Nota´rmê

Overview

Nota´rmê is the powerful chief of the ke´let in Qora´wġê’s account recorded at Mariinsky Post in October 1900. He sends scouts toward the settlement of the shaman Tño´tirġịn in search of human food. The shaman kills the scouts and later enters the chief’s camp without revealing his identity. Nota´rmê boasts that he would destroy Tño´tirġịn for killing an earlier party. The visitor then seizes him and identifies himself. To obtain release, Nota´rmê promises his giant dog, explaining that the shaman cannot simply take it home: it must be born to one of his pregnant female dogs.

The promised animal is born, grows to reindeer size and is kept on a heavy chain. When Nota´rmê’s people surround the human houses with nets to catch souls, the dog breaks its chain and bites its sleeping master’s finger until he wakes. Together they kill many attackers, and Nota´rmê flees. In a later year Tño´tirġịn takes the offensive and demands a fight at the spirit chief’s home. Nota´rmê kills him and all his people. The narrator explicitly warns that a ke´lẹ is strong on its own ground; the early rescue does not establish permanent victory.

The text also calls Nota´rmê a ka´mak. Bogoras identifies that term as Koryak and part of Russo-Chukchee jargon, adding that the teller may have used it for the collector’s benefit. It is not evidence that the two terms have identical meanings in every community. This narrative gives no fixed bodily form for the chief, and its giant dog is not automatically the long-eared dog in the separate Two Shamans account.

Origins & earliest records

Chukchi; Qora´wġê, a Reindeer Chukchee man of the Telqä´p tundra; Mariinsky Post, October 1900

Records & interpretation

Complete English narrative, ending and attached notes read; title page, introduction and HTML transcription limitations inspected.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Chukchee Mythology

   Waldemar Bogoras, recorder and translator; narrated by Qora´wġê, a Reindeer Chukchee man of the Telqä´p tundra · 1910

   Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Volume VIII, Part I; Chukchee Texts II.21, (The Shaman and the Ke´let.), pp. 119–123, all notes

Family & connections

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Primary records and illustrations

References

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1. Historical recorded narrative and English translationBogoras, Chukchee Texts II.21, (The Shaman and the Ke´let.), pp. 119–123, all notesResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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