SEDNA
Real Name: Sedna
Identity/Class: Inuit Goddess
Occupation: Goddess of sea and the dead
Group Membership: The Inua (Inuit Gods)(See COMMENTS)
Affiliations: Inuit people (worshippers), including Aningan Kenojuak
Enemies: Namor the Submariner, Thor, Chahuru
Known Relatives: Hodiak (father), Gaea/A'akuluujjusi (mother), Nelvanna (sister), Nanuq, Negafok, Turoq (brothers), Narya (Snowbird, niece)
Aliases: Arnakuagsak, Kannakapfaluk, Nerrivik, Nuliajoq, Sea Spirit, Sea Woman
Place of Birth: Qikiqtaaluk (modern-day Baffin Island, Nunavut, Canada)
Base of Operations: Adlivun (Undersea Kingdom)
First Appearances: (Mentioned) Avengers: The Man who
Stole Tomorrow (October, 1979)
(seen and identified) Thor II#3 (1998)
Powers: Sedna possesses the conventional attributes of the Anasazi gods including superhuman strength (Class 50) and endurance. She can also manipulate water in considerable volumes and command the creatures of the sea, particularly a huge dragon of considerable girth. Disdaining personal combat, she uses it in all her confrontations. She also has a siren call for enthralling mortal men and gods. There are some indications she is far stronger in the frozen north of the Arctic Circle than in the Atlantic around NYC.
Weaknesses: Lonely. Wants to marry a big, strong thunder god.
Physical Description: Sedna appears as green-haired humanoid with long black hair growing out of the sides of her face. She seems to wear some kind of armor. It can be asumed she is highly adapted to swimming.
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 250 lbs.
Eyes: Yellow (formerly white)
Hair: Green (formerly black)
History: (Thor & Hercules: Encyclopaedia Mythologica) - Sedna is the daughter of Hodiak and Gaea. She was once a beautiful goddess who spurned all who sought her hand in marriage. She eventually became enthralled by a stranger's song, who promised her a luxurious life in his kingdom across the sea. Venturing there she discovered her suitor was a humanoid avian, who lived in squalor and used his songs to deceive her. Hodiak relented to Sedna's pleas to murder her captor, but abandoned her when she murdered her suitor's countrymen, who came to avenge his death. Angered Hodiak cursed her and banished her to the nothern seas' icy depths, where she had to live a lonely existence as the goddess of the dead.
(Avengers: The Man who Stole Tomorrow - BTS) - Sedna was called upon for power by Aningan Kenojuak, though the Inuit's actual source of power in these events was Kang the Conqueror.
(Thor II#3-4) In recent years while wandering the North Atlantic, Sedna discovered a war ship lost by the Asgardian Gods. Impressed by it, she used its ruby gems to guide her to Thor who she chose to make her mate. During a brief clash with her dragon, Thor reverted to his then mortal guise of Jake Olson when it swallowed his hammer and had to be rescued by Namor the Submariner who was unaware that Olson was Thor. The distraction gave Thor time to recover his hammer and help Namor force Sedna into retreat.
Comments: Adapted by Dan Jurgens & John Romita Jr.
Collectively, the Native American Gods seem to be made up of a collection of interconnected familes known together as the Anasazi. Separated, they are known as the Innua (gods of the North West), Manitou (North East gods), Orenda (South East gods) and the Kachina (South West Gods). A parallel can be found in the Asgardian Aesir and Vanir, Celtic Danaans and Fomore and the Greek Olympians and Titans.)
Other Inuit gods in the MU include Snowbird, Nelvanna, Hodiak, Ranaq, Kolomaq, Kariooq, Somon, Tundra, Tanaraq and Tolomaq who have appeared in various issues of Alpha Flight. Of these, only Tanaraq seems to have any basis in myth. Negafok was referenced in Avengers: The Man who Stole Tomorrow.
Namor seems to be a previous nemesis of Sedna, but any encounter between the two is as yet unrevealed.
In some versions of the Inuit myth, it was Sedna's father who pushed her overboard as they escaped her abductor. As she clung to the boat, he cut off her fingers to get her to replace it, and her severed fingers became the first seals and dolphins. The name of Chahuru the water-god that abducts her comes from Pawnee myth. (It's the only name of a water-god in Native American myth that is not a tongue twister.)
Clarifications: Sedna has no known connection to:
In Native American Myth Sedna is the daughter of the giants Anguta and Nerrivik. She was reputedly born with a huge appetite, but as her parents were figuring out how to meet her needs, Sedna was kidnapped by the water-god Chahuru to be his wife. As her parents began to catch up to save her, Chahuru tossed her out of his boat and she sank to the ocean bottom where she found more than enough to eat. Considered the Great Sea Goddess of the Inuit, she also became a goddess of the dead by claiming the souls of mortal men who lost their lives at sea.
Sedna has a profile in Thor & Hercules: Encyclopaedia Mythologica.
Profile by: William Uchtman
Appearances:
Avengers: The Man who Stole Tomorrow (October, 1979) - David Michelinie (writer)
Thor II#3 (1998) - Dan Jurgens (writer), John Romita Jr. (pencils), Klaus Janson (inks), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Thor & Hercules: Encyclopaedia Mythologica (2009) - Anthony Flamini, Greg Pak, Fred Van Lente & Paul Cornell (writers), Jeff Youngquist (editor)
First Posted: 03/21/2002
Last updated: 09/09/2010
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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