The glyph of Sedna stands at the centre. The branches around it show the symbolism in four colours: gods in gold, archetypes in blue, traditions in green and narratives in red. Touch a branch and its explanation opens below the map.
Mother of the sea animalsThe woman on the sea floor
Sedna lives at the bottom of the sea and holds the seals, walruses and whales in her keeping. The abundance of the hunt depends on her goodwill. Boas writes that Sedna is the most important figure in the religious thought of the Baffin Island communities.
The fulmar husbandBoas's record
In the account Boas recorded from the Oqomiut and Akudnirmiut communities, Sedna refuses every young man who asks for her. In spring a fulmar sings her a sweet song and promises her an easy life in the land of the birds. Sedna goes with him, and when she sees that the house is made of fish skins full of holes she realises she has been deceived.
The severed fingersWhales and seals
Her father rescues Sedna, but the other fulmars raise a great storm. The father throws his daughter into the sea to give her to the birds. When Sedna clings to the edge of the boat, her father cuts off the first joints of her fingers, and these turn into whales. The second joints turn into ringed seals and the remaining ones into bearded seals.
The dog husbandA second story
Boas writes that the Sedna story became mixed with the tale of a woman who marries a dog. In this tale the woman is called Uinigumisuitung, 'she who does not want a husband', and from her children descend the Europeans and the dog-like beings called Adlet. According to some narrators the dog that lies at the door of Sedna's house is her husband.
AngutaThe father with the knife
In Boas's record the name of Sedna's father is Anguta or Savirqong, 'the man with the knife'. In revenge his daughter has her dogs gnaw off his hands and feet. The father utters a curse, and the earth opens and swallows them all. The father lies in the house on the sea floor and carries the souls of the dead there.
AdlivunThose below
In Boas's record Adlivun, meaning 'those who live below us', is the land of the dead, and Sedna is its mistress. The souls of the dead stay there for a year, beside Anguta. The happy land lies in the sky and is called Qudlivun, 'the uppermost ones'.
NuliajukThe Netsilik story
In the account Knud Rasmussen recorded from the Netsilik communities, Nuliajuk is a little girl with no one of her own. As people tie their kayaks together into rafts to cross to new hunting grounds, they throw her into the water, and when the girl clings to the edge of the raft they cut off her fingers. The stumps of her fingers become seals, and the girl sinks to the bottom of the sea and becomes the mother of the sea animals and later of all game animals. There is no father figure in this account.
The shaman's journeyAngakkuq
When the hunt fails, a shaman (angakkuq) falls into a trance and descends to the sea floor. According to Rasmussen's record from the Iglulik communities, the shaman first passes between three great stones that grind against each other on the sea floor. Then he reaches the stone house of Takanakapsaluk (Takannaaluk in today's spelling) and steps over the dog that blocks the passage. He tries to calm the woman so that she will release the animals.
The combed hairThe faults of the people
In the Iglulik account the hair of the sea woman is full of the filth that comes from people's breaches of taboo. Because she has no fingers, she cannot comb her own hair. The shaman combs and cleans it, and the woman releases the animals. After the shaman returns, the community openly confesses its breaches of taboo.
The taboosLand and sea
Boas writes that the rule forbidding work on sea animals and reindeer in the same season rests, as the Inuit told it, only on the fear of offending Sedna. Many of the rules tied to Sedna protect the order of hunting and eating.
The autumn festivalBoas's observation
Boas describes the autumn festival on Baffin Island. The shamans lay out a ring that stands for a seal's breathing hole, call Sedna up with song and harpoon her. Sedna is wounded and flees. The next day those born in summer and those born in winter pull against each other in a tug of war, and masked figures go round the village.
ArnaqquassaaqGreenland
In Greenland the woman on the sea floor is called Arnaqquassaaq, 'the old woman'. Drawing on Cranz and Rink, Boas reports that she sits before a lamp and holds back the animals because of the parasites that cover her head. When the shaman cleans them away, the animals are released again.
One figure, many namesRegional variety
Boas writes that Sedna, Nuliajuk and Arnaqquassaaq come from the same myth, but that the stories differ from one another in the forms travellers recorded. Today the accounts of Inuit elders also give different names and details from region to region. This page does not choose a single 'correct' form.
The sea woman in Inuit artStone carving and prints
Since the middle of the twentieth century the sea woman has been a frequent subject in the stone carvings and prints of Inuit communities such as Kinngait (Cape Dorset). These works interpret the figure from the community's own story, not from records made by outsiders.
The edge of the Solar SystemRare and distant
The orbit of Sedna is so elongated that even the gravity of Neptune hardly affects it. For this reason it counts as the first example of a region between the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. It will reach its closest point around 2076.
Sedna in modern astrologyNo established interpretation
After 2004 Sedna was much discussed in astrological writing, and its glyph was added to some software. The Unicode proposal David Faulks made in 2016 notes that Sedna is one of the new bodies most talked about among astrologers. Even so, no commonly accepted tradition of interpretation has formed, and it has no link to the classical system of dignities.