The Tuniit

In Inuit oral history, the Tuniit are a people who lived in the Arctic before the Inuit. The Canadian Encyclopedia says many take them to be the Dorset, a people known from archaeology.

The Canadian Encyclopedia says Inuit oral histories and knowledge name at least two peoples who were in the Arctic before the Inuit: the Sivullirmiut, the first inhabitants, and the Tuniit, a later group, though the two names sometimes mean the same people. The oral histories describe Inuit dealing directly with the Tuniit, and much of what they say about them closely matches the archaeological record of the Dorset, so many consider the two the same. The Avataq Cultural Institute says the stories probably recall meetings in Nunavik between the Thule and the Dorset more than 700 years ago.

Franz Boas's The Central Eskimo (1888) records tellings about the Tornit. They were said to be far taller than the Inuit, with very long arms and legs, mostly blear-eyed, and strong enough to lift boulders the Inuit could not move. The same tellings say the Inuit of that age were also stronger than those of Boas's time, and point to large stones at Miliaqdjuin, a plain in Cumberland Sound, that the ancient Inuit threw for sport.

Toonik Tyme names honorary Tooniks. Nunatsiaq News reported in 2013 that Williamson Bathory had joined them, and that the title recalls the Tuniit, forerunners of today's Inuit, credited with superhuman skills. NBC News reported in 2014 that genetic analysis of living Arctic people and ancient remains shows the Dorset, an isolated Arctic culture, vanished centuries ago without leaving a genetic trace.