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By David Farris share similarities with little people tales of the North American Indians. However, the little people are believed by many of
these native people to be more than myth or legend.
Especially to tribal medicine men who are powerless without their guidance. James Mooney in “Myths of the Cherokee,” published in the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1897-98, describes these little people as,
“hardly reaching up to a man’s
knee, but well-shaped and handsome, with long hair falling almost to the ground.” More than 100 years later, this magical race of
little people is very real to those who learned the legend form their elders.
Much of Mooney’s research involved Cherokee from their original homeland of North Carolina. He learned that due to forced migration the Cherokee of Oklahoma became estranged from their original customs and beliefs. Traditions handed down throughout generations
became tainted by the white man’s education and culture. However, many Cherokee legends did endure the cultural transition. One example
is the belief in a race of small, magical beings called the Yunwi Tsunsdi.
Betty J. Lombardi elaborated on Mooney’s findings with additional research of her own in the spring, 1984 issue of Mid-American Folklore, published by the Ozark State Folklore Society and the Regional Culture Center, Arkansas College. Her article, “Comments on the Little People
Stories Collected from the Cherokee Indians of Northeast Oklahoma,” revealed these delightful accounts.
The little people of Cherokee folklore were capable of doing good deeds for people who treated them with respect. However, to look upon one was bad luck, potentially resulting in premature death. Such was the case with people lost in the woods who were rescued
by these mystical beings. After finding their way home, they told of their strange encounters and then died. Usually, those who encounter the
little people are warned by them not to tell others. It is also considered bad luck to even speak of the little people. Instead, they are more safely
referred to as a “skill’li,” which means witch or ghost.
Sometimes humans build their homes near the habitat of the Yunwi Tsunsdi. It is important to leave food for them and not to block any of their paths. If the little beings were pleased, they did chores at night, like plowing fields and harvesting crops. Sometimes the people
in the house hear the work being done but know not to look outside.
Lombardi also found contradictory stories about humans who owned little people, experiencing no ill effects. She recounts a tale from an 81-year-old man named Henry Swing, who swore his belief in the beings. He said he knew Wilson Angle, who kept two of them,
a boy and a girl, to protect his property from being stolen. Swing said Angle kept them in stone milk jars out east of his house and fed them nothing but “straight water cornbread.” When their host passed away, the pair went to live with another Indian named Buster Stone, who lived in the same
neighborhood.
The little people are known to attach themselves to certain areas. This was the case with a 90-year-old woman, considered a witch or medicine doctor. She claimed that the tiny beings made a path on the west side of her house. They used to come nightly to her house
for food until a waterline was installed, blocking their path and putting an end to their visits. This story illustrates one consistent aspect
of the little people legend that crosses tribal cultures; their association with medicine men and other people of a spiritual nature.
The Cherokee tell of how their ancestors were accompanied by the little people along the Trail of Tears. In 1838, the Cherokee People were forced to leave their home in Georgia and traveled to a foreign territory now called Oklahoma. The Yunwi Tsunsdi served as protectors
and comforters during this tragic event in American history. Before the tribe migrated, they were given the gift of an everlasting fire.
During months on the trail, through wind, snow, and rain, the little people kept the fire safely burning. According to Cherokee legend,
the little people continue to protect the fire that still burns today.
A strange article appeared in the 1976 winter issue of Oklahoma Today magazine about the little people in Oklahoma; complete with a photograph of one of the creatures. This eerie tale of medicine men and spirit guides comes from the Yellow Hills east of Ardmore,
Okla. Howard Meredith wrote an article for the Oklahoma Scrapbook section of the magazine entitled “Kawnakuasha,” after receiving
a letter from a columnist for the Daily Ardmorite named Mac McGalliard. The letter was in reference to a photo McGalliard had been
shown by a friend from the Yellow Hills named Buster Ned. A full-blood Choctaw, Ned was chairman of the Choctaw-Chickasaw Heritage
Preservation Committee.
He told McGalliard, “I want you to see this picture. You have Choctaw blood. This is part of your Choctaw heritage I want you to see. Won’t you laugh? Will you believe?
McGalliard replied, “I will not laugh. As you say, I have Choctaw blood. I am a believer.” The photo showed a Choctaw medicine man named Uncle Billy Washington, who came from Mississippi to Oklahoma during the early days of Indian Territory. He became a valued resident of the people of the Yellow Hills, ministering to them and collecting herbs
in the woods to make his medicines. In the bottom left corner of the photo stood a small, strange entity.
The Choctaw people knew that medicine men were aided by leprechaun-like beings who led doctors to various herbs needed to cure the ailing. These spiritual beings were known to the Choctaw people as Kawnakuashas. Only the medicine men could
see these special beings who appeared to all others as glowing lights.
Uncle Billy’s family did not have a single photo of him. He was convinced to travel to Ardmore, Okla., to have his portrait taken. To stage the photo, the photographer had him stand next to a small, bare table. The developed photo showed a small, strange creature standing on the table, unseen when the picture was taken. To the Choctaw people, this was proof of the Kawnakuasha who served Uncle Billy.
Uncle Billy died in 1930. The Kawnakuasha, as legend tells us, do not die, but continue to roam the area. On dark nights, near the doctor’s former home, a glowing light can be seen searching the Yellow Hills for another Indian to serve.
The Plains Indians told of battles with hostile Pigmy tribes. The Cheyenne referred to them as “knee-high demons.” Legend also suggests that they fed on humans. The Shoshone called them “nimerigar,” meaning “people eater;” and to the Arapaho, “tiny people eaters.” Certain places became known as the habitat of the little people.
Wyoming is a state rich in little people lore. The April 1978 issue of Argosy magazine featured an article entitled, “ The Mystery of the Dwarf Demons,” which mentioned a Casper, Wyoming, attorney who found a mummy measuring 20 inches in height.
Others in the area claim to have come into possession of pygmy mummies and skulls. In many cases involving anomalous artifact, the relics were rarely examined by scientists and are usually dismissed as hoaxes. However, the case of the “Pedro Mountain Mummy” is an exception to that rule. In 1932 or ‘34, 60 miles southwest of Casper, in the Pedro Mountains, the mummified body of a tiny human was found sitting on a ledge inside of a cave. Its seated height was six and a half inches and standing it would have been about 15 inches tall. It had long white hair, a full set of teeth and adult body hair.
In 1950, it was brought to the American Museum of Natural History in New York and examined by the museum’s authority on anthropology, Dr. Harry Shapiro. Hair samples determined the mummy was human and an X-rayed revealed that it did have a skeletal structure. The doctor also noted the anomalous arrangement of the bones and the unusually large eye sockets.
The next stop was the Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where it was determined the specimen was that of an “anencephalic anomaly,” or infant born without the top of its skull. This would account for the small head and large eye sockets, but not for the full set of teeth and body hair.
The tiny creature went through a series of owners who displayed the oddity for profit. Since 1975, its whereabouts are unknown. In 1979, Dr. Shapiro’s X-rays were given to Dr. George Gill, professor of anthropology at Wyoming University, who also concluded the body was that of an anencephalic infant. However, others who for decades had an opportunity to see the actual mummy insist that it was an adult human.
In my first book, Mysterious Oklahoma has included a story in the chapter on ghosts, which might be more of an encounter with one of the little people. The incident took place before the U.S. civil war. A Virginia aristocrat named George Murrell lived with
his Cherokee wife near the town of Park Hill, in the Cherokee Nation. This is where he used to fox hunt with friends, aided by a pack
of hounds. One night, the hounds were hot on the trail of something that they could not seem to overtake. One of the members
of the hunting party was a newspaperman named S.W. Ross. In 1937, he told the story of that hunt to the Indian-Pioneer Paper,
an oral history of frontier times. Ross was quoted as saying, “From their excited baying, the fast running animals were apparently
quite near their object of pursuit.” Murrell and his friend James Latta were riding after the pack.
“Major Murrell and Mr. Latta were close together, and upon coming near the hounds, saw running at great speed, immediately in front of the foremost hounds, a dwarf-like being with long black hair streaming in the early breeze run on a short distance
and then suddenly vanish, leaving no trace nor track. Immediately, the hounds lay down, panting and weary.” Ross added,
“The men stood in awe, unable to believe their eyes.” Murrell, however, said, “There are some things we do not understand.”
Towards the end of the Twentieth Century, a new version of the little people legend became popular regarding the “Greys” involved in alien abductions. Perhaps human beings have encountered diminutive entities throughout history and reports
have differed according to cultures
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 What’s more Irish than a leaping, green-garbed leprechaun, hoisting a pint of ale and stashing his gold coins at the bottom of a rainbow? Pretty much anything. According to California State University’s Yeats instructor Warren Wedin, that description originated as an American version of an ancient Irish male fairy . Like Little People all over the world, Ireland’s wee ones are much more reserved, keep a low profile, and inspire respect for their powers, though the tiny shoemakers are known to enjoy a pint or two. Fairies occupied Ireland long before other people did, and according to Loretta Lynde, Irish-American novelist, fairies of all sorts may reside in the stone mounds seen throughout the Emerald Isle. Evidence of leprechauns may be few and far between, however, a cry for help was heard by bar owner P.J. O’Hare , near a well at Carlingford Mountain in Slieve Foy, Ireland.
O’Hare went to investigate and found tiny clothes, musical instruments, a set of small bones, and three gold coins. When O’Hare died, the coins were passed on to Kevin Woods and he in turn will pass the coins on to the firstborn of his seven sons. In a YouTube video, Woods admits having seen three leprechauns sitting in the same area, and his experience was so profound, he successfully campaigned the European Union to designate the area a preserve, making it illegal to disturb or hunt leprechauns in their habitat. Woods said there are now only 236 leprechauns left in Ireland. Though he did not say how he knew that. Little People populate the world and almost every country has their stories. In 1932, two gold diggers in Wyoming’s Pedro Mountains blasted through a mountainside and found a 14-inch fully formed mummy. The Little Man was in a sitting position and described by one website as having wrinkled brown skin, a low, flat forehead, and the appearance of an old man. Timothy McCleary, a liberal arts instructor at Little Big Horn College, Crow Reservation, Montana, said the mummy ended up with a car dealer in Wyoming. “He kept it in a jar on his desk, but eventually somebody from the Museum x-rayed it.” The American Museum of Natural History in New York and the Anthropology Department at Harvard University declared the mummy to be that of a 60-year-old man. McCleary and other sources say that Wyoming is heavily populated by Little People who co-exist amicably with the Crow. “They live like humans do, but they have spiritual powers. They cook, they hunt, they eat, they have a fire,” McCleary said. “They are not going to hurt anybody but they do like to play tricks, but it isn’t mean. It’s more that they have a sense of humor. They have in the past been known to take babies and raise them as their own and on occasion, when families are camping in the mountains, parents might tell their children to come back to camp before it gets dark because of the Little People.”
Frequently referred to as pygmies on non-Native websites, McCleary said, “In the Crow language they are not called Little People, they are called the owners of the earth. They protect the animals, so when people hunt for meat in the mountains they leave some for them. They are the ones who take care of the game so you have to show them respect. There is an old trail to get to the mountains and there is a 1,000-year-old monument where people to this day leave things for the Little People because you are going into their home, where they live.” McCleary told a story of a friend who went into the mountains to get away for a few days, and while sitting around the campfire, a little man came and visited. This went on for three nights, and when his friend left, the little man accompanied him home. Shortly after, both agreed it was uncomfortable for the little man to be away from his familiar surroundings, and the man returned the little man back into the mountains. Leslie Hannah, who is Cherokee and a cultural expert, told of a similar story that happened in his own home. Hannah, his wife and daughter traveled frequently between his home in Oklahoma and Kansas, where he was working. When returning to Kansas from a Thanksgiving trip, his daughter, who was only 3 or 4 at the time, came into her parent’s room and asked to sleep with them. “My wife and I were half asleep and said okay. The next morning, I asked her why she had got in bed with us and she said, ‘That little man in my room, he’s bothering me.’ I kind of dismissed it and thought maybe she had a dream. Well, the next night, she again climbed into our bed, and the next day she again said, ‘That little man was bothering me.’” The next night, before she went to bed, Hannah asked his daughter if the little man was still there and she replied, “He’s right there in the closet.” “I asked her what he was doing, and she said, ‘He’s just standing there looking at you,’” Hannah said. He sat down and spoke in the direction of the little man, “Clearly you came back with us from Oklahoma and you are welcome to stay here so long as you behave. But if you scare my daughter I will come after you with some [medicine] and I know people who can do that. And from that time on, she said he left.” “So long as you respect them and didn’t mess with their stuff, they’d leave you alone. If you are out in the woods, hunting or fishing, you might sit on a tree stump with a hole in it—that might be a portal to their world,” Hannah has heard over the years. “It’s like you are sitting on their front porch and they might do something to get back at you, like untie your shoes or take something of yours and hide it, but they do it for a purpose, not just to be mischievous.” The Cherokee Nation website describes their protocol for dealing with Little People. “The Little People live in rocky shelters, caves in the mountains or laurel thickets. They don’t like being disturbed and may cause a person who continually bothers them to become ‘puzzled’ throughout life. Because of this, traditional Cherokees will not investigate or look when they believe they hear Little People. If one of the Little People is accidentally seen, or if he or she chooses to show himself, it is not to be discussed or told off for at least seven years. It is common practice to not speak about the Little People after nightfall.”
Research from Ireland to North America proves that a little respect goes a long way. The YourIrish website explains, “Irish leprechauns are very friendly, but tend to dislike humans, who always seem to chase them for wishes and pots of gold.” Because that behavior is more prevalent among non-Indigenous Peoples, it may well explain why tribes have been able to maintain good relationships with the Little People. In the children’s book, Makiawisug: The Gift of the Little People, by Melissa Jayne Fawcett (also known as Melissa Tantaquidgeon Zobel) and Joseph Bruchac, the Little People even requested help from medicine woman Martha Uncas to heal Granny Squannit, the female leader of the Little People and the keeper of the earth.  Christina Rose The cover of “Mikiawisug: The Gift of the Little People” is the story of the relationship between the Mohegans and the Little People, who they call Makiawisug. Mohegan Rachel Sayet wrote a master’s thesis about her great-aunt Gladys Tantaquidgeon, who told her, “We Mohegans still leave baskets filled with things for the Little People, to appease them and show them gratitude for taking care of us.” Judging by the stories from many different tribes on the website, “ Native American Little People of Myth and Legend,” Little People have the ability to appear and disappear and are most often seen by children and the elderly. Since those who treat them with respect seem to maintain the best relationships, be mindful when walking in the woods or mountains where they are known to reside. |
