In Inuit stories, Amarok is the title of a massive grey wolf. People say it will go after and eat anyone stupid enough to chase alone at night. Amarok hunts alone, while real wolves hunt in groups. The Amarok Wolf, sometimes spelt Amaroq, is a mythical animal that hunts alone instead of with a pack. It goes after people who go hunting alone at night & punishes them for being stupid.
It looks big and scary, and people think it is a massive wolf with razor-sharp teeth and strong hunting instincts. The story of an Amarok is believed to have come from old Eskimo tales about the dire wolf, which no longer exists.ย Many reports about the Amarok show the wolf in a good light. In one Inuit story, a weak boy his people disowned started praying to the gods for more strength. The Amarok helped the boy & wrestled with him every day so that the boy could get more robust. Once the boy was strong enough, he fought and beat three bears. This made him a hero in his community, and everyone looked up to him.
In many other stories, a strong warrior kills the Amarok Wolf to show how strong and skilled they are in battle. In one story, a bullied boy who isn’t very strong wants to get stronger. When he calls to the lord of power, an Amarok shows up and uses its tail to wrestle him to the ground. This makes a few of the boy’s small bones fall out of his body. This same Amarok tells the child that the bones stopped him from growing. He tells the boy to come back every day to get stronger. After wrestling with Amarok for a few days, the boy can defeat three big bears. This makes his village proud of him.
In some other tale, a man who is sad about a family member’s death hears that an Amarok seems to be nearby. He and a family member look for the Amarok. They find her puppies instead, and the mourner kills all of them. The mourner’s family member gets scared. Two people run away and hide inside a cave. When they look out, they see the adult Amarok carrying a reindeer back to her pups. When the Amarok can’t find her baby, she runs to a lake and pulls a humanoid shape out of the water. The mourner falls over at that moment. The mourner’s soul was taken by the Amarok, “out of which nothing can be hidden.”
The Amarok Wolf’s abilities depend on how big it is. Because it is so big, it is solid and a terrifying enemy.ย It is also a skilled hunter with very sharp senses that let it hunt humans at night when they don’t expect it. Some Inuit legends also tell us that the Amarok can be very passionate like the alone, weak boy left behind by his tribe.
Kayla, a sky god, made a man and a woman, leaving people alone to care for themselves and make it on their own. The man and woman looked around them and saw no creatures, not mosquitoes. The woman got tired of staring at the man all the time. She then spoke to Kayla and inquired him to fill the world with people. Kayla tried to tell her to break a hole in the ice and begin fishing. Well, she raised all the living creatures of the world one by one, starting with gobies, small fish that swim up the Great North waterways and ending with snow pheasants. The caribou was the last animal the woman talked about. Then Kaila told the woman that caribou was the best gift she could receive as it would help both women and men live. The woman let caribou go out and told them to have babies and form big groups that would roam the world’s forests and icy plains. So it was said, so it happened.
Caribous grew as many as people did. Man hunted caribou, ate caribou, and used caribou hide to make tents and clothes. Armed with bows and arrows, the poachers only killed the most extensive, strongest caribous, which had the most meat and the best skin hide. But. When the most beautiful animals were dead, only the sick, lame, and skinny ones were left, which neither men nor women wanted.
When the women saw that the men’s children were getting hungry and the leather for clothes and tents had been getting old and worn, they started to cry. Kayla saw the tears from the sky. Then he went to see “Amarok,” a wolf spirit who lived in the sky near him. Kayla asked “Amarok” to clean up the herds of caribou by sending wolves to earth. Kayla told “Amarok” to describe the wolves killing and devouring the sick and diseased caribous with their teeth and claws. The strong caribous will indeed know how to protect themselves from the wolves. They would breed again, and people would have a large herd of strong caribous. After that, the wolves went hunting.
After getting together in the forest, this same wolf pack sneaked on a caribou herd. When the caribous smelled the wolves, they gathered in a tight circle, with the adults in the front, to protect this same young and weak. On the other side, the wolves did know what they needed to do: they tried to rush toward the herd of caribou to break up the group and get the aggressive males to leave. With so many of them, the wolves were able to get away from a young caribou. The young animal quickly lost all of its power and let the pack of wolves surround him. The wolves moved forward, and then they leapt. They caught the caribou with their teeth.
The “Inuits” men knew what was happening from the mountain’s summit. Kaila gave the woman a wink from above, and the woman smiled. Since long ago, the spirit of “Amarok” has been in the Far North, and “Inuit” people have been letting wolves hunt without stopping them. The animal, as well as the caribou, are the same thing as the “Inuits.” Yes, because caribou feed the wolves, and the wolves take care of the health of the caribou herd.
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