THE GENETICS OF FAIRIES?

Victorian fairy painting

Earlier today, I was reading ‘The Problem of Pygmy Fairies’ on Beachcombing’s Bizzare [sic] History Blog (at http://beachcombing.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/the-problem-of-pygmy-fairies/), which provides an interesting consideration of the largely-discounted Victorian belief that fairies may have been a race of primitive human pygmies. At the end of that post, Beachcombing appended the following email, received from one Firth Cultist:

“9 March 2011: This email came in from Firth Cultist and opens up a whole series of other fairy questions – Beachcombing was reminded of the stories concerning fairy changelings (another post another day). ‘I would like to know if you have ever seen the Wikipedia description of a rare syndrome called Williams syndrome here in the U.S. and Williams Beurens syndrome in the U.K. The April 2011 issue of National Geographic contains an excellent article with pretty photos and graphs on a Siberian project to domesticate foxes and study the genetic changes brought on by domestication. The rare condition Williams Beurens Syndrome was listed as of interest to scientists studying domestication because the people born with it are especially gregarious. The syndrome is described as a combination of about 26 missing genes. Further reading after quick Internet searches revealed that people with this syndrome are exceptionally kind, highly verbally skilled and they have a tendency to be famously musical and possess perfect pitch. The syndrome is characterized by a lack of elastin in the body which gives a certain look to the features. The Wikipedia entry suggests that these people were thought of as magical because they were so kind and trusting , friendly and musical. They might have been one source of fairy legends. Wikipedia is not such a great source but I just wanted to mention this connection along with the pygmy theory. God bless those who suffer from this syndrome and all those parents and loved ones who care for them. Their abilities run the gamut from needing life-long assistance to living independently and holding PHD level degrees and jobs.’ Thanks a million Firth Cultist!”

As soon as I’d read this, it reminded me about a short account that I’d written on this very same subject more than a decade ago, for inclusion in my book Mysteries of Planet Earth (1999), but which was dropped from the final manuscript for reasons of space. Until now, I’d totally forgotten about it, but when I scanned through the original unedited manuscript of that book, which I've retained on file, there was the item of text in question, which I’d written in 1998 or early 1999. So here, finally making its public debut 12 years later, is my own account on the intriguing suggestion that the Little People may indeed be linked to Williams syndrome:

“The origin and identity of fairies, or the belief in fairies, is a subject that has taxed countless generations of scholars and folklorists. Elemental nature spirits, externally-projected human thought-forms, fallen angels, the souls of dead unbaptised children or of those deceased persons too good to be condemned to Hell but not good enough to be permitted entry into Heaven, dimly-recalled memories of a primitive tribe of under-sized humans supplanted long ago by our taller burlier ancestors, even interdimensional entities that in reality are one and the same as the Grey aliens and other supposed extraterrestrials - these are just some of the many explanations postulated for these diminutive beings down through the ages.

“During the late 1990s, however, a remarkable new theory of fairies was aired, which proposed that they were real and were human, but exhibited a little-known genetic condition - one that engenders elfin features characterising typical fairy morphology.

“First recognised medically in 1961, Williams syndrome is a rare genetic disorder present at birth, affecting males and females equally, occurring in all ethnic groups, and recorded from all parts of the world. It is estimated to occur in a ratio of 1:20,000 births.

“Believed to arise as a result of an unexplained deletion of the elastin gene on one of the two chromosomes making up chromosome pair #7 in a person's genetic complement, Williams syndrome can cause a number of internal developmental abnormalities, but also yields some very distinctive facial characteristics. In children, these include large eyes (whose irises sometimes possess a conspicuous white lacy pattern known as a starburst), small upturned nose, oval ears, wide mouth, full cheeks, and small chin.

“Behaviourally, children exhibiting this medical condition are noticeably friendly and gentle, but unafraid of strangers and adults, and display a unique strength in their expressive language skills. They are also often unusually gifted in - and appreciative of - music and dance, and exhibit an extremely acute sense of hearing. Left-handedness is another widely-reported trait.

“After studying over 200 anthologies and stories of fairies, Professor Howard Lenhoff from California University was struck by similarities between traits attributed to the Little People and those noted above for persons (especially children) exhibiting Williams syndrome. So much so that media accounts (e.g. The Times, 1 December 1997) revealed that he considered it possible that tales of fairies were originally inspired by Williams syndrome youngsters - long before this was recognised and diagnosed as an actual medical condition.”

STRANGE LANDS - A MAGICAL NEW BOOK, IN EVERY SENSE!

Every so often - but not nearly often enough - a new book appears that instantly becomes not only a classic work but also a standard work. One such literary rarity is Strange Lands: A Field-Guide to the Celtic Otherworld, written and illustrated by Andy Paciorek, a highly-renowned graphics artist, and now in print at last after having previously existed exclusively as a website. After reading the original manuscript and marvelling at the imaginative, intricate beauty of its artwork, depicting a vast array of mythical and magical Celtic entities, I was more than happy to pen a foreword to Andy's spectacular volume - which is now available to purchase online at:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1957828?ce=blurb_ew


Meanwhile, as an appetiser, here is my Strange Lands foreword:


Think of any major stage or screen musical, and the chances are that it will have been written by a composer/lyricist partnership – Rice & Lloyd Webber, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Gershwin & Gershwin, Lerner & Loewe, Sherman & Sherman, Schoenberg & Boublil, to name for a few. There is, however, one very significant exception – Cole Porter, a uniquely gifted individual whose talent for composing wonderful, melodious music was matched equally by his ability to pen complex, witty lyrics. But Cole Porters are few and far between.

The same principle applies in the world of books. There are countless talented writers, and countless talented illustrators, but individuals able to accomplish both to a suitably high standard are an extreme rarity, to be treasured and appreciated like a Renaissance Old Master or an exceptionally fine vintage of wine – which is why I am so impressed by this book and, most of all, by its creator.

I first came to know Andy Paciorek through Facebook, and was immediately captivated (mesmerised, even) by his extraordinarily detailed, imaginative artwork – and also by the prodigious quantities of it. Andy seems able to create his spectacular illustrations as easily as the rest of us draw breath, and yet every single one is as meticulously crafted as all of the others. Indeed, when viewing his numerous albums of artwork on his Facebook page and his various art websites, I have often been reminded of the famous quote by Edward Bulwer-Lytton:

“Talent does what it can; genius does what it must”.

Unquestionably, Andy is a man whose life is driven by a passion for creating art – but when he sent me the manuscript for Strange Lands to read through, I was shocked to discover that his art was just one side of a coin whose very existence I had not even suspected before.

Long before I had finished reading it, I had discovered that Andy is not only a supremely talented artist, he is also a remarkably adept writer and researcher! Right from a child, I have always been fascinated by mythology and folklore, especially the rich corpus originating in the British Isles, and I have read very extensively on the subject. However, I can say in all honesty that Strange Lands is one of the most comprehensive single volumes on British mythological entities that I have ever encountered. Even Dr Katharine M. Briggs’s essential tome, A Dictionary of Fairies, universally acclaimed as the standard work on such beings, now has a rival in terms of the sheer diversity of examples documented.

And where Strange Lands effortlessly outpoints even that classic work is of course in its illustrations, which are truly breathtaking in their beauty, intricacy, and vibrancy. Moreover, especially with regard to the more obscure examples, Andy’s may well be the first illustrations of such entities ever executed. Certainly, in addition to all of the well known examples of British (and Breton) supernatural being, there are numerous far less familiar ones included and illustrated here too – everything, in fact, from muryans, hyter sprites, the Lob, bwbachs, the Coranied, duergars, fir darrig, foidin seachrain, and the memorably-named wag by the way to the lunatishee, brown men, the dark men of dreams, hobyahs, bull beggars, merrows, gwrach-y-rhibyn, grugach, and many more!

Strange Lands has been available online at its very own website - http://www.batcow.co.uk/strangelands/ - for quite some time, but if ever there was a manuscript crying out to be produced in book form, with its spectacular illustrations reproduced in large format, this was the one. So I am absolutely delighted that Andy has now done so, and I am very honoured to have received the opportunity to pen for it this foreword – or, as I see it, a well-deserved paean of praise for what will unquestionably become a standard work of reference as well as a true thing of beauty that will indeed be a joy forever.

On his Facebook ‘Like’ (formerly Fan) Page, Andy includes the following quote from Charles Baudelaire:

"A frenzied passion for art is a canker that devours everything else."

Much as I hesitate to question the viewpoint or tamper with the words of such an esteemed literary figure as Baudelaire, in Andy’s case I feel that a more apposite wording of that quote would be something along the lines of:

"A heartfelt passion for art is a fire that warms, nourishes, and sustains the life that it feeds above all else."

Certainly, I cannot ever imagine Andy existing even for a moment without his eternal fervour for art coursing through his veins like divine, fiery ichor. And long may it continue to do so – I for one am already eagerly awaiting his next published art project!

UPDATE: 25 October 2011

Strange Lands is now available now available to purchase as an e-book for i-pad /i-phone. Just go to: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1957828

IN QUEST OF THE KUIL KAAX

A kuil kaax (Tim Morris)

Continuing yesterday's Little People theme, several different versions have been reported from Mexico. Two of these - namely, those mysterious dwarf-sized humanoids known as the alux, long reported from the Yucatan Peninsula; and the thumb-lacking, sombrero-wearing, gnome-like duende or dwendi - are well documented in the cryptozoological and mythological literature. In stark contrast, a third Mexican mini-human entity, known as the kuil kaax, rates scarcely a mention.

I first learnt of the kuil kaax many years ago, when reading a traditional Mexican folktale concerning the basilisk lizard. According to the tale, the kuil kaaxs existed when the world was still young, were nature spirits of the forests that resembled little old gnome-like or dwarfish men, and – recalling duende descriptions - wore huge sombreros made out of leaves from the banana palm. Kind and gentle, the kuil kaaxs were revered almost as demi-gods by the animals of the forest.

This description (sombreros excepted!) closely corresponds with reports of diminutive humanoids reported widely across the Americas in modern times. Yet, bizarrely, the kuil kaax has received so little formal attention that even a Google search by me failed to elicit more than a brief note within the following Russian website:

http://www.mesoamerica.ru/indians/maya/dwarfs.html

dealing with Mesoamerican dwarf deities.

So if anyone out there has any additional information concerning the kuil kaax, I’d love to hear from you.

NORTH AMERICA'S ELUSIVE BABYFEET – Part 2.

Reward poster for Pedro, the missing Wyoming mini-mummy

Herewith the second part of my survey of North America’s mysterious babyfeet and other littlefeet (click here for Part 1). If anyone out there has details of further examples, or additional information regarding any of those documented here (especially news regarding the Wyoming mini-mummy’s current whereabouts), I’d be very interested in receiving them.

THE GEOW-LUD-MO-SIS-EG OF NEW BRUNSWICK

Proving that Little People are not a Northwest idiosyncrasy, however, Amerindian traditions regarding such entities are also on file from the Northeast, notably New York State. Here, as revealed in Edmond Wilson's book Apologies to the Iroquois, at least two tribes of dwarves supposedly lived among the Tuscaroras. One of these tribes possessed extraordinary powers of healing and would sometimes treat injured or ailing Iroquois in exchange for gifts of tobacco, but the other tribe preferred to play tricks instead, unless appeased with tobacco.

Much further south, within Louisiana's Mississippi Delta, reports have periodically emerged concerning a race of 'little red men', according to Peter Haining, writing in Ancient Mysteries (1977). About the size of ten-year-old children, they allegedly inhabit the secluded depths of the bayous, where they are as adept at climbing trees as monkeys.

And even further south, in New Mexico, there is an ancient Cochiti legend telling of how the Pueblo tribe of the Stone Lions was attacked by a fierce race of pygmies. Full details are preserved in the 29th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (1907-1908).

Nor are mystery mini-humanoids confined exclusively to the United States within the North American continent. Moving northwards across the 49th Parallel, southeastern Canada can also lay claim to a version - the Geow-lud-mo-sis-eg. These entities are commonly met with in the vicinity of water, such as marshy ground, riverbanks, brooksides, or lake shores. Fond of playing tricks on humans, they display a particular delight in finely braiding (with consummate skill) strands of hair on the tails of horses, cows, and other domestic animals.

Their lore has been extensively researched by writer Pat Paul, of the Maliseet Nation, who lives on the Tobique Indian Reserve in New Brunswick. Once frequently spied, nowadays the Geow-lud-mo-sis-eg are rarely reported, but they do not appear to have entirely vanished.

Several years ago, one of the Tobique elders and his wife looked out of their home's window one night during a heavy downpour of rain and saw three of these dwarves sitting around an outdoor fireplace. In keeping with the ancient lore concerning these strange beings, the fire burning in this open-air fireplace remained fully lit and blazing, in spite of the torrential rain pouring down upon it. Moreover, minute stone beads supposedly manufactured by the Geow-lud-mo-sis-eg have been found at the Passammaquoddy Nation (Sebayik) Reservation in Maine. Measuring 0.04-1 inch long, each of these beads is composed of a shale-like material, and contains a hole enabling the thread to pass through.

Far more remarkable, however, but tragically lost (or at least mislaid) are the pygmy coffins and corpses found on an unidentified island by Captain Luke Foxe during the early 1630s while exploring the Hudson Bay/Baffin Island region of northeastern Canada. In 1635, Foxe recorded his extraordinary find in his journal as follows:

"The newes from the land was that this Iland was a Sepulchre, for that the Salvages [sic] had laid their dead (I cannot say interred), for it is all stone, as they cannot dig therein, but lay the Corpes upon the stones, and well them about with the same, coffining them also by laying the sides of old sleddes above, which have been artificially made. The boards are some 9 or 10 ft long, 4 inches thicke. In what manner the tree they have bin made out of was cloven or sawen, it was so smooth as we could not discerne, the burials had been so old. And, as in other places of those countries, they bury all their Vtensels [utensils], as bowes, arrowes, strings, darts, lances, and other implements carved in bone. The longest Corpes was not above 4 foot long, with their heads laid to the West...their Corpes were wrapped in Deare [deer] skinnes...They seem to be people of small stature."

Although Foxe's sailors took away the wooden boards to be used as firewood, they did not disturb the pygmy corpses, but the island in question has never been satisfactorily identified, thereby ruling out the possibility of launching any modern search for further relics here.

WYOMING'S MINI-MUMMY

Iromically, the most contentious North American mini-humanoid on record is one that was actually formally examined by scientists. Yet it still remains mystifying, with a history full of contradictory claims.

This specimen's extraordinary history began one day in October 1932 (or June 1934 in some accounts), when gold-prospectors Cecil Main (spelt 'Mayne' in some reports) and Frank Carr blasted a hole through the wall of a ravine in the San Pedro Mountains, about 65 miles southwest of the city of Casper, Wyoming - and made a momentous discovery. The wall had been hiding a small, room-like, hitherto-sealed cavern, which contained a ledge. And sitting on the ledge, in cross-legged pixie-like pose, with its arms folded across its chest, was the mummy of a diminutive humanoid figure, with a sitting height of less than 7 in and a total height of only 14 in.

Sporting a tanned if wrinkled bronze-coloured skin, barrel-shaped body, large hands, long fingers, low brow, very wide mouth with large lips, and broad flat nose, this strange figure resembled a smirking old man, who seemed almost to be winking at its two amazed discoverers, as one of its large eyes was half-closed. Nevertheless, it was evident that this entity had been dead for a very long time, and its death did not appear to have been a pleasant one. Its head was abnormally flat, and was covered with a dark gelatinous substance - later examinations by scientists suggested that its skull may have been smashed by an extremely heavy blow, and the gelatinous substance was congealed blood and exposed brain tissue. Due to its mountain provenance, this remarkable specimen was soon dubbed Pedro by the media, following its discovery's announcement in a report by the Casper Tribune-Herald newspaper on 21 October 1932.

To cut a long and highly controversial (not to mention often contradictory) story short, Pedro became the property of used car-dealer Ivan Goodman from Casper, who purchased it during the mid-1940s from Floyd Jones, a drug store owner in the small Wyoming town of Meeteetse, where it had been on display for some years. In 1950, Goodwin made Pedro available for scientific examination, the most detailed of which, including x-ray analysis, was conducted by anthropologist Dr Henry Shapiro from the American Museum of Natural History. According to a subsequent Casper Tribune-Herald report, the examination had revealed that Pedro was not a fake but did indeed contain a complete if minuscule skeleton, a fully-fused skull (seemingly verifying that it was an adult humanoid, and not an infant - not even an anencephalous one), and also a full set of teeth. Certain other reports, conversely, allege that Shapiro had identified it as an infant.

Pedro's current whereabouts are unknown; it was last recorded in 1950. That was the year in which Goodman loaned it to a New York businessman, Leonard Wadler, who wanted to study it, but it was not returned to Goodman's family after Goodman died later that same year. Soon afterwards, Wadler moved to Florida, where he apparently died sometime during the 1980s but his movements and precise whereabouts during the intervening three decades are presently undetermined. As for Pedro: was it subsequently lost or even destroyed after being acquired by Wadler, or does someone, somewhere, still own it? No-one seems to know. Even a $10,000 reward for Pedro's discovery offered in February 2005 by Bibleland Studios founder John Adolfi has so far failed to uncover it, but its x-ray plates from 1950 are still on file, as are several vintage photos of it. Moreover, not long after Pedro's initial discovery by the two prospectors, a Mexican shepherd called Jose Martinez reputedly found another mummy and six separate skulls on a ranch in the same vicinity. After soon suffering a number of mishaps, however, he considered them to be jinxed, so he swiftly replaced them where he had found them.

Other mini-mummies have also been reported over the years from elsewhere in the U.S.A. One of the most noteworthy of these was a 3-ft-tall, red-haired specimen discovered during the 1920s on a ledge in Kentucky's famous Mammoth Cave, and which seemed to be only a few centuries old. During 1922, sheep-herder Bill Street claimed to have found several small skulls and whole mummies in Montana's Beartooth Mountains, but their present whereabouts are unclear. Two young men on a day off from the Civilian Conservation Corps came upon a dead pygmy with sharp teeth in Wyoming's Wind River Mountains during 1933 (was it a Ninnimbe?); both died soon afterwards, and others who saw it died from severe illnesses.

In 1969, author John 'Ace' Bonar visited orthopaedic specialist Richard Phelps in Casper to see the preserved head of a mysterious tiny humanoid that he was displaying at that time in his shop. Bonar learnt that the head had originally been taken from a cliff near Wyoming's Muddy Gap. After Phelps's death in 1980, his daughter donated the preserved pygmy head to the University of Wyoming in Laramie, where it is still said to be today.

According to Bonar, the husband of Winnie Cardell from Alcova, Wyoming, also owned a mini-mummy - until he loaned it to a college professor, who never returned it. A specimen closely resembling the famous Casper mini-mummy attracted media attention in January 1979 when it was loaned to Californian antique appraiser Kent Diehl of San Anselmo for examination. Just under 1 ft long, with an indentation at the back of the head indicating brain injury as the cause of death, the mummy was supposedly found in Central America during 1919, but Diehl would not publicly identify the Marin family that presently owns it.

Some researchers have dismissed Pedro as a grossly-malformed human child or foetus (anencephaly being a popular explanation, as proposed during the 1990s on an Unsolved Mysteries TV show by University of Wyoming anthropologist Dr George Gill after viewing photos of Pedro and its x-rays), but if its alleged adult characteristics are genuine, they would conflict with this identity. And anyway, why was it placed on the ledge and then sealed away inside that small cavern within the Pedro Mountains, and by whom? After all, this seems a very strange, extreme action to take with merely a malformed infant. Also, there are many Amerindian traditions of mysterious races of dwarves or pygmies, as we have seen, and some of these allegedly kill their own kind when they become old or infirm by beheading them, or by smashing their skulls - in precisely the way that Pedro and its Central American lookalike may have met their deaths. Just a coincidence?

DOVER DEMON

Sceptics claim that North American mystery dwarves, pygmies, and other littlefeet exist only in native American folklore and legends, and that white Westerners never report such beings. In reality, however, this is far from true, as exemplified by the Dover demon.

At around 10.30 pm on 21 April 1977, 17-year-old Bill Bartlett was driving home with two friends through Dover in Massachusetts when his headlights illuminated a bizarre entity picking its way along a stone wall at the side of the road. Standing 3-4 ft high with hairless but rough-textured, peach-coloured skin, the creature had a disproportionately large melon-shaped head whose face was wholly featureless except for a big pair of protruding eyes that glowed orange. Its body was slight, but its arms and legs were very long and thin, terminating in slender, supple fingers and toes. Bill Bartlett later produced a sketch of this entity, which became known as the Dover demon - a sketch that was almost identical to the drawing prepared independently by a separate eyewitness, 15-year-old John Baxter, who had seen the being less than two hours after Bartlett's encounter.

Baxter had been walking home close to the location of Bartlett's sighting when he spied the 'demon', and chased it down a gully. Two other sightings were made within the next 24 hours, after which it was never reported again. On account of its truly unearthly appearance, wholly unlike any type of creature known to science, some researchers have deemed the Dover demon to be an extraterrestrial, or, at the very least, an interdimensional, visitor. All of which makes it all the more intriguing that like so many other littlefeet on record, this mystifying entity does have a traditional, terrestrial precedent.

The Cree Nation of eastern Canada speak of a mysterious, elusive race of pygmies known to them as the Mannegishi, which live between rocks in the rapids. Their morphological description corresponds almost exactly with that of the Dover demon.

So what are we to make of North America's littlefeet? Quite evidently, they are more than just a myth, and have been in existence here for a very long time. But what are they, and where did they originally come from?

Are they native New Worlders that have retreated in historic times to remote localities away from modern humanity's conquering reach? Interestingly, in his absorbing book on the huge extinct ape Gigantopithecus, entitled Other Origins: The Search For the Giant Ape in Human Prehistory (1990), American anthropologist Dr Russell Ciochon briefly referred to a native American tradition concerning a tiny human entity referred to as the ‘little cat man’, and he speculated that this may refer to an extinct North American prosimian.

Or could the littlefeet actually constitute beings from a very different, parallel world that can and do enter ours at will, in the best traditions of Little People everywhere? And where, in the infinitely subtle continuum of reports, do Little People end and extraterrestrials begin, anyway? After all, entities like the Dover demon and other littlefeet documented here effortlessly if confusingly embrace both ends of this vast spectrum of sightings instantaneously.

Documenting the Wyoming mini-mummy in his book Stranger Than Science (1959), veteran mysteries investigator Frank Edwards made the following pertinent comment:

"Scientists from far and near have examined this tiny fellow and have gone away amazed. He is unlike anything they ever saw before. Sitting there on the shelf in Casper, visible, disturbing evidence that science may have overlooked him and his kind much too long."

Moreover, just as there are two sides to every coin, in his own book The Monster Trap (1976) Peter Haining offered an equally disturbing, obverse view:

"For as some of the more serious-minded of the old people of Casper who were alive at the time of the discovery will tell you, they believe the little man was one of a whole race of barbaric dwarf people who once lived in the region in ancient times. And they get the distinct impression from looking at him that he had been sitting there behind the stone wall for thousands of years waiting for someone - or something - to return.

"Now just suppose, they go on with the merest hesitation, that the long-awaited return of what-ever-it-might-be has taken place - and it has found nothing there..."

A chilling little vignette, to say the least. And who knows - perhaps it really would have been best in this instance to have let sleeping dogs lie, or dormant dwarves dream on?

NORTH AMERICA'S ELUSIVE BABYFEET – Part 1.

A North American littlefoot or babyfoot (Tim Morris)

Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;

William Allingham – The Fairies

Whereas most people will know of North America's giant mystery man-beast, the bigfoot, far fewer will be familiar with this continent's diverse array of mysterious mini-humanoids, often colloquially (and collectively) labelled as ‘littlefeet’ or 'babyfeet'. This is a great tragedy, because these diminutive denizens, which appear to have been particularly abundant within the Pacific Northwest in bygone times, and to have exhibited certain characteristics associated with the Little People and sometimes even with extraterrestrial visitors, may be more than mere legends, and might actually still exist today.

THE BABYFEET OF OREGON

Take, for instance, the still-unexplained events featuring Bud Darcor and his younger brother that occurred during a weekend in 1944 while they were deer hunting near the Bly Mountain Lookout in Oregon. They had been gazing out over the surrounding forest from the lofty lookout tower when a bright ball of light suddenly appeared in the sky and flew towards a tableland close by, apparently descending upon a mountain about two miles away. Very curious to learn more about this unheralded skyborne visitor, during the following day the two brothers trekked to the location where the object seemed to have landed, and there in a clearing they discovered a burnt patch of ground measuring roughly 30 ft in diameter.

After examining this patch, they began to journey back to the lookout tower, but during their trek they were very surprised to espy some extraordinary footprints in the pumice dust of the road. These tracks crossed the road, progressed up the roadcut bank, and then paused, at which point the unmistakeable impression left by someone sitting down in the dust could be readily discerned. What made these tracks so unusual, however, was their size, each measuring no more than 4.5 in long, with the 'buttocks' impression about 6 in across.

Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of this curious case, however, was still to come. After they had preserved the tracks for future inspection by placing a wooden board over them, the Darcor brothers sought the opinion of a local Forest Service officer and also a government representative. Yet according to the Darcors, the forestry officer preferred to pretend that nothing had been found, whereas the government representative suggested that the tracks' unseen creator may have been a monkey that had fallen out of an aeroplane!

In fact, these tracks were merely another series in a long list of similar discoveries made over many years in Oregon, and which, in the firm belief of this U.S. State's native American tribes, are left behind by an ancient race of dwarf-like beings with supernatural powers. Needless to say, this all sounds like just another version of the worldwide legends appertaining to the existence of fairies or Little People - were it not for the undeniable if inexplicable reality of what are popularly referred to in Oregon as 'babyfoot' tracks.

Indeed, these mysterious entities have even inspired the naming of Baby Rock in Oregon's Lane County, as well as Babyfoot Creek and Babyfoot Lake Botanical Area in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, Curry County, Oregon. As recently as 12 February 1992, The Track Record published an account documenting Thomas C. Pitka's discovery of many babyfoot tracks, each a mere 6 in long and bare-footed, around the Green Point Upper Reservoir, southwest of Oregon's Hood River, and others will no doubt continue to be recorded in the future.

Different native tribes in Oregon have different names for the elusive babyfeet, but it is evident that they are referring to the same entities - and often associate them with lights in the sky (including, in some instances, the northern lights). One of the most significant sources of information concerning them is Henry James Franzoni's fascinating book Legends Beyond Psychology, which documents the babyfoot lore of several tribes in this State.

The Tenino (Warm Springs Sahaptin) Indians, for instance, who inhabited part of the Columbia River's south bank in northern central Oregon, have longstanding traditions regarding the mountain-inhabiting 'ground people' or Pah-ho-ho-klah. The Tenino claim that these beings are themselves Indians, wearing buckskin clothes and braided hair, but are much smaller in size, hunt at night with bow and arrows, and call to one other using birdsong. They also possess the formidable power to drive any human crazy who answers or pursues them, and humans who encounter them often discover afterwards that they have unaccountably 'lost' several days.

Sounds familiar?

Diminutive, nocturnal dwarves communicating via birdsong, inducing madness in those who behold them, and linked with lost periods of time also feature in the lore of the Yakama Indians from Oregon's Cascade Mountains. Here they are termed the Te-chum' mah, and are said to inhabit these mountains' more heavily-timbered summits and peaks - particularly in the region bordering Lake Keechelas, about 35 miles north-northeast of Mount Rainier in the Mount Baker Snoqualmie National Forest. They are also claimed to live around Fish Lake, which lies roughly 4 miles southwest of the Goat Rocks Wilderness's southeast boundary, in the Wenatchee National Forest, and is contained within the Yakama Indian Reservation.

Among Oregon's most intriguing iconographical enigmas are the rock-paintings known to the Yakama Indians as Schop-tash and Puh-tuh num (this latter is now destroyed), depicted on high cliff faces in the Naches Gap near Yakama itself, and which this region's eponymous native tribe claim were there long before they themselves first arrived here. According to the Yakama, these pictographs are the work of a mysterious, cliff-inhabiting race of dwarf-like beings, only 2 ft high and wearing rabbit-skin robes, which they call the Wah'-tee-tas (translated as 'animal people' or 'ancient people'), and are seen only at twilight or dawn.

Oregon's Klamath Indians, who formerly occupied the Klamath Lake and River region speak of several different types of mini-humanoid, which, like so many accounts of Little People, seem to inhabit an intermediate reality that periodically impinges upon our own. The Teakiak'k resemble young boys but are no bigger than babies, with long hair that hangs down their back to waist level. They do not wear clothes, but wooden images of these entities carved by Klamath shamans are decorated with red feathers (from the red-shafted flicker woodpecker) around their neck. There are also the Goga'ne, which are male dwarves with baby-sized footprints, and are allegedly most common amid the Cascade Mountains. These snow-clad slopes are home too to the Na'hnias, once again leaving tiny footprints.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN DWARVES

Another valuable source of data concerning New World pygmies is Ella E. Clark's Indian Legends From the Rockies (1977), documenting lore from several Rocky Mountain tribes.

According to the Flathead Indians, the first inhabitants of their territory in northern Montana were a race of 3-ft-tall dwarves, with very dark skin, and a well-developed civilisation. After the Flatheads' arrival, however, the dwarves retreated ever further into the mountains, where they largely died out. Those few that survived became primarily nocturnal, sleeping in old mountain craters during the day. Eventually they became somewhat mythicised by the Flatheads, who began to attribute supernatural powers to these diminutive beings.

The Coeur d'Alenes and the Spokane Indians of Washington State share traditions of dwarf-like entities, many of whom reputedly once lived in the extremely dense forests and undergrowth that formerly encircled Rosebud Lake. Dressed in brown or red apparel with pointed caps, they were very adept at clambering up and down trees, always climbing head first. At night, their wailing cries would sometimes awaken their Indian neighbours, and like Little People everywhere they delighted in playing mischievous tricks upon unwary humans. A different race of dwarves indigenous to this region once lived in great numbers in cliffs and rocky mountainous retreats, and dressed in squirrel skins. The size of small boys, they hunted with bows and arrows, and enjoyed luring Indian hunters onto the wrong paths.

The Nez Percé‚ Indians of the North West still speak of a race of dwarves known to them as the Its'te-ya-ha or Stick Indians. Dressed in deerskin, with long hair, small eyes, and wrinkled skin, these gnome-like entities inhabited the deep woodlands. They were said to be disproportionately strong relative to their small stature, and were reputedly fond of abducting calves and other livestock of Indians and white settlers alike. According to Lucy Armstrong Isaac, one of Ella Clark's sources of information regarding these beings, her great grandfather once found a dead Stick Indian, resembling a tiny boy, lying on a flat rock.

SHOSHONE TRADITIONS

The Shoshone Indians formerly frequenting western Wyoming, central and southern Idaho, northeastern Nevada, and western Utah have many traditions of dwarf-like humanoids.

The strong, fearless Ninnimbe or Nimerigar of Wyoming, for instance, were claimed to be 2-3 ft tall, garbed in goatskin clothes, and very adroit hunters. They always carried a large quiver of poisoned arrows on their back, which claimed the lives of many Shoshones when they first entered these dwarves' territory. However, the Ninnimbe were themselves vulnerable, as they were frequently preyed upon by eagles, which could easily snatch up these small beings off the ground and carry them away. Like the Wah'-tee-tas in Oregon, the Ninnimbe were deemed responsible for the pictographs on the rocks in Wind River County. Similar beings were also believed in by the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and the Dakota Sioux.

According to the Shoshone, the cave-inhabiting dwarves that supposedly existed at one time in the mountains of Salmon River County and parts of the Owyhee Range in Idaho were cannibals, who thought nothing of abducting and devouring the babies of unwary Indian mothers, then substituting themselves in best changeling tradition. Despite standing a mere 2 ft high, these dwarves were said to be very strong, and wore no clothes, even in the winter; their women, conversely, dressed themselves in skins obtained from deer or mountain sheep killed by the male dwarves using their bows and arrows. Primarily nocturnal, these beings could often be heard singing loudly at night, on cliffs and rocky peaks.

White buffaloes - i.e. albino bison - are held in very high esteem by many Amerindian tribes throughout North America, who venerate them as the sacred property of the sun, and value their creamy pelts as exceedingly potent symbols of power. Having said that, although white buffaloes are therefore linked intimately with the magical and mystical facets of humanity, there is one little-known incident on record that even by these animals' standards is decidedly mystifying. As publicised in Coral E. Lorenzen's book The Shadow of the Unknown (1970), it features a party of Shoshone braves who encountered a herd of buffaloes and killed four of them - one of which was a pure-white calf.

Suddenly, without any prior warning, a troupe of extraordinary little men appeared, surrounding the astonished braves and screaming loudly at them. Unnerved by their antagonists' unexpected appearance (in every sense of the word!), the braves decided to flee to a nearby rocky promontory to use as cover, but their plan was not necessary. One of the braves picked up the carcase of the young white buffalo, swinging it around his head as he did so - at which point the tiny men screamed with fear and raced away.

Recognising its potential, the braves skinned the carcase and stuffed its skin to make it look as if it were still a living calf. Ever afterwards, they took this strange artefact with them on their hunting trips, and although they sometimes saw these mysterious little people, they were never attacked again. For as soon as they appeared, one of the braves would swing the stuffed skin over his head, and the pygmies would flee in terror.

To be continued... (click here)