Patalamon

Patalamon is a seal hunter at Novastoshnah, the seal nursery at North East Point on Saint Paul Island in the Bering Sea. As Kerick Booterin’s son, he belongs to the human community whose seasonal business is to drive seals from the beach and turn their skins into jackets. Although the narrative gives him only a few actions and words, he is one of the figures through whom Kotick first encounters the human system that threatens the seal population.

Identity and Setting

Patalamon works with Kerick Booterin, the chief of the seal-hunters on the island. The two men come from a nearby village and arrive among the holluschickie while deciding which seals to send to the killing pens. Their work is presented as regular seasonal business: the seals gather at Novastoshnah by the hundreds of thousands during the summer, and for six weeks or two months each year the hunters drive selected herds inland for slaughter.

Patalamon is therefore not an isolated aggressor acting outside a social order. He participates in an established industry with assigned roles, tools, timing, and procedures. His presence connects the apparently natural abundance of the nursery with the human machinery that converts living seals into commercial seal-skin jackets.

Encounter with Kotick

Patalamon first notices Kotick during a night of play among the yearling seals. The young seal’s white coat makes him immediately conspicuous. Patalamon calls attention to him, while Kerick Booterin reacts with alarm and interprets the unusual animal through the story of Zaharrof, a seal hunter lost in a gale. Patalamon refuses to approach Kotick because he considers the white seal unlucky and wonders whether he may be Zaharrof’s ghost.

This response gives Patalamon a divided role in the scene. He can recognize the extraordinary appearance of Kotick, yet he does not understand it as evidence of a living individual with a distinct experience. He treats the white seal as an omen while continuing the practical work of driving other seals toward the killing grounds. Superstition changes the meaning of Kotick’s body for him, but it does not challenge the slaughter itself.

Role in the Seal Drive

When Kerick orders him to move a herd of four-year-olds, Patalamon rattles a pair of seal shoulder bones in front of the animals. The sound stops them, after which his approach makes them begin moving again. This small action shows how the hunters control the herd without needing to overpower every seal individually: a simple instrument and practiced movement turn a mass of living animals into a manageable drive.

Kotick follows them, becoming the first seal to come voluntarily to the killing grounds. Patalamon notices this unprecedented behavior and calls attention to the white seal behind the herd. Kerick again warns him not to look back, treating Kotick as Zaharrof’s ghost. Patalamon thus becomes both an operator within the drive and a witness to Kotick’s exceptional pursuit of knowledge, though he reads that pursuit through fear rather than curiosity.

The drive proceeds slowly because Kerick knows that overheated seals will shed their fur in patches when skinned. At the Salt House, the herd is allowed to cool for thirty minutes before men armed with iron-bound clubs arrive. Patalamon’s earlier handling of the herd is part of this calculated process, in which even the pace of movement is adjusted to protect the commercial value of the skins. The narrative’s measured account of the procedure makes the violence appear systematic rather than accidental.

Significance in Kotick’s Story

Patalamon does not kill Kotick, and the evidence does not establish that he personally strikes any seal. His importance lies instead in bringing Kotick into direct contact with the killing grounds. Kotick watches the men club the seals and then sees the skins ripped from the bodies of animals he had known. Horrified, he escapes to the sea and returns to Novastoshnah with knowledge that the other seals lack.

The other seals dismiss Kotick’s alarm because seal-driving has always been part of their daily life, but Kotick has crossed the boundary between customary ignorance and witnessed fact. Patalamon is one of the human agents who makes that transformation possible. Through him, the slaughter becomes a concrete scene rather than a distant rumor, and Kotick’s later search for a safe island acquires its decisive purpose.

Patalamon’s brief appearance also sharpens the story’s contrast between human explanations and animal testimony. He sees a white seal and fears a ghost; Kotick sees a killing system and seeks a remedy. Patalamon’s superstition may make him hesitate before Kotick, but it does not spare the ordinary seals. The scene consequently presents fear of the unusual alongside indifference to routine cruelty, making Patalamon a minor yet revealing representative of the world Kotick must oppose.