Qallupilluit

Qallupilluit: Female ocean creatures of Inuit legend created to keep children away from the cracks in the ice. The story goes that if a child comes too close to the cracks without their parents, the Qallupilluit will rise up from the waters and take the child to live with them forever on the ocean bottom.

Qallupilluit are short with cold blueish skin (according to Vladyana Krykorka's illustrations in Michael Kusugak and Robert Munsch's A Promise is a Promise). They wear parkas made of loon feathers and their wild hair is home to fish, crab and seaweed.

Michael Kusugak came to our school a couple of weeks ago and told stories in his singsong voice. Like Robert Munsch, he tells his stories to groups of kids over and over before he begins to write it down. He had our students hanging on his every word.

We read his story, A Promise is a Promise, soon after his visit. Once again, the kids were listening, slack-jawed. Their eyes were wide whenever the Qallupilliut spoke in voices that sounded like wind blowing over the ice. Just the right amount of creepiness for a lead-up to Halloween.

And the perfect idea for a Halloween costume. I love this holiday! Unfortunately, when I reused the feathers for my loon costume at the social the next night, things didn't go over as well. Lots of "What are you supposed to be?" and "That's abstract." I guess my skirt wasn't short enough.