Qilaat means drum.

QILAAT is a page created by Varna Marianne Nielsen, who is also a researcher in the immaterial cultural heritage of Greenland, drumdancing and drumsinging.
This site, will evolve into a knowledge centre, for the Greenlandic (tivaneq inngernerlu) drumdancing and drumsinging, as her research continues to expand.

The purpose is to create awareness of the practice, aswell as to revive the spiritual, social, intellectual and artistic heritage, as a lived practice aswell as to narrate the understanding of the practice in a current context from an indigenous and practitioners perspective.

Our immaterial cultural heritage is facing critical consequenses with every generation that is not practicing it.
In great parts of Greenland Inngerneq has been fading towards silence, since Greenland was first colonized almost 300 years ago. In response to that, we founded a union for drumdancers in Nuuk “Peqatigiiffik Inngertartut” in 2014. This has given seeds to many new practitioners and created a curiousity and renewed focus towards the practice, but there is more work ahead.

The changes in our culture, mainly colonialism, has affected Inuit living circumstances dramatically. We had to assimilate to survive.
We were forbidden our heritage and today, 300 years later, we are forgetting.

Currently facing the so-called (“post”) colonial issues. Slowly starting to realize what we have lost and in process of reclaiming and reviving it.
The issues are not only the absense of the practice in general, but also that the loss, has installed fear for losing more, leading some practitioners to hold back from developing new songs.
The tradition is kept by a few peoples, since the average in Greenland do not have a connection to the tradition and even fewer are doing research with the indigenous approach as the main focus.
But it does not have to be this way.
We can change it and incorporate our practices in various ways.
The purpose of QILAAT is to dive into all elements of drumdancing, one by one, to create a space and access to knowledge of our sacred tradition.
This is ours to share and care for!

QILAAT will contribute to the preservation, development and revival of our immaterial cultural heritage far into the future. 

-Varna