tupilat

... the word tupilak is used of a small carving 10 or 15 cm high representing a grotesque or composite being, stretched and slightly curved, following the shape of the sperm-whale tooth out of which it is carved. Some of these tupilat are inspired ...

1986, Joelle Robert-Lamblin, Ammassalik, East Greenland - End or Presistance of an Isolate, Museum Tusculanum Press, →ISBN, page 115

To repeat, what the Eskimo does fear are the spirits of the dead or evil spirits — toornat or tupilat — which can bring misfortune and the most terrible suffering before death. Tupilat, who usually have big ears, some sort of horns, large protruding ...

1982, Jean Malaurie, The Last Kings of Thule: With the Polar Eskimos As They Face Their Destiny, New York: Dutton

The Inuit did not fear death but they did fear such spirits including the toornot, the spirits of the dead; the tupilat, the hideous creatures that populate nightmares; and the qivittoq, the glacier spirits which could take possession of a person who ...

1994, Deanna Swaney, Iceland, Greenland & the Faroe Islands: A Travel Survival Kit, Lonely Planet

The Eskimos entertain a great fear of the Tupilat, the Spirits of the Dead, who kill every one daring to offend them.

1971, Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington

Tupilat were there rumoured but neither fashioned nor seen. According to rumour , a tupilak could change size, from that of a fox to that of a caribou, and vice versa.

1987, Donnerska institutet för religionshistorisk och kulturhistorisk forskning, Saami religion