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Entry TypePerson
SurnameKallihirua
ForenamesErasmus Augustine
Also Known AsQalasirssuaq, Erasmus York, Caloosa
EpithetInuit guide
Dates[c1832]-1855
Gender IdentityMale
Cultural HeritageInuit
BiographyKallihirua was an Inuit man from Greenland, also known by the name Qalasirssuaq (the modern Inuit spelling of his given name and anglicized surname). He may have been one of the first Northern Inuit to leave the Arctic and became a well known and admired figure of his time; a portrait of him is held at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. In 1850, Captain Erasmus Ommanney, on a search for Sir John Franklin's expedition which had disappeared in the Canadian arctic in 1845, stopped at Cape York in Greenland, where he engaged Kallihirua as a guide. Kallihirua was known on board ship as Erasmus York or Caloosa. When Captain Ommanney had to return to England in 1851, it was impractical to return Kallihirua to Cape York and so he came with the search party to England.

The Admiralty placed Kallihirua in St Augustine's Missionary College, Canterbury, where he learnt to read and write and had religious instruction. Whilst there he assisted Captain John Washington to revise his 'Esquimaux and English Vocabulary' (1850), which was used as a handbook for Arctic expeditions. He was baptised Erasmus Augustine Kallihirua in November 1853, and his baptism was attended by Ommanney and Sir John Franklin's daughter, Eleanor Gell, who became his godmother. In 1855 he traveled to Newfoundland for further religious training with the intention of becoming a missionary. He died there in June 1856.
Sourcehttps://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-14286
Authorised Form of NameKallihirua; Erasmus Augustine ([c1832]-1855); Inuit guide

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