Anguta is the father of the sea goddess Sedna in the

Inuit religion Inuit religion is the shared spiritual beliefs and practices of the Inuit, an indigenous people from Alaska, northern Canada, parts of Siberia and Greenland. Their religion shares many similarities with some Alaska Native religions. Traditional I ...

. In certain myths of the

Greenlandic Inuit Greenlanders ( kl, Kalaallit / Tunumiit / Inughuit; da, Grønlændere) are people identified with Greenland or the indigenous people, the Greenlandic Inuit (''Grønlansk Inuit''; Kalaallit, Inughuit, and Tunumiit). This connection may be r ...

, Anguta (also called "His Father," Anigut, or Aguta) is considered the creator god and is the supreme being among

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...

. In other myths, Anguta is merely a mortal. He is a god of the dead in some myths. His name, meaning "man with something to cut", refers to his mutilating of his daughter which ultimately resulted in her godhood, an act he carried out in both myths. Anguta is a

psychopomp Psychopomps (from the Greek word , , literally meaning the 'guide of souls') are supernatural creatures, spirits, entities, angels, demons or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afte ...

, ferrying souls from the land of the living to the

underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwor ...

, called Adlivun, where his daughter rules. Those souls must then sleep near him for a year before they go to Qudlivun ("those above us"), where they will enjoy eternal bliss. In some versions of the myth, only unworthy souls have to stay with Anguta in the land of the dead. In these myths, he pinches the dead to torment them.

References

Creator gods Inuit gods Psychopomps {{NorthAm-myth-stub

See also

References