Arnaq

Arnaq or Egnock (died November 1577) was the name given by the English to an Inuk woman from what is now Baffin Island, Nunavut, who was taken hostage by Sir Martin Frobisher on his second journey to find the Northwest Passage.

Captain York sought to capture some of the local Inuit to serve as hostages that could be exchanged for the missing men.

However, after a bloody fight in which five or six Inuit men died, they only succeeded in capturing an old woman (who they let go) and Arnaq with her baby.

Attempts to arrange a hostage exchange failed and all three of the Inuit were brought back to England when the expedition returned home on 23 August.

Frobisher planned to present them to Queen Elizabeth and seems to have hoped that they might be taught English so that they could reveal more about their country and serve as interpreters on later expeditions.

[4] The family were taken to the mayor's house, Thomas Colston, and Kalicho performed numerous displays of his kayaking and hunting skills in Bristol harbour around 9 October.

[4] After he had been given a post-mortem by Dr. Edward Dodding, Arnaq was obliged to witness his burial at St Stephen's Church in Bristol on 8 November 1577.

Arnaq was buried as a "heathen" in St Stephen's Church in Bristol