Lewis & Clark - Little People Encounter

[rock-steady]

My Dad, who died last year, would have been 81 years old today. He traveled the western USA extensively. He would often talk about the Lewis and Clark expedition and always mention the "Little People". Just thought this would be interesting.....Anyway, I'm missing my dad today and the younger folks around here have no interest about history at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Pe ... _Mountains

https://www.ancientpages.com/2021/08/02 ... icans-say/

[Drawdown]

Same tales of the Cherokee, especially I think in the Smoky Mountains. Saw couple shows recently about trout fishing in those mountains, and one long time local fisher claimed to have had an encounter! But his description? IMO, just tales by a people who lived by their own gods. Not the True God!

[wvfarrier]

The editing errors in that article were BAD

[Bill in Oregon]

Lest we forget our Pygmy cousins.

[Ray]

Lest we forget our Pygmy cousins.

From Doyle's "the sign of the four".....

At the sound of his strident, angry cries there was movement in the huddled bundle upon the deck. It straightened itself into a little black man—the smallest I have ever seen—with a great, misshapen head and a shock of tangled, dishevelled hair. Holmes had already drawn his revolver, and I whipped out mine at the sight of this savage, distorted creature. He was wrapped in some sort of dark ulster or blanket, which left only his face exposed; but that face was enough to give a man a sleepless night. Never have I seen features so deeply marked with all bestiality and cruelty. His small eyes glowed and burned with a sombre light, and his thick lips were writhed back from his teeth, which grinned and chattered at us with a half animal fury.

“Fire if he raises his hand,” said Holmes, quietly. We were within a boat’s-length by this time, and almost within touch of our quarry. I can see the two of them now as they stood, the white man with his legs far apart, shrieking out curses, and the unhallowed dwarf with his hideous face, and his strong yellow teeth gnashing at us in the light of our lantern.

It was well that we had so clear a view of him. Even as we looked he plucked out from under his covering a short, round piece of wood, like a school-ruler, and clapped it to his lips. Our pistols rang out together. He whirled round, threw up his arms, and with a kind of choking cough fell sideways into the stream. I caught one glimpse of his venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of the waters.....

“See here,” said Holmes, pointing to the wooden hatchway. “We were hardly quick enough with our pistols.” There, sure enough, just behind where we had been standing, stuck one of those murderous darts which we knew so well. It must have whizzed between us at the instant that we fired. Holmes smiled at it and shrugged his shoulders in his easy fashion, but I confess that it turned me sick to think of the horrible death which had passed so close to us that night.

And......

From one of edgar wallace's commissioner sanders' african tales.....

Sanders uncovered from his bed clothes the three thorn burrs. When daylight came he removed a spike from the thorn and placed it under his microscope. What he saw interested him, and again he had recourse to the microscope--scraping another spike and placing the shavings between two slides.

Native people have a keen sense of humour, but that humour does not take the form of practical joking. Moreover, he had detected blood on the spike, and an organism which old blood generates.

Thus the tiny bushmen of the darkest jungle poison their arrows by leaving them in the bodies of their dead enemies.

[piller]

I have heard stories of the little people. Lots of stories seem to be based on fears and poor vision. I do agree that fossil records are incomplete.

[wecsoger]

Same tales of the Cherokee, especially I think in the Smoky Mountains.

Yes, for the Smokies it was the 'moon-eyed people'. Lots of versions of story, white or fair skinned, Cherokee said they drove them out or destroyed them.

Interesting story, doesn't seem like something the Cherokee would just make up.

[jeepnik]

My favorite was an episode of I Spy. It involved “Mexican Munchkins”. Which quickly became my wife’s nickname.

[oldebear1950]

I am a reader of Louis Lamour, and in his story Jubal Sackett, he mentioned a cave where white people, who were unknown. Maybe that legend was the reason for that mention in his book.
I have a memory for things I have read, and I come up with items I do not know how I came with the knowledge, alll the time when watching Jeporady

[oldebear1950]

I am a reader of Louis Lamour, and in his book Jubal Sackett, he mentioned a cave of old white people, and maybe he heard the story of the whites in the Smokies, and that is where he got that to put in his book.

I have always been a reader and have a habit of remembering what I have read. That same book mentioned multishot flintlocks, and was watching forgotten weapons on u tube one day, and they mentioned those guns.
I told my wife , I have read about those guns and got out my copy of Jubal Sackett and read what he said about them.

They were invented in Germany, and made in Germany, France. Italy, and England

[Ji in Hawaii]

Hawaiian mythology has their very own little people too called the "Menehune" (meh-neh-hoo-neh), reputed to have constructed the numerous huge stone fishponds found around the islands in one night. Supposedly the original inhabitants of these islands before the arrival of the Polynesian ancestors of the Hawaiians. If anything goes missing around the house the Menehune are usually to be blamed.

[KWK]

I'd never heard of the stories of the Little People. Interesting. Somewhat akin to the goblins of Europe.

[AJMD429]

.
There are also reports of ‘giants’ as well…

>>> here's just one - https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/10 ... r-AA1mHpiU

Fascinating.

[Drawdown]

Bible confirms giants several times, but not since the times of David-Solomon, 1,000BC aprox, none I recollect afterwards?

[rock-steady]

I found this excerpt from an 1889 newspaper while reading about old logging railroads and sawmills...

"While excavating for the foundation of the mill during the last week of March, crews were surprised to find several skeletons, many of which were said to be of gigantic proportions. Many of the older citizens were consulted, and none of them knew anything of this property ever being used as a graveyard. It was determined that the remains were of Pascagoula and Biloxi Indians".

[rock-steady]

Here's an interesting item from September 7th, 1889 I found while perusing old newspaper archives....

PALEOLITHIC FIND
Remains of a Man Discovered in a Monstrous Snake's Stomach
A strange discovery was made not long ago by a citizen in the northwestern district of this county. Having occasion to sink a well, Mr. Somms selected a spot in a valley near a ravine of great length, and which, during heavy rains, is transformed into a raging torrent, depositing in the valley limestone, gravel, and mud and other debris.
After reaching a depth of four feet, and while in a formation of limestone gravel that had continued almost uninterruptedly from the surface down, Somms came upon the vertebrae and ribs of an animal.
The ribs were about the size of a small pig's, and rapidly tapered. Carefully unearthing the bones toward the tapering end, Somms came to the rattles, which when counted, numbered seventeen, the largest measuring six inches across.
Attracted by the strange find, the neighbors gathered and the work of unearthing the monster was prosecuted with vigor.
After laying bare nineteen feet of the remains of the monster of other times, they found the entire skeleton of a man of tremendous stature in the stomach of the snake.
The remains of the man and serpent, so far as the serpent has been exhumed, are as perfect as when first denuded of flesh, and were doubtless covered by lime and gravel soon after death.
Near the bones of the man's right hand is a rude stone hatchet, which a local geologist of some repute states to be similar to the handiwork of paleolithic man. - Gainesville, (Tex.) Letter

[rock-steady]

One more article from 1889....1889 was certainly an interesting year....

Muskets and Bayonets in a Tree

One night long since, H. T. Huff, a well known coal dealer of Atlanta, Ga., while cutting down a bee tree on his farm, five miles from Atlanta, on the Sandtown road, made a strange discovery.
The bees were in a hollow tree, and Felix Jackson (colored) was put to work with an axe to hew it down. "Lawd a mercy!" exclaimed the negro, as he dropped his axe and peered into the opening he had made by the light of a torch. The negro had discovered an arsenal whose implements of war were like the gun of Rip Van Winkle after his sleep of twenty years.
In the hollow tree were eight old army muskets and two bayonets which had been stored away by soldiers twenty-five years ago. The stocks of the guns had nearly rotted away, and the barrels were rusted. The tree had grown about one of the bayonets and made it immovable. - St. Louis Globe-Democrat
The Opelousas courier. [volume] (Opelousas, La.), 10 Aug. 1889

and an advertisement:
BUY THE R. E. LEE Hats
The latest and most fashionable.
Corner of Canal and Bourbon Streets

[Ray]

It might have been pure tabloidish hogwash but I watched something recently that claimed that, during the '75 to '83 war, the general who would become our first president had hallucinations of a shining angel, a long deceased Indian brave/chief and little green people.

[JimT]

One of the most mythological creatures of modern times is the "Statesman." Reputed to be an individual who works as a political leader and who is more concerned about the nation as a whole instead of the political institution they happen to be a part of. The "Statesman" was reported to care for the nation so much that they would even sacrifice their own service if it helped the nation. Political decisions of the "Statesman" were never made with personal gain in mind.

As with most things, the "Statesman" is probably an urban myth.

[AJMD429]

One of the most mythological creatures of modern times is the "Statesman." Reputed to be an individual who works as a political leader and who is more concerned about the nation as a whole instead of the political institution they happen to be a part of. The "Statesman" was reported to care for the nation so much that they would even sacrifice their own service if it helped the nation. Political decisions of the "Statesman" were never made with personal gain in mind.

As with most things, the "Statesman" is probably an urban myth.

Yeah - I can believe giant snakes and pygmies and space aliens, but . . . "statesmen" . . . ????

No way....