“Without Deer There Is No Culture, Nothing”

This article presents the pragmatics of reindeer herding by Chukchi and Koryak people in northern Kamchatka, Russia, to convey a sense of the importance of herding as a symbolic resource. A detailed description of brief visits to a reindeer herd in Kamchatka uncovers the power of reindeer as a symbol for indigenous people and indigenous culture in this area. I use a first‐person, subjective ethnography and include some of the challenges I met in the field and my attempts to overcome them. The title quotes a reindeer herder impressing upon me the importance of his work for his people. Reindeer are connected to human beings in a totalizing manner. Reindeer are simultaneously index, icon, and symbol of human social organization, economic activity, spiritual practice, material culture—in short, “our culture,” as I was told by many people in Kamchatka.