The Qallupilluit are indeed a race of mysterious sea creatures. Inuit folklore says that their bodies look like people; although they are wrapped in slime & their skin is indeed a pale green colour. People say that they have fins and big, webbed hands and feet. Older Inuit people often say that Qallupilluit frequently sports an amauti of eider duck skin. This is a basket which Inuit mothers dress on one‘s backs to carry their young children. The Qallupilluit are often heard trying to knock on the undersurface of ice layers. Elders in the Inuit culture say that when they sing, it sounds like “be-be-be-be-be-be!”
The Qallupilluit takes alone children, puts people in their amauti, and then swims away. Some stories say that Qallupilluit has even grabbed and taken away grown-ups, like kayakers who went too far away from the recognized waters. Those who a Qallupilluit takes are pulled into the ocean and never seen again.
Those who the Qallupilluit takes are pulled into the ocean and never seen again. Because of this, people think that all these creatures are indeed an oceanic version of the classic “bogeyman” figure that is often discovered in folktales: a tale about a scary monster that steals children, which would be told to children to scare them into being good. No matter what, these sea creatures are not very smart, which is their weak point. Some tales are about kids who trick a Qallupilluk into leaving them alone.
The Qallupilluit looks like a scary mermaid. Its skin is bumpy and scaly, and it has a greenish-blue colour. The demon also has long, straight hair as black as night. The backs of their chiefs and spines are also where their fins come out. The Qallupilluit draws children to itself by humming potently alluring tunes in their direction.
When a child gets close enough, the creature grabs it with its amauti and runs away. Some argue about what they should do with the children they have taken, but none of the ideas is good. In the worst case, they eat these same children to stay young and alive. At best, those who put them to sleep and lock them away in cold caves for all time.
More particularly, the Qallupilluit lives where the ice is thin and will take advantage of how shallow the water is. It accomplishes this by trying to knock on the most delicate parts of the ice, which draws children above the floor to the noise. When the children break the ice, the frogs catch them. This is one method that Inuit moms and dad would use to tell their kids not to go out on thin ice because the Qallupilluit might have to wait for it to break.
