Adlet

In the Dog Husband cycle recorded by Franz Boas (often titled “The Girl and the Dogs” or “The Origin of the Qavdlunait and Irqigdlit”), a woman (variously named in retellings) marries a dog. Of their ten children, five are ordinary dogs and the others are dog‑bodied humanoids (Adlet). The mother places the dog‑children in a skin boat and sends them across the sea where they become the Qavdlunait (interpreted in Boas’s account as Scandinavian/white ancestors); she sends the Adlet inland, from whom a numerous people springs and are associated with inland native groups. The tale includes motifs of revenge and transformation elsewhere in the cycle (for example, violent acts producing whales or seals in some tellings), and scholars have read the narrative both as an older Dog‑Husband tradition and as a version adapted to incorporate contact with Scandinavian whalers.

Canonical descriptions portray the canine Adlet as having the lower body of a dog (hindquarters and legs) and the upper body of a man (torso and arms). Some accounts depict them as taller than Inuit and white people; other variants stress ordinary dogs as part of the offspring mix, and regional usage varies — Labrador and Hudson Bay communities commonly use 'Adlet' to refer to inland human peoples, while other areas employ Erqigdlit/Irqigdlit for the half‑dog humanoids.

Folkloric attributes emphasize exceptional running speed and an aggressive disposition; encounters with humans are often hostile but are described as usually ending with human victory, implying vulnerability to human force. Some variants ascribe cannibalism to Adlet. Interpretively, the Adlet motif also functions socially: as an ancestral explanation for inland peoples or as a narrative device to account for contact with outsiders (e.g., Scandinavians), so the creature's role combines physical threat with etiological significance.