Palraiyuk, the creature of the Yukon delta (Yup'ik)

Yup'ik people around St. Michael and the lower Yukon told of the palraiyuk, a long, many-legged water creature said to live in the marshes in an earlier, warmer time, and painted it on canoes and wooden trays.

1899 CE · 63.48, -162.04 · status: legend

The account

Edward W. Nelson, who lived at St. Michael from 1877 to 1881, illustrated palraiyuk designs in 'The Eskimo about Bering Strait' (1899), the earliest detailed record.

The sceptical view

Cryptozoologists sometimes cite it as a surviving reptile; Nelson recorded it as a creature of an earlier age, known from story and art.

Connections in the atlas

• The aurora as the dead at play (Bering Strait)

Sources

1. Nelson 1899, The Eskimo about Bering Strait (Internet Archive)