The Monstrefact: Ikuutayuuq, The One Who Drills

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses the monstrous killer from Inuit traditions whose name translates to “One Who Drills.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the
Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters
in time. In this episode, I'd like to turn to
the traditions of the Inuit, specifically the Inuit of the
eastern Hudson Bay region of what is now Canada. In

(00:33):
the Dictionary of Native American Mythology, Sam D. Gill and
Irene F. Sullivan relate the story of a pair of killers.
In other tellings, monsters who terrorized the people. Ikutayuk, whose
name means one who drills and his brother would capture people,
pin them down on their backs, and then murder them

(00:54):
by drilling holes in their bodies. Afterwards, they would cover
a corpse with piles of rocks kirns, or to the
Inuit inuksuk inusuk, were largely used to aid navigation, but
were sometimes used as warnings of dangerous grounds. According to
the myth, the brothers continued their horrible crimes until a

(01:15):
twu Nit set out to stop them. The Tunit were
a legendary people said to live long ago, possibly connected
to an actual Paleo Esquima culture. They were tall giants even,
and possessed of fierce energy and competition. Gill and Sullivan's
share that tunit were said to die of exhaustion from
fierce competitions and feats of hunting and archery. And so

(01:37):
one brave Tunit took it on himself to rid the
people of the Kutuyuk and his brother. He challenged Akutuyuk
to a fight, and they battled while tied together with
a rope. The Canadian Museum of History features a nineteen
sixty carving by Inuit artist Issa Kupirowala a la Usa

(01:57):
depicting the back, which you can view on their website.
In the end, the two knit hero succeeded in killing
a Kutayuk, and the remaining brother fled into the wilderness.
The story of a Kuduyuk was also related by Inuit
author Jonasi Kuinurayak, who lived eighteen ninety five through nineteen
sixty four. Now you might wonder what manner of drill

(02:22):
this monstrous killer would have used. The Inuit traditionally made
use of the pump drill, an ancient hand powered tool
used in fire making as well as for drilling small
holes and objects for jewelry and the like. It's a
simple hand powered flywheel tool. The craftsperson revolves the drill
shaft by vertically working a bow or bar carrying a

(02:44):
cord attached at the center to the upper end of
the shaft. I realize this is hard to picture, so
I recommend looking up an image or video. Materially, the
pump typically involves some combination of wood, ivory, rawhide, metal, stone,
sometimes jadeite. According to the Pin Museum, there's also the
Inuit mouth drill. This was essentially a small bow drill

(03:05):
used for fire making, and the user would brace the
tool and provide downward pressure with the head via a
mouth or chin block. Now, to be clear, neither of
these tools was a weapon, but according to Robert Fortune
in his nineteen eighty five article Lancets of Stone Traditional
Methods of surgery among the Alaska Natives, there is reason

(03:26):
to believe that dental drilling may have been practiced to
alleviate toothpain, and that cranial drilling may also have been
practiced in some cases for either medical or magico religious purposes,
known as trepanation. This practice is found in cultures around
the world dating back to prehistoric times, with some rare
modern proponents of the procedure as well, so one can

(03:47):
imagine how the idea of murderous drillers might have emerged
in Inuit mythology and storytelling based on everyday technology and
or painful surgical procedures that had been experienced or witnessed.
The possibility of actual isolated drill based torture is, I
suppose not impossible. I ran across one reference to isolated

(04:08):
drill marks on Inuit remains a nineteen ninety three article
by Melby in Fairgrief titled a Massacre and Possible Cannibalism
in the Canadian Artic, But the consensus would seem to
be that the evidence in question suggested a mortuary practice,
with drill holes being just one of the classifications of
cuts found to the bone. Ikudu Yuk and his brother

(04:29):
are haunting figures to consider, and yet another fascinating aspect
of Inuit culture. Tune in to additional episodes of The
Monster Fact or The Artifact, or a new upcoming short
form series each week. As always, you can email us
at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot.

Speaker 1 (04:47):
Com Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio.
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