Uvavnuk

So the story was spoken in Inuktitut, written down and eventually published in Danish, and quickly translated into English for the publication of the international edition of his magnum opus.

In his 1961 Book of Eskimos, after half a century living in the Arctic, Freuchen tells the story slightly differently, calling it "grotesque in its mysticism".

But there was this remarkable thing about Uvavnuk, that as soon as she came out of her trance, she no longer felt like a shaman; the light left her body and she was once more quite an ordinary person with no special powers.

Shortly before her death she held a grand seance, and declared it was her wish that mankind should not suffer want, and she "manivai", i.e. brought forth from the interior of the earth all manner of game which she had obtained from Takånakapsåluk.

[8] Bernard Saladin D'Anglure, a Canadian anthropologist and ethnographer who speaks Inuktitut, used Uvavnuk's story in 1994 as an example of "a relationship between shamanism and the 'third gender' among the Inuit".

[9] Canadian cultural anthropologist Barbara Tedlock links Uvavnuk's bodily possession (i.e. the unconsciousness) with the resulting shamanic knowledge.

There are an unknown number of versions in English, some via the Danish intermediary and some direct from Inuktitut, but poet John Robert Colombo says "The song's power is such that its spirit vaults the hurdles of translation with ease.

Tom Lowenstein, a British poet who for many years lived in the village of Point Hope, Alaska, translated and reprinted Uvavnuk's song in 1973.

[16] Northern Voices (which, despite the subtitle, draws on oral poetry as well) was edited by literary scholar Penny Petrone as a pioneer work in the critical study of aboriginal literature in Canada.

[21] Icelandic explorer Fiann Paul, captain of "The Impossible Row" expedition, recited the poem on camera as he arrived in Antarctica in 2019.

[22] Uvavnuk's song, in the original Inuktitut, was incorporated into work by American composer John Luther Adams, Earth and the Great Weather (1995), using her phrase as his title.

Another musical adaptation was in 2006, when Theodore Wiprud composed "Three Mystical Choruses" of five minutes each, based on texts by Rumi, Uvavnuk, and Mahavediyakka.