Flaherty has been criticized for deceptively portraying staged events as reality. "Nanook" was in fact named Allakariallak (). Flaherty chose this nickname because of its seeming genuineness which makes it more marketable to Euro-American audiences. ”Nanook” means “polar bear” in Inuktitut. The "wife" shown in the film was not really his wife. According to Charlie Nayoumealuk, who was interviewed in "Nanook Revisited" (1990), "the two women in "Nanook" – Nyla (Alice [?] Nuvalinga) and Cunayou (whose real name we do not know) were not Allakariallak's wives, but were in fact common-law wives of Flaherty." And although Allakariallak normally used a gun when hunting, Flaherty encouraged him to hunt after the fashion of his recent ancestors in order to capture the way the Inuit lived before European colonization of the Americas. Flaherty also exaggerated the peril to Inuit hunters with his claim, often repeated, that Allakariallak had died of starvation less than two years after the film was completed, whereas in fact he died at home, likely of tuberculosis.