A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

Bogoras glosses Re´kkẹñ as evil spirits in the note to Vịyê´nto’s account from Mariinsky Post, October 1900. They own reindeer and travel in a long train of sledges to hunt people. The Upper Being, hearing human appeals for help, decides to teach one family what their victims suffer. While the parents sleep, he lifts their infant from its covered sledge by touching the human-finger tassel on its cap with his staff. He leaves the child with a childless Killer-Whale couple, who welcome it as a future helper. Returning with human prey, the parents discover the disappearance and seek help.

A Raven shaman locates the infant but cannot break the foster parents’ stone house with a dropped stone pillar. The spirit parents then call the two Wind brothers, West-Wind and East-Wind. With the Upper Being, they demand the child’s return. When the Killer-Whales refuse, the winds enter and freeze them to death; after the winds leave, warmth restores them to life. They surrender the infant, and the spirits cease visiting this country. The narrative’s actual death and revival concern the Killer-Whale couple, not the missing child. Its named winds and Raven helper belong to this specific account; the text does not give the Re´kkẹñ a uniform body shape.

Reindeer-owning spirit householdHuman fingers decorate the infant’s capParents hunt people as gameChild returned after supernatural intervention
01

Origins & earliest records

Chukchi; Vịyê´nto the Blind, Mariinsky Post, October 1900

02

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 Vịyê´nto the Blind · 1910

    Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Volume VIII, Part I; Chukchee Tales II.2, The Re´kkẹñ, pp. 160–161, including all footnotes

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

Complete English tale and all attached notes read

Waldemar Bogoras, Chukchee Mythology (1910)

Chukchee Tales, II. Miscellaneous Tales. Chukchee Tales II.2, The Re´kkẹñ, pp. 160–161, including all footnotes

Cache bogoras1910-cm40.html/.txt. Named narrator Vịyê´nto the Blind, Mariinsky Post, October1900. No native/interlinear collation or universal ethnographic claim.

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References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Historical recorded narrative and English translationBogoras, Chukchee Tales II.2, The Re´kkẹñ, pp. 160–161, including all footnotesResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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