Ke'let

Sources do not give a single fixed creation myth for ke'let. They are described variously as coming from underground or from a separate sky-world (never the sea). The Moon is sometimes described as the ke'le's Sun. Many accounts treat the term as a lexical category rather than a single-origin species, encompassing disease-spirits, shamanic spirits, and monstrous cannibals in different contexts.

Appearances vary by role and region. As cannibal giants they are large, humanlike, both male and female attested, living in settlements or the wilderness; some tale-accounts report groups owning reindeer (in one story described as fire-breathing). They particularly eat human internal organs, especially livers, and may have small black dogs that can change size. Re'kkenit (Pacific-adjacent) are described as one-eyed (their reindeer and dogs likewise), breathing smoke and fire, wearing extremely long hair and sleeves that trail the ground, and in some areas as large-eared, bear-like monsters. In their disease-personification role ke'let can be small enough to hide in berries to enter humans.

Ke'let are reported to prey on travelers and to visit villages for victims, hunt and eat humans (calling them 'little seals'), and to target internal organs. Both ke'let and their dogs are said to be capable of changing size; some regional Re'kkenit and their animals are said to breathe smoke and fire and to hunt in red canoes using nets. The term is also used for spirits identified with specific illnesses (e.g., Te'ggi, a cough-spirit; one storyteller referred to smallpox as 'the Red Ke'le'). The word can also denote spirits that shamans summoned, indicating a shamanic interface though sources do not supply ritual details.