Neroga and Neloga: revisiting the geographical riddle of the 17^th century Yukaghir accounts

The 1642 accounts of the Yukaghir amanats from Yana regarding a silver mountain at the eastern river Neroga and the 1644 accounts of the Yukaghir amanats from Indigirka and Kolyma mentioning a silver mountain at the eastern river Neloga (the latter were provided in response to Russian inquiries based on the testimonies of 1642) have been repeatedly discussed in the literature. While the accounts of 1644 were published, those of the Yana amanats were not, being known only through certain quotations and brief retellings. In both sets of accounts, researchers sought to see information about the same object, be it real or fictional. However, Alexey A. Burykin has recently convincingly demonstrated that the reports of 1644 about Neloga refer to a river in Chukotka which flows into the sea northeast of Anyuy in the Chaun Bay. Meanwhile, the examination of the accounts of 1642 unequivocally indicates that their Neroga is a river that flows into the Okhotsk Sea (as it has already been suggested). We put forward the following explanation of this discrepancy: the amanats, who were interrogated in 1644, in fact knew nothing about Neroga described by the Yana amanats in 1642, and thus told about the Chukotka river which they knew under a somewhat similar name, thinking (or pretending) that this is the same river they were asked about. Both rivers should thus be recognised as real but different objects.

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