Tupilat Metaphysics: Exploring Other-Than-Human Subjectivity through the Lens of Rhizomatic Indeterminacy

This paper examines three tupilak assemblages made by Kalaallit angakkok Mitsivarniannga in 1905 and1906, by request of Danish ethnographer William Thalbitzer, as well as "tupilat" carvings sold as souvenirs throughout Kalaallit Nunaat. Drawing upon a framework of rhizomatic indeterminacy, Kalaallit and post-reformation European understandings of Mitsivarniannga's tupilat are understood to come from incompatible metaphorical systems (Nadasdy 2011) and thus differ in their realities. Despite this incommensurability, perceptions of tupilat are complementary phenomena (Nadasdy 2021); they both make up tupilat truths. These different routes of perception allow for a multiplicity of perspectives of tupilat and "tupilat", adding to the inbetweenness of their qualities. Understanding this, one can frame Mitsivarniannga's tupilat as something similar to material ghosts, as tangible forms of afterlife (Dawdy 2020), or as metapersons (Sahlins 2022)—though solely when in spirit form—as they lose their agential magic when embedded within a physical form. In delving into the realm of commodities, I ask: do "tupilat" carvings exist in a nuanced ontological space: transformed into fetishes through the agency of those who make and sell them and conjured to life through the act of the sale (Dawdy 2017)? When refracted through the lens of the fetishism, do Kalaallit artists act as mediators within a spiritual economy, transforming "tupilat" subjectivities through relationships within Kalaallit-tourist social networks?