Ke'let

Did You Know?

• Ke'let were perceived as the spirits of diseases; some hid inside berries to enter human bodies and make them sick.
• The cough-spirit was named Te'ggi, represented as a coughing old man driving a white reindeer.
• One storyteller in 1901 referred to smallpox as "the Red Ke'le."

Types

Sometimes all spirits were known as ke'let, but generally the word refers to an evil spirit, while benevolent spirits are called va'irgin. The term can refer to various kinds of beings, including spirits summoned by shamans, personifications of death and disease, cannibal giants, and nymph-like nature spirits of rivers or lakes. Manfred Lurker rendered the name as “Ke’lets” and called it “a demon of death” which “hunts men down, accompanied by dogs,” though this depiction does not match other sources.

Cannibals

In Chukchi stories, Ke'let are cannibal giants who come in both genders and love to eat people. They live underground or in a sky world, never the sea, and the Moon sometimes acts as their Sun. These beings dwell in remote wild areas, ambushing travelers or sneaking into villages for victims. They call humans "little seals" and crave internal organs, especially livers. Some tales mention their small black dogs, which can change size like their masters, and fetch souls from homes. A few stories even describe Ke'let owning fire-breathing reindeer.