Traditional Use

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Games

This game was made from an Arctic hare skull and leg bone by Labrador Inuit, about 1921.

The string figure known as Ukaliq or 'The Rabbit' is known from Alaska to Hudson Bay and Baffin Island, Nunavut. This is a relatively simple figure but there are at least two different methods of creating it. There is also a different form of 'Rabbit' and a more complicated figure called 'The Ptarmigan and the Rabbit', in which the rabbit is made to 'run' off after frightening the bird. (Arctic hares are known as 'rabbits' in the North).

String figures were an important pastime for Inuit during the dark period of the Arctic winter and poor weather in summer. Today, Inuit Elders and youth alike maintain the traditions of learning and sharing the joys of creating and teaching string figures and games.

An Arctic hare (Lepus arcticus) skull is the main component in one version of a traditional Inuit game called ajagak, a form of the ball-and-pin game that is also known as bilboquet. The 'pin' is a pointed long-bone. The 'ball' is a skull, and it is attached to the bone by a string. The player attempts to flip the skull so that it lands with the pin poking into a hole in the skull. The player attempts to pin the holes in a prescribed order.

This young Inuk is playing ajagak with an Arctic hare skull and bone at the Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum in Iqaluit, Nunavut.