Qulliq

For the energy corporation, see Qulliq Energy.

This article contains Canadian Aboriginal syllabic characters. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of syllabics.
A qulliq being lit, Nunavut, 1999

The qulliq[1] or kudlik[2] (Inuktitut: ᖁᓪᓕᖅ, romanized: qulliq, IPA: [qulːiq]; Greenlandic: qulleq; Inupiaq: naniq), is the traditional oil lamp used by many circumpolar peoples, including the Inuit, the Chukchi[3] and the Yupik peoples.[4] The fuel is seal-oil or blubber, and the lamp is made of soapstone.[5] A qulliq is lit with a stick called a taqqut.

This characteristic type of oil lamp provided warmth and light in the harsh Arctic environment where there was no wood and where the sparse inhabitants relied almost entirely on seal oil or on whale blubber. This lamp was the single most important article of furniture for Inuit in their dwellings.[6]

  1. ^ Ohokak, Gwen; Kadlun, Margo; Harnum, Betty (27 March 2014). Agulalik, Gwen (ed.). Inuinnaqtun to English Dictionary. Nunavut Arctic College. p. 81. Retrieved 7 August 2024.
  2. ^ "'The hardest part of being from a Northern Indigenous community is all the deaths'". 10 February 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  3. ^ "Edward J. Vajda, The Chukchi". Archived from the original on 21 June 2018. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  4. ^ "National Museum of the American Indian : Yup'ik (Yupik Eskimo) Lamps". 2011. Archived from the original on 30 April 2011.
  5. ^ "PRISM - Blubber Lamps". Archived from the original on 24 October 2015. Retrieved 12 July 2016.
  6. ^ Joyce, T. A. & Dalton, O. M. (1910) Handbook to the ethnographical collections. British Museum. Dept. of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography Joyce,