After the installation of three recently acquired Yup’ik masks from Alaska (Robert Lebel collection) two new display cabinets dedicated to the Arctic and depicting the Inuit Ammassalimiut from Greenland were completed in late 2008.

The Quai Branly Museum holds a very important collection of several thousand objects from the Ammassalik district in southeast Greenland brought back by the French expeditions of 1934-35 led by Paul-Emile Victor and Robert Gessain. A new display cabinet also presents a series of masks used for profane winter rituals in the large houses built of peat and stone, at a time when shamanic practices were no longer officially performed as the population had become Christian.

Elsewhere, different types of small sculptures are exhibited such as wooden dolls, ivory figurines and shotgun stands decorated with male or female busts. These sculptures are on display beside a remarkable set of tupileks. In the beginning, tupileks were evil creatures made in secret using different perishable materials. Following contact with Europeans, tupileks took on the form of small figurines made of wood, bone or ivory: composite creatures that were half-human, half-animal.