net/en/main-nav/education-and-programs/cultures-of-alaska/inupiaq-and-stlawrence-island/ |title=The Inupiaq and the St. Lawrence Island Yupik Cultures of Alaska|date=2011|archive-date=5 February 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130205031755/http://www.alaskanative.net/en/main-nav/education-and-programs/cultures-of-alaska/inupiaq-and-stlawrence-island/}} The taqquti or wick trimmers, also known as lamp feeders, were made of wood, willow, soapstone, bone or ivory.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cTfK0wGGt2YC&pg=PA302 |title=Uqalurait: An Oral History of Nunavut |access-date = 11 March 2020|last1= Bennett|first1=John|first2=Susan|last2=Rowley|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press|date=19 May 2004|page=302|isbn=9780773570061}}

The wick was mostly made of Arctic cottongrass (suputi), common cottongrass{{cite web|url=https://www.mun.ca/biology/delta/arcticf/_ca/www/cyeran.htm|title=Flora of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago|publisher=mun.ca/biology/delta/arcticf/|access-date=31 March 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605181230/http://www.mun.ca/biology/delta/arcticf/_ca/www/cyeran.htm|archive-date=5 June 2011|url-status=dead}} and/or dried moss (ijju/maniq {{langx|ik|peqaq}}){{Cite web|url=http://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/fact-sheet-information-about-the-qulliq.pdf|title=Fact Sheet: Information about the Qulliq|access-date=11 March 2020|archive-date=25 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200925133534/http://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/fact-sheet-information-about-the-qulliq.pdf|url-status=live}} It was lit along the edge of the lamp, providing a pleasant light.{{Cite web|url=http://alaska.si.edu/media.asp?id=830&object_id=488|title=A woman demonstrates the use of a stone oil lamp, resting on a metal stand. Gambell, 1960. Anchorage Museum|access-date=12 July 2016|archive-date=26 February 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220226063723/https://alaska.si.edu/media.asp?id=830&object_id=488|url-status=dead}} A slab of seal blubber could be left to melt over the lamp feeding it with more fat.{{cite web|url=http://www.ralphmag.org/GD/eskimo-reading.html |title=Eskimos and the Long Winter Darkness|url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120728052631/http://www.ralphmag.org/GD/eskimo-reading.html |archive-date=28 July 2012}} These lamps had to be tended continually by trimming the wick in such a way that the lamp would not produce smoke.{{cite book |author-link=Josephine Diebitsch Peary |first1=Josephine |last1=Peary |first2=Marie |last2=Ahnighito |year=1903 |title=Children of the Arctic |publisher=F. A. Stokes Company |location=New York |oclc=6534622 |url=https://archive.org/details/childrenofarctic00pear/page/n8/mode/2up }}

Although such lamps were usually filled with seal blubber and the English term 'seal-oil lamp' is common in writings about Arctic peoples, they could also be filled with whale blubber in communities where there was whaling.{{cite web |url=http://www.msac.uoguelph.ca/Engloss.htm|title=Glossary Kudlik|publisher=Macdonald Stewart Art Centre|access-date =31 March 2009|archive-date=30 September 2003|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030930162824/http://www.msac.uoguelph.ca/Engloss.htm}} However, the term 'whale oil lamp' refers to a different kind of lighting device.{{Cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbEb7QLUrY0|title=Antique Whale Oil Lamps - Demonstration|date=May 2014 |via=www.youtube.com|access-date=12 July 2016|archive-date=10 May 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200510180705/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbEb7QLUrY0&gl=US&hl=en|url-status=live}}

Generally caribou fat was a poor choice, as was the fat of other land animals, seal oil being a more efficient fuel for the lamp. Women used to scrape the skin of a freshly skinned seal with an ulu in order not to waste any fat.{{Cite AV media|people=Kunuk, Zacharias|date=10 May 2019|title=Silakut Live From the Floe Edge Episode 3, Life at the Floe Edge|url=http://www.isuma.tv/silakut-series/silakut-episode-3-h264new|minutes=8|access-date=12 May 2022|archive-date=25 June 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220625142711/http://www.isuma.tv/silakut-series/silakut-episode-3-h264new|url-status=live}} Once the seal skin was stretched and dried it would be scraped using a halukhit{{cite web|url=http://www.climatetelling.info/ulukhaktok2.html|title=Ulukhaktok, Inuvialuit Settlement Region|date=2021|access-date=11 May 2022|archive-date=22 May 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220522135611/http://www.climatetelling.info/ulukhaktok2.html|url-status=live}} to remove the dried fat.

Realizing that these lamps were such an important fixture of the Inuit household that "when the family moved the lamp went along with it", Arctic explorer William Edward Parry (1790–1855) commented:

{{blockquote|The fire belonging to each family consists of a single lamp or shallow vessel of lapis ollaris, its form being the lesser segment of a circle. The wick, composed of dry moss rubbed between the hands until it is quite inflammable, is disposed along the edge of the lamp...Kashevaroff, Andrew P. (1922) Descriptive booklet on the Alaska Historical Museum, Alaska Historical Library and Museum, b. 1863 Alaska Historical Association}}

{{Gallery

|height=200

|width=200

|mode=packed

|title={{lang|iu|Qulliq}} and tools

|File:Handbook to the ethnographical collections (1910) (14596895307) (cropped to ivory lamp-feeder).jpg|Ivory lamp feeder

|File:Halukhit (sharp scraper).jpg|A halukhit or sharp scraper used to remove dried fat from a seal skin

|File:Greenland 1999 (33).jpg|Seal drying before being scraped with a halukhit

|File:Tinder box, home made with cotton.jpg|Home made tinder box with cotton. This would be used for the wick.

|File:Coat of arms of Nunavut.svg|Coat of arms of Nunavut, featuring a stylized lit qulliq next to a blue inuksuk

}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |last=Rasmussen |first=Knud |author-link=Knud Rasmussen |title=Thulefahrt |language=de |year=1926 |publisher=Frankurter Societăts-Druckerei |location=Frankfurt am Main |ref=Ras26}}
• {{cite book |last=Rasmussen |first=Knud |title=Thulei utazás |language=hu |publisher=Gondolat |series=Világjárók |location=Budapest |year=1965 |others=transl. Detre Zsuzsa |ref=Ras65}} Hungarian translation of Rasmussen 1926.
• Rasmussen, Knud (1927) [https://archive.org/details/acrossarcticamer006641mbp Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition]

{{Commons category|Seal-oil lamps}}

• [http://www.isuma.tv/en/arnaitvideo/qulliq-oil-lamp Qulliq (Oil Lamp)] presented by Arnait Video Productions

Category:Oil lamp

Category:Inuit tools

Category:Chukchi culture

Category:Yupik culture

Category:Siberian Yupik