Case file · Folklore / legend
Torngarsuk and the Torngat Mountains
The Torngat Mountains of northern Labrador take their name from the Inuit word for spirits; Torngarsuk, the great spirit of sea and underworld, was thought to dwell there.
1771 CE · 59.00, -63.80 · status: legend
The account
Moravian missionaries, who founded their first permanent Labrador mission at Nain in 1771, and earlier missionaries in Greenland, recorded beliefs about Torngarsuk and the protective tornat spirits that angakkuit (shamans) worked with.
The sceptical view
Missionary sources often cast Inuit spirits as demons; the date marks the start of European records, not the age of the belief.