Little People

by Richard Seifried

Signal Hill Musing

August, 2003

Each month that finds me writing my Musings, I vow that next time I will tell my readers about our magnificent earth-brother, ursus horribilis, the grizzly bear. Each month, when I sit down to write, something else comes into my head. You see, I am an undisciplined writer, having absolutely no control over what will come out of my pen.

Well, it just happened again.

Yesterday, last evening actually, I finished reading Crazy Horse, Mari Sandoz’s fascinating biography about the great Oglala Lakota warrior, our friend, John Two Hawks’ ancestor.

On page 322 of my paperback copy, I found a reference to one of the most fascinating mysteries that I have ever encountered. Mari was writing about Crazy Horse’s own words, and her references were from recorded interviews that she had made with the very old Cheyenne and other Lakota people whom she knew. She wrote:

“He (Crazy Horse) told the younger boys some stories about the stone arrow makers.  A people so long gone they seemed forgotten, the Crows claiming they were a small people like eight-year-olds that lived in the cave rocks near the Yellowstone.”

Her paragraph jumped out at me, causing my vivid imagination to shift into high gear.

Small people — often referred to as Little People.

Throughout the world, legends of tiny humans persist in literature and folklore. Once, I had a very rational lady in Dayton, Ohio, tell me, quite hesitantly, that she had watched a strange looking dwarf lurking beneath a blue spruce tree that was in her front yard. Mystified, she couldn’t help but tell me what she had seen, or thought she had seen.

Some of the stories seem embellished — and just not possible. Ireland has its leprechauns. Native Hawaiians almost secretly speak of the Minehune, those tiny people who were there before modern man arrived and who still inhabit the islands. In all probability, Africans and Asians also have such legends.

Back in the 1970s, I read a fascinating book about the Dark Ages. The author, a very gifted woman who was an excellent, no-nonsense historian (her name fails me for the moment), put into her book about Western Europe the following incident:

“A knight, a great warrior, was traveling through the swamps, the dense forestland that is now Belgium. His horse emerged from the wilderness and he found himself within a cleared circle. The knight was startled and a little frightened because what he had found was an abandoned village of the little people. Before him were mounds, some collapsed, tunnels, a complete abandoned settlement of the tiny people who were known for their witchcraft and magic.”

Why did my lady historian write of such an event? Where did she come across the reference or references to a race of tiny human beings?

In 1966-1967, I was working on my master’s degree in frontier history at the University of Montana located in Missoula.  Upon occasion, seeking a particular bit of information, I would go next door to the anthropology department’s library. One day, quite by accident, I came across the early history of the Flathead Indian nation. Fortunately, anthropologists had interviewed the old ones, those still alive, such as Charlie Nine-Pipes. Recorded was the tribal history, memorized and handed down from generation-to-generation to the present day.

Not so very long ago, the Flathead people (a misnomer given to them by early explorers — they did not bind the heads of their babies) lived along the shores of what we now call the Columbia River.  For some reason, or probably for several reasons, they chose to leave their hunting and fishing grounds. They traveled north, followed the Columbia far to the north, way up along the great river that today flows in and out of Canada. Eventually they made their way upriver, south again, until they arrived at what is now called Flathead Lake and eventually on south into the Bitterroot Valley, where Lewis and Clark found them.

Then, the recorded history that I was reading caught me up in its mystery.

Someone was there before them.

Not modern man. There were two species of humans inhabiting the valleys. One I will write about at a later date.

Most numerous of the two were little people, humans, but very crude and not especially bright.

The Flathead named these tiny people “Foolish Folk” because they did such silly things.  The Flathead historians told the anthropologists that the Foolish Folk went naked, even during the severe winter months. Luckily, they used fire to cook and to keep warm. They inhabited tiny caves and burrowed back into the earthen hillsides left near ancient Lake Missoula, remnants of the Wisconsin ice age.

Our modern Flatheads could do little more than sort of communicate with their tiny neighbors.

I used to tell my high school students about them and would remark, “No wonder they were described as ugly. You would be ugly too if you went naked all winter long in the cold of Montana!”

University of Montana anthropologists recorded two examples of how ignorant they were and why, according to the Flathead, the little people no longer exist.  One summer, a group of Flatheads were vacationing (the men vacationed most of the year) up at the western base of the fantastic Mission Mountains, just below an impressive waterfall (it is still there!). They were lying around in the grass, simply enjoying life, when around the corner of the stream came a group of Foolish Folk. There were several crude dugout canoes full of them.

Their chief saw that the Flatheads were watching them. Show-offish as they were, the leader stood up in his very wobbly canoe.  He began yelling to the Flatheads, telling them what a great man he was. Carried away with his own importance, the little guy began boasting that he was a great spiritual leader. He then embellished his story, apparently believing what was coming out of his mouth, until he cried out, “I am God! I cannot die! I will live forever!”

The Flatheads burst out in laughter, tears streaming down their faces.

Angry, the little leader yelled something like, “I’ll show you!” He then commanded his apparently mesmerized companions to paddle right into the raging waterfall. They did, and all were drowned.

Now readers, those were foolish folk indeed. I read on.

The other story wasn’t funny at all and reflected the brutality of the little folk.  One day three Flathead men were following a like number of Foolish Folk. They habitually did that because the little people were, by habit, thieves. “They,” according to the narrator, “stole everything that wasn’t tied down.”  Anyway, the Flathead followed the little men up the steep slopes of what today is known as Sentinel Mountain, right above the University of Montana.

On the upper slopes there were and still are today magnificent ponderosa pine trees. The species has extremely thick, orangish fire resistant bark. Lightning had struck one of the great pines, a hollow one. Over the days that followed the strike, the trunk burned on the inside, and when sufficiently weakened, finally fell to earth.  The Foolish Folk came upon the smoldering tree. They looked into the broken end of the trunk and several feet back saw glowing embers. They knew that the Flathead were watching, so one of the three, wanting to show the Indians how clever he was, announced, “I am going to crawl inside and light my pipe!”  So he did. But, when he crawled inside, he took with him a fresh supply of oxygen. The tree, once more, burst into flames.

The Flathead, observing all of that, ran up to help. They found the burning man’s friends convulsed in laughter. “Look how funny he is moving. Rolling, thrashing, screaming!”

“Aren’t you going to try to help?”

“No. Don’t worry about him. Isn’t he funny?”

After the man died a most painful death, one of his companions said, “He is of little consequence. One of us will take his wife. Everything will be all right.”

The Flatheads related that the Foolish Folk were their own worst enemies and that was why they ceased to exist. They became extinct of their own accord.

For many years I knew that the Crow Nation claimed it was guardian of a cave that contained skeletons of the Little People.   Even today, they will not tell where it is.

And, over the years I have spoken to many Native Americans belonging to different nations.  Yes, they all know about Little People.

Where is the evidence that tiny humans existed in America? There is none, unless it is in the secret cave guarded by the Crow.

I have hiked and camped out a great deal. Never have I found a skeleton of a small mammal: never a bear, a mountain goat, or sheep. When something dies, the wolves, coyotes, and birds consume all but the bones. Those are tossed about, dragged away. Soon rodents gnaw on the bones and eventually nothing is left.

If I would find a very primitive stone missile point, how would I know who had made it? The Little People of the northern Rockies apparently made no other tools of stone, left no artifacts, and did not develop art such as pictographs. Only a vocal history, legends, are left.

For many summer seasons, I gave campfire talks in several of the national parks of the Northwest. Often I would tell about the Little People.  Some people listened intently, fascinated, others smirked or gave each other knowing looks.  But then, I would conclude by saying,

“So, tonight when you leave our campfire circle, walk softly, don’t talk, listen.  Maybe you will hear the gentle rustling of tiny footsteps following your journey back to your tent or RV. Listen. Can you feel their eyes watching you? Could be that the Little People are here, with us, tonight. Right now. Visiting with us while we enjoy the wonderful, starry night sky that glows down upon us.  Perhaps the Little People are not gone after all.”