Plots of Itelmen mythological tales of the Raven cycle: an attempt at systematization

In the section Study of folklore
Plots of Itelmen mythological tales of the Raven cycle: an attempt at systematization
Авторы (текстом)
Ekaterina L. Tiron
Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation
Ключевые слова
Itelmens, Itelmen folklore, plots, motifs, mythological tales, Raven cycle
Abstract

This paper presents the first systematization of the plot corpus of Itelmen mythological tales from the Raven Kutkh cycle, based on all available published sources from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. It traces the historical documentation of these tales, ranging from G. Steller’s earliest eighteenth-century retellings through the foundational fieldwork of V. Bogoras, V. Jochelson, E. Orlova, and A. Volodin, to contemporary recordings by J. Bobalik, E. Kasten, M. Dürr, C. Ono, and others. An analysis of 110 texts of Itelmen mythological tales from the Raven cycle resulted in the identification of 45 plots. The plot corpus is most thoroughly represented in the early twentieth century, while subsequent recordings maintain only a consistent core of the most prevalent narratives. Some plots documented in the eighteenth century have endured until modern times. Although traditional plots declined slightly during the Soviet period, new ones also emerged. The identified plots are attributed to documented variants and publication references. The proposed classification divides them into two cycles: 1) tales of Kutkh the trickster (23 plots), and 2) marriage narratives concerning his children, subdivided into male and female plots. These findings fill a gap in Itelmen folklore studies and establish a foundation for comparative research with the folklore of other Chukotko-Kamchatkan peoples. 

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Bibliographic reference
Тирон Е. Л. Plots of Itelmen mythological tales of the Raven cycle: an attempt at systematization // Сибирский филологический журнал. 2026. № 4. Pp. 9–23. DOI: 10.17223/18137083/97/1.