Mitaarfik, the terrifying New Year tradition in Greenland

Imagine this: it’s dark, very dark and cold, out, as a regular winter, in the far north.
You’re walking with your friends around when you hear a noise, followed by some heavy breathing nearby, and then two large figures emerge from around the corner, one carrying a harpoon, the other wearing seal skins and holding even a long chain.
Both have faces smeared with soot and distorted by tightly wound strings across their noses.
You start looking for an escape route, but two more similar characters with similar masks appear just steps away, approaching rapidly.
They wave large sticks, until you and your friends starts to run.
Yes, of course you’re not in real danger, because this is just another night during the first week of January in Greenland, when the annual tradition of Mitaarfik is in its full swing!

Marking the end of the Christmas holiday and culminating on January 6, this secular tradition mixes fear and fun, costumes, culture and candy, but also ancient Inuit beliefs with a couple of modern twists.
Winter in Greenland, the world’s largest island is long and very dark, but also a time for feasting and social engagement.
Many pass the long evenings with traditional performances, games, and dances, and January 6 marks the Christian feast of Epiphany, Kunngit Pingasut Ulluat in Greenlandic, but here marks also the main day of Mitaarfik, that typically kicking off on the evening prior, celebrated throughout many generations to mark the New Year.
Mitaarfik involves mostly silent performances, conducted by a group of characters called mitaartut, who wear masks and frighten or tease passersby.
The word comes from “mitaarneq”, literally “cutting faces”, “distortion of the face”, or also “making grimaces”.
Traditionally, they are not allowed to speak, and their goal is to remain anonymous, but how scary or funny it is depends on where in Greenland you are.
In Nuuk, for example, in the south of Greenland, the masked characters knock on the doors of local homes and enter the hallway.
They’re then encouraged to dance, sometimes accompanied by music and children often participate with improvised dancing.
If the family cannot guess who is under the mask, the mitaartoq is rewarded with a treat such as candy or cake, even though sometimes the sweets are a way to rid them from your home.
However, in places like Ilulissat, in the North, the tradition is a little more on the sinister side, and all it’s about being scary, really scary.
The mitaartut tend to be older, and come when night falls, carrying weapons like harpoons, whips, or chains, sometimes chasing people.
Historically, some have used masks made of leather or cardboard, with raggedy clothes that were stuffed to appear larger, sometimes with a bird’s wing covered in soot.
Mitaarneq has more recently been spread to East Greenland due some of the old Uaajeerneq customs revived, where individuals danced in representation of various mythic figures and animals.
And, in short, this is an ancient drum dancing and dramatic performance tradition that was celebrated in the winter and summer.

However, the full origin of Mitaarfik is muddled, but probably comes from a combination of word of mouth, old literature, and legends.
The oldest recorded of disguised something similar at Christmas goes back to the 1820s, but they may or may not have been called mitaartut.
In any case, Greenlanders in general have a conspicuous interest in the mysterious, and early literature connects the annual Mitaarfik tradition to Sassuma Arnaa, or “Sea Woman.”
In this Inuit belief, a shaman ritual is meant to please the deity so that she will release the seals for hunting and break the bad luck of cold and bad weather.
Although the Sea Woman ritual was an apparent annual event in the south, it was occasioned by a crisis, when wild storms sometimes broke open the newly formed ice, preventing people from moving out on the ice for hunting.

Not by chance there were several Inuit feasts full of masks and performances, often portraying scenes from real life, as a cultural feasts, but also as a pure entertainment when time goes slowly.
Over the years, Mitaarfik is thought to have been influenced by Christianity, brought to Greenland in 1721, such as the mute performances involved in the Scandinavian representation of the Three Holy Kings.
In Denmark’s religion tradition, the masked characters go from house to house, knock, goes in and doesn’t say a word, get cakes and sweets, and goes out just as silently, while the hosts try to guess who they are.
Some aspects of the Mitaarfik celebration were deemed illegal over the years, even if there is no proof that the traditions stopped completely, especially in some of the more remote settlements.
But, if you imagine, the complicated origin of the New Year tradition seems to mimic the masked mitaartoq: shrouded in mystery and unwilling to reveal itself.
And no matter how it came to be or in which way people choose fear or fun, as it’s always a mysterious way to start the new year, full of unknown things to come.