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"As unpredictable—and probably just as controversial—as UFOs, Leyak are a supernatural phenomenon most feared by many Indonesians."
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Tupilak - in the mythology of the Greenland Eskimos, a kind of golem created by a shaman for revenge. Tupilak is created magically using various objects, both living (algae, branches) and no longer living nature (feathers, bones, skin, wool, tendons, and so on); among other things, parts of the bodies of the dead could also be included in the composition of magical elements. The Tupilacs were supposed to have the ability to pursue the enemy everywhere, move with equal ease in any environment: through the air, in water and on land. Therefore, as the Eskimos told, in the past, tupilaks were made from leather bags in which parts of the dead bodies of various animals were placed - for example, bird feathers symbolized air, sperm whale tooth - water, bones of a wolf or arctic fox - land.
The shaman breathed life into such a creature through special rites, involving chants and ritual copulation with a monster. After carrying out all the necessary procedures, the tupilak was thrown into the sea with the order to find and destroy the indicated enemy.
The use of tupilac was considered a risky business. If he was sent to kill a person with magical powers, he could turn the tupilak back with an order to deal with his creator. In this case, the shaman who created the tupilak could avoid death only by publicly confessing to his fellow tribesmen in the act of witchcraft he had committed.
In the Greenlandic Eskimo language, the word "tupilak" means the soul or spirit of a deceased person, and ideas about tupilaks in different Eskimo cultures could vary. So, if in the Greenlandic Eskimo mythology it was a doll of dead flesh endowed with life, then, for example, in the north-east of Canada, among the iglooliks, the tupilak was considered the invisible spirit of a recently deceased person, deprived of peace due to the violation of any taboo, to see which was only a shaman is capable, and only he could scare him away with a special knife. Among the Inuit caribou, the tupilak also appeared in the form of a spirit visible only to the shaman, which was a chimerical creature with a human head and body parts of various animals. He was believed to be a danger to the camp, but the shamans were allegedly able to fight with him and eat him with the help of their helper spirits. .
The oldest Tupilak carvings that have survived to this day were made in East Greenland: they were made of wood and wrapped with animal skin straps. Soon, the production of tupilak spread far beyond East Greenland. Since the middle of the twentieth century, these figurines have become the subject of a real tourism industry.
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