With St. Patrick's Day quickly approaching, thoughts of the succulent aroma of corned beef and green-tinged beverages swirl in the public mind. And those wily leprechauns, of course, them with their pots o' gold. If only.
Pots of gold and green beer aside, it probably comes as no surprise that Europe doesn't hold a monopoly on mythological little folk.
Native Americans throughout the country told tales of tribes of brawny wee folk with mercurial tendencies: sometimes helpful, sometimes vicious. One such legend became famous when Unsolved Mysteries did an episode devoted to the mysterious San Pedro Mountain mummy found near Casper in 1934.
We'll start in the southeast and work our way west, to Shoshone and Crow country.
The Choctaw, for one, were wary of the little folk, fearing that boys would be kidnapped. A little further west, the Cherokee sorted the little people into
three groups, according to temperament: the Laurels, the Dogwoods, and the Rocks. The Dogwoods made good allies; the Laurels were benevolent or mischievous, depending on their mood; and the Rock People, well, the less said about them, the better.
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"How the Morning Star Lost Her Fish," from
Stories the Iroquois Tell Their Children, 1917 |
Further west yet, we find the story of a large band of Lakota ran afoul of the little people when they, the Lakota, unknowingly crossed into "elfin-like" beings' territory. The little people ambushed the Lakota camp at night, killing most of them. The assailants then set every horse loose at a panicked gallop, forcing the wounded survivors to flee slower and more vulnerable. Fortunately, not all encounters with the little folk were as violent.
A Nez Perce tale told of a man and his brother who met a little person, whom they described as "[a] little man with very small eyes and a wrinkled face. He had long hair, uncombed, and he wore nothing but a deer skin wrapped around his waist and hanging down over his knees."
The Flathead tribe, according to
Ella E. Clark's Indian Legends from the Northern Rockies, told of a civilization of "dwarfs" who bore a close resemblance to the natives, except for their dark skin. They raised tiny black horses that stood about three feet high mostly as a food source for the winter months.Clark relates that, once upon a time, these folk dwelt near Rosebud Lake in Montana, preferring its thick underbrush (apparently good for hiding). According to the lore, these little people would die every morning, resting in craters in the mountain, and "arise every night to dance and play. An oh, how they danced...
One member of the Flathead tribe, medicine man Charlie Gabe, disclosed his experience to an anthropologist of an incident when the medicine man was but 14 years old. One summer day, when looking for his spirit power high amid the mountain peaks, Charlie saw a little lake where none should be. Just above the lake, at the top of the peak, he saw a cottonwood log, one so completely out of place he thought it was the very log that came to rest after the great floods receded from the world, and so decided the area was ripe with spirit power. (Here's the rub: this log had been recently cut down, and the flood happened in ancient times.) As Charlie was preparing to accept his spirit power, he found a crater and peeked over its edge. What he found there stunned him.
To Charlie's astonished gaze, a clutch little people had struck up an intricate dance. He ran down to join the ceremony, to which the dwarfs reluctantly admitted him. They danced like an 80s pop song from four dusks to four dawns, until, that is, Charlie had enough and made a beeline down the mountain.
On Charlie's way out, he tried once, then twice, then thrice to snatch one of the wee folk but to no avail, but on try number four he nabbed a feller. In the catch, a bargain: he had to care for the dwarf for four years, keeping him hidden.
There was a happy end as the four years came to a close; the dwarf, upon bidding farewell, promised Charlie protection and the power to help anyone he wanted. So while the log wasn't the one from the great floods, Charlie Gabe did find quite the spirit power and became a renowned medicine man among the Flathead.
The Shoshone of Wyoming tell of a legendary race of little people, the Ninnimbe (also known by other names), who made their home in the Rockies, notably the Pryors and the Big Horn Mountains. These wee folk didn't dance and they didn't give anyone any spirit power. They wore goatskins, were about 2-3 feet high, and were adept bow hunters. Pray you don't run into one on a bad day.
In the early days, the Shoshone and Ninnimbe were at odds; the little people, who could turn invisible at will, took out several Shoshone with their poisoned--and, yes, invisible--arrows.
Luckily for the Shoshone, the conflict eventually blew over and the two groups found ways to mind the other's borders. One day in those better times, a warrior heard strange, humanlike cries coming from the ledge of a cliff. Upon investigating, he saw an eagle attacking a little person just below. He saved the Ninnimbe, who showed the warrior humble gratitude for saving his life.
Legend has it one of the Ninnimbe--named Ninnimbe, appropriately enough-- lives still, high in the mountains. To some, he bears the appearance of a tiny, two-foot-tall boy, running through the trees, hunting with his arrows. Others see him as a small, red-nosed old man, "sturdily built, dressed in the skins of mountain sheep that are painted bright colors," who can become invisible at will.
Closing out our stories of the legendary little people of North America, the famous San Pedro Mountain mummy, discovered by two gold prospectors south of the Pathfinder and Alcova reservoirs in 1934.
Frank Carr and Cecil Main dynamited open a cave when they made the famous find. They gathered the tiny body and from there, it made the rounds to touring sideshows, to the labs of the Boston Museum and The American Museum of Natural History, and finally, to the home of a Casper family in 1950. After that, the trail stops cold. Tap a line into the grapevine, and you'll hear folks whispering that the little people turned up and retrieved their sacred relic. They're apparently busy, because the San Pedro mummy wasn't the only one of its kind found in Wyoming.
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An x-ray of the mummy.
Image from Human-Resonance.org |
A 1977
Billings Gazette article*, "Do 'Little People' Skulk Among Us?," told of the discoveries of little people's remains found throughout Wyoming. A sheepherder, known only as Senor Martinez, found a body and six skulls near the vicinity of Carr and Main's find, but hastily returned the remains once his horse and several sheep froze to death, fearing a curse. The muddy details of such stories, including the San Pedro mummy's, have begun to
circulate some doubt as to their veracity. At one point, it seems, just about everyone's aunt had one of their skulls.
The San Pedro Mountain mummy perseveres in America's consciousness nonetheless, often flirting with controversy. Some think it's the real deal while others, like former University of Wyoming biological anthropology professor, George Gill, who once examined the mummy, think the strange, small bodies can be explained scientifically (
as Gill suggested, infant anencephaly). Alas, the mummy has been missing for decades, so conclusive DNA analysis is beyond our reach at this time.
Whether you believe the little folk really do exist or that their tales have roots outside the realm of the supernatural, good stories are worth a goldmine--or a good dose of spirit power, under the right circumstances-- on their own merit, and the little people lore of America's indigenous cultures certainly counts.
Click on the images below to enlarge.
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Bob David holds the mummy in 1950.
Image from WyoHistory.org |
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| Image from AncientOrigins.Net |
*Many thanks to Debi Moody for sharing her copy of the article.
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