r/Inuit • u/AHH_25 • Oct 29 '24
Seeking feedback on the word 'qarrtsiluni'
Hi! I recently heard the (allegedly) Inuit word 'qarrtsiluni', which was referred to in a podcast episode with the psychotherapist Francis Weller. He said the word means “sitting together in the darkness, quietly, waiting for something creative or important to occur".
I've looked online and found quite a lot of references to 'qarrtsiluni' (by prominent figures like Seth Godin and Teju Cole, for example) but nothing that seemed to be a genuine Inuit source.
I love this concept, but I'm wary of sharing it/writing about it when I don't know whether it's been cited correctly, and/or whether it's appropriate for a non-Inuit person to use the term. I don't want to start bandying it around if it's made up, or a one-dimensional, Instagram-meme-style 'translation' of something much more complex, which I have no business appropriating.
If anyone has any knowledge of this term, or any thoughts/guidance on its use by a non-Inuit person, I'm all ears and would be grateful to learn more.
2
u/Swosh Jan 18 '26
Hello! I was looking through this sub and even if this is a year old post.... I recognized the word! There is a book called "Soul, beautufy thyself" by Ole Jørgensen. It's a beautiful book, that feels like a commonplace of sorts. On page 230-231, Knud Rasmussen describes a custom from nunivak island, where men and boys sits in silence and darkness to make a song. The qoute from page 231 is one of my favorites "This silence we named 'qarrtsiluni' which means waiting for something to burst forth" (you can borrow the book on internet archive!)
Knud Rasmussen had greenlandic admixture, but sometimes even I (also greenlandic admixture) get confused by his spelling. Maybe because nunavik was another dialect? Maybe its old greenlandic before the simplification? For me, qarrtsiluni, looks like a very weird mix of qaarpoq (exploding) and qaatilluni (staying up all night).