the little people

[lonelymoon]

I received a writing assignment from one of my mohawk students, and she wrote about her culture's belief in the little people. These are magical beings or spirits no taller than your knee that are very shy and runaway when seen. She says she saw two of the little people while exploring around an abandoned house on the reservation. They made faces at her then ran away. She mentioned the incident to an older family member who said "We aren't supposed to talk about the little people." She was also told that people who drink a lot or do drugs lose the ability to see the little people. Kids and older people and dogs often notice them. what are they?

[coldharvest]

what are they?

Oompa Loompa's.

[Stiv]

They are vestigal memories that the human mind still retains from primitive times.

Similar to big foot, Nessie etc. Or so I've heard theorized.

~Stiv

[el3so]

the little people. what are they?

'We're Certainly Dwarfs'

[yorick]

Now ask yourselves have y'all seen elementals out of the corner of yer eye? Maybe sometimes you occasionally observe or detect presence in your vacinity manifesting in physical form. Or perhaps you occasionally see things appear animate and then later disappear? These are gifted insights that must not be trampled upon by others.

Such experiences indicate metaphysical awareness at dwelling even beyond levels of the astral plane. Shit thats been taken for granted among shaman cultures for thousands of years, entirely healthy and without misgivings.

Lonely Moon, i think you'd be wise to hold the observations of your Mohawk student in highest regard. Must refrain from casting judgment upon her observations, instead consider yourself lucky to have a pupil with gifted insights. Protect her from others who would profane her beliefs and it will be a blessing to you!


(:=

[Sri Lanky]

The leprechauns are coming...the leprechauns are coming.

[SRR]

All I know is that when people win awards, they are widely thanked.

[friendlyskies]

In Nicaragua (and to a lesser extent, Cost Rica), lots of people believe in duendes, which sound similar. I've never seen one, but perhaps the substance abuse has blocked those vital neural pathways. Plenty of my friends have, though. Here's an article by Richard Leonardi (http://www.nicaraguaphoto.com/essays/up ... 2003.shtml):

NICARAGUAN LEPRECHAUNS: LOS DUENDES

My friend Luvy Pichardo, a Nicaraguan archaeologist, and I stopped for a Coca-Cola at a roadside store in the central Nicaraguan province of Boaco. A young cowboy, 13 or 14, came over to the car and looked inside the vehicle, then at me, innocently, curious. He squished his nose up against the window, so I punched the glass mockingly and he laughed. I rolled down the window and pointed up at an impressive mountain behind the village of San Lorenzo. It was a rocky mastiff that pierced the sky, like a granite space ship ready for takeoff. "How's the access to that mountain?" I asked him, wondering if anyone had climbed the stunning peak. He looked at me closely, now with a solemn face, "No one goes in there", he related, "The duendes are there".

My Larousse Spanish-English dictionary translates "duende" liberally as "gnome, elf, goblin and/or leprechaun". Though the later seems the most appropriate label for Nicaraguan duendes, elves is the oldest term in English, representing a charming, but dead belief, whose exact origins are as mysterious as the Nicaraguan duendes themselves. The legendary elves were probably already a well established belief in Ireland at the arrival of the Duatha de Danaan, around 1,900 BC. In India as early as 5,000 BC the cult of Shiva believed that the God was attended by an army of ganas, tiny, devout elfish followers. The elf-God Ptah watched over the great Egyptian city of Memphis founded in 3,100 BC and in the Hawaiian Islands the forests at night were once populated by Menehune, little marching people. In Honduras natural water wells of the Lenca and Chorti Indians were protected by duendes, little people that also accepted sacrificial animals to aid in achieving healthy rain falls and overflowing wells. More similar to Nicaragua duendes were the North American Cherokee Yunwi Tsunsdi, "little people" who lived in mountain caves of the Cherokee world. The Cherokee Yunwi Tsunsdi were mischievous, threw rocks and were known to carry off a Cherokee baby if they felt it was not being properly cared for.

In Nicaragua however, duendes (or elves or leprechauns) are far from being a part of ancient folklore. In fact they are alive and well, populating hillside caves throughout the country, though they appear most prevalent in the caves that dot the mountain ranges of the central and northern provinces of Chontales, Boaco, Jinotega, Estelí, Madriz and Nueva Segovia. The existence of these little people is believed by a majority of the population, especially children, adolescents and campesinos (country farmers) of all ages. Sightings are commonplace, their existence doubted by few in the countryside.

Duendes are most akin to demonic leprechauns: a race of very small alien people, dressed usually in red or green, with pointy hats, more often than not sporting beards and most likely up to no good. The duendes make frequent contact and contracts with the devil in their homes, the country's hillside caves. Their main purpose, or joy, is to steal yet to be baptized babies or unwed young women, though they are happy to play with a farmer or schoolboy's sanity. The unwed post-pubescent girl is lured away by hypnotism, little gifts, and sweet words, never to be seen again. Duendes can be heard laughing in the deep forest, but also take time out to visit schools and homes of rural villages. They enjoy making life difficult for the people of the countryside, putting farm animals in high places where they can't climb down, knocking roof tiles off the house at night, dropping little pebbles in children's food and drink, all the while laughing their little laugh.

Nicaraguan newspapers report annually of school children afraid to attend class and farmers who flee ranches thanks to horrifying little duendes, who appear, laughing their dangerously contagious duende laugh, invisible to most, but completely visible and both repulsive and enticing, to a select few. Managua daily El Nuevo Diario on January 12 of this year reported of the widow Doña Fátima López who escaped the rock throwing duendes that attacked her home near Cuapa, Chontales; finding refuge in her father's farm 90 km east, only to have the duendes follow her and steal her small son one night from bed and leave him asleep outside in a cattle trough. The same newspaper demonstrated on June 21, 2003 that duendes can even penetrate the nation's sprawling capital city of Managua. Managua's Colegio Nicarao (primary and secondary school) principle reported to the periodical that five students arrived to her office dazed, apparently under a "strange influence". They then described to her contact with a yellow duende, who wore a green scarf and had long ears, blond hair, blue eyes, arching eyebrows, a wrinkled white face, red mouth was about a half-meter tall sporting pointy shoes and white socks.

Nicaragua's greatest hero, the immortal poet Rubén Darío remembered the appearance of duendes during his childhood in León, in his essay "La Larva" published in 1910 in the Buenos Aires magazine Caras y Mascaras (Faces and Masks), noting that "mysterious communication with invisible spirits" was a common indigenous practice in Nicaragua that did not diminish with the arrival of the Spanish, rather it "even increased". He recalled how "diabolic apparitions, ghosts and duendes" in León were a "normal thing".

My archaeologist friend Luvy Pichardo was laughing heartily at what the young cowboy from San Lorenzo had said about the duendes inhabiting the distant mountain. Luvy was born in the mountainous Chontales area, but she was now metropolitan woman, a respected Nicaraguan scientist, at that time holding the post of Director of Nicaragua National Museum in Managua. "So you don't believe in duendes then?" I asked her smiling devilishly. She hesitated to answer, biting her lower lip, hiding her embarrassed smile by observing the mountainous countryside outside the car, "Actually, when I was 10 years old, I saw 6 of them, horrible little things, walking around my school's yard, ugly and laughing, dressed in green, my mother saw them also, but of course I was young..."

[friendlyskies]

If you can read a little Spanish, here's another scaaaaary duende story, where they first kidnap a poor farming family's burro and then make a play for their little girl:

http://www.manfut.org/leyendas/duendes.html

And the mysterious Cueva del Duende, only visible in dry season, when Lake Nicaragua's water level drops a couple of meters and tourists can go inside to see the unexplained petroglyphs:

http://www.laprensa.com.ni/archivo/2002 ... 05-02.html

[yorick]

Damnit i would love to spend the night in one of those caves......




...... seriously this is something I must do!


(:=

[Medevac]

the little people. what are they?

'We're Certainly Dwarfs'

You must be a Terry Pratchett fan - good taste that man.

[friendlyskies]

Damnit i would love to spend the night in one of those caves......

Schedule a week to really enjoy the Solentiname Islands (in the far SE corner of Lake Nicaragua), which in addition to duendes also has an anarcho-syndiclistic commune founded by warrior-poet and Liberation Theologist Ernesto Cardenal, which happens to be world famous for arts and crafts. You would love it.


A pretty island view.


Solentiname's patented Primitivist painting, and this is really what it looks like on your way to the Duende Cave.


Craftsy!


Ernesto Cardenal getting his pinko-commie "Misa Campesina" loving arse publically chewed out by Pope John Paul II, who disapproved of Cardenal's support of the Sandinista-led revolutionary government. Incidentally, the Nicas booed the Pope.

[Captain_Solo]

what are they?

One of two things:

1. A little too much of the peace pipe, or...

2. Gary Coleman!

[Captain_Solo]

The little bastards:

[Wayne]

Hobbits.