Igalaaq's Wand
When the hero Igalaaq sought the blessings of Selkie form for his people from the god Silakpak, he was given a wand of bone. This wand held the power to transform any person it touched into a Selkie, if they should accept the blessing. With it, Igalaaq traveled the length and breadth of Umingmak, making his offer of transformation to all of the Unughuit. Those who accepted became the Tuniit Selkies, and their descendants live on Umingmak and the nearby islands to this day.
For many years, Igalaaq's Wand was a sacred treasure of the Tuniit. It was passed down to Igalaaq's children, and to his grandchildren. It never lost its power, and in hard years there would always be some of the Unughuit who would choose to join with the Tuniit, and gain the power to hunt the seas as a Selkie. When the wand was lost, it was a great catastrophe for all of Umingmak.
It was during one of the many conflicts with the Eyjamaður that the wand was lost. For generations, the Tuniit, Unughuit, and Eyjamaður have all vied for control of Sivernak, one of the best regions for fishing in the entire Great Ring. Battles have been fought there more than once, and the fish of Sivernak have long fed on the bodies of the fishers. The wand was then held by Nukilik, who was a direct descendant of Igalaaq, and carried the relic with him everywhere, unwilling to trust it to the care of another. When he was captured and killed by the Eyjamaður, the wand was lost. Most believe that Nukilik cast it into the sea rather than allow it to fall into Eyjamaður hands, but nobody is certain of its fate. There are those among the Tuniit who believe that after it was lost, it somehow made its way south to the Dòbhran Selkies of the Arcaibh Islands, and this is the source of their transformation. The Dòbhran claim that the loss was well after their own Selkie blessing, and claim no knowledge of the wand or its whereabouts. Still, it is a source of tension and bad blood between the two Selkie groups.
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