Qilaut

Drum dancing, Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, Canada, 2019
Drummers at a dance near Nome in 1900.

The qilaut (Inuit language: "that by means of which the spirits are called up", syllabic: ᕿᓚᐅᑦ), (Inuinnaqtun: qilaun or qilauti or Greenlandic: qilaat ) is a type of frame drum native to the Inuit cultures of the Arctic.

The drum, used in Inuit music, is distinctive in that it has a handle and is made of caribou skin, which is not particularly resonant, giving it a dull, rumbling sound.

The frame of the drum with a stick, the qatuk (katuun / katuut / katuuti) and the act of beating the drum is called katuktuq. Most dances, qilaujjaqtuq, also involve singing, known as ingiuqtuq or pihiq, and the dancer is called qilaujjaqtuq.

Nunavut, Canada holds a songwriting contest, known as Qilaut, every year to cherish Inuktut music.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Lucien Lévy-Bruhl. Primitives and the supernatural. Haskell House Publishers, 1973 ISBN 0-8383-1589-5, ISBN 978-0-8383-1589-7, pg 132.
  2. ↑ Lucien Schneider (1985). Ulirnaisigutiit: An Inuktitut-English Dictionary of Northern Quebec, Labrador, and Eastern Arctic Dialects (with an English-Inuktitut Index). Presses Université Laval. pp. 299–. ISBN 978-2-7637-7065-9. Retrieved 10 November 2012.
  3. ↑ Ohokak, Kadlun & Harnum 1996, p. 132.
  4. 1 2 Ohokak, Kadlun & Harnum 1996, p. 48.
  5. ↑ Ohokak, Kadlun & Harnum 1996, p. 78.
  6. ↑ Ohokak, Kadlun & Harnum 1996, p. 39.
  7. ↑ Ohokak, Kadlun & Harnum 1996, p. 69.
  8. ↑ Ohokak, Kadlun & Harnum 1996, p. 127.
  9. ↑ "Qilaut". Canada: Government of Nunavut: (Culture, Language, Heritage and Art). Retrieved November 6, 2025.

References

Ohokak, Gwen; Kadlun, Margo; Harnum, Betty (1996). Inuinnaqtun to English Dictionary. Retrieved January 19, 2026.