Traces of an Arctic Voice: The Portrait of Qalaherriaq

Abstract

This article analyses the portrait of the young Inughuit hunter Qalaherriaq, who was brought involuntarily to England from his home in Perlernerit (Cape York) in today's Kalaallit Nunaat (also known as Greenland) with Captain Erasmus Ommanney’s expedition vessel in 1851. The portrait’s highly unconventional representation, wherein the sitter is shown both en face and in profile, betrays an interest in nineteenth-century racial science and civilizing ideologies. Despite this problematic colonialist content, the double portrait serves as a record for the existence and experience of Qalaherriaq and the participation of Inuit individuals in European expeditions to the Arctic. As this article argues, the portrait is also a visual testimony to Qalaherriaq’s agency, adaptability, and deliberate performance in a social environment characterized by ethnocentrism and racism. Bringing in the trail of Inughuit and European sources that this portrait connects to, this article traces the nature and terms of Qalaherriaq’s stay in British society. As a decolonizing strategy, we use the method of concurrences to avoid universalizing perspectives on the past. Examining moments of competing truth claims in the European and Arctic sources about or relating to Qalaherriaq, we point to the competing perspectives on the Arctic, exploration, and British imperialism contained in this material.