The kids are calling them "Tupilaks" these days.
"In the 1870s, Professor Webb recovered this unholy fetish from a band of devil-worshipping Esquimaux in an incident which cost him his eye. [...] Collectors have acquired the tupilak as an unusual piece of Lovecraftian art, some have put it to use in magick rituals and others have noted its shape is suited for personal activities best left to your imagination."
I have a few tupilaks; nasty looking little things made from whale teeth. I haven't seen one before that looks all tentacle'y and Cthulhuoid.
I've encountered these being called ""unfinished vases", "stone hammers" and "primitive tools"".
Coral cache link to CoC DVD.
In my pre-coffee state I read that as "Call of Chihuly" which makes sense considering the tupilak looks like a piece of Chihuly glass someone once gave me. It saw its demise when I donated it to a charity auction to be bought so someone could break a piece of Chihuly glass.
I like how it's being held in place by a heavy-duty, industrial clamp. Wouldn't want it to get loose...
http://www.eastgreenland.com/database.asp?lang=eng&num=205
Originally the tupilak was a creature composed of different materials from the natural world - animal, bird and human remains - even parts taken from a child's corpse. Those who knew about witchcraft gathered these bits and pieces together in a secret, isolated place, tied them together, chanted magic spells over them and allowed them to suck the energy from their own sexual organs.
The tupilak was then ready to be put into the sea and sent off to kill an enemy. This way of getting rid of your enemies was, however, not entirely without risk because if the would-be victim had greater powers of wizardry than the initiator, his power could reverse the tupilaks strength and potency like a boomerang. In other words, it was a dangerous game - a Greenlandic version of Russian roulette.
No original tupilaks remain. They have vanished from the scene because they were made of perishable materials. They were, for good reason, "disposable" tupilaks and were not meant to be seen by others.