The Stone Throwers are thought to be the ones who come most often to people. They like pranks, but not ones played on themselves. If you offend them, you better find an elder and placate them immediately with the proper ritual.
The Plant Growers
By far the favorites of the Iroquois are the Little People of the Fruits and Grains sometimes called “the Plant Growers.” Their Seneca name is Gandayah. They hide with the seeds and shoots in their long winter beds. In spring they whisper to the stems to wake and show all growing things the way to the sun. They watch the fields, ripen the fruit, and lead the crops to their autumn harvest. They quell blights and disease. These little folk of the sunshine are the universal friends of the Native Americans.
The strawberry is their special plant. Its first ripening is the sign of their work and a call for thanksgiving to the community. The priestesses of the Honondiont, or the Company of Faith Keepers, hold meetings of praise at night, make strawberry wine, and save a special vintage for the singers and dancers. The old ceremonies were probably held around the time of the solstice and Midsummer’s Eve, a high fairy night in Europe, too.
Some old tales tell us that when the fruits first came to earth, an evil spirit being stole the strawberry and hid it underground for centuries. A stray sunbeam found it at last and released it to the fields of the day. The Gandayah are on guard against another captivity.
The Gandayah visit the longhouse in animal guises. As robins, they bring good news. As owls, they give warning. Since the tiniest bug or worm could be the bearer of “talk” from the Gandayah, the Longhouse folk never uselessly harm little creatures. One of the old Iroquois proverbs says it best: “The trail is wide enough for all.”
When the Iroquois Little People come to mind, many presume that the influence of the whites could have been involved. After all, few Iroquois stories saw print until the golden age of Iroquois folklore (1880–1925) when some fine white story keepers and researchers were at it and the Iroquois were still talking to them. By then, the white influence had had three centuries to permeate Iroquois storytelling.
The Little People are older and indigenous. We think this for several reasons.
One is that a European influence is not needed for the existence of fairy-lore. It’s developed all over the world. Another is that apparent tributes to the Little People—tiny tools and weapons—have been found in Iroquoian graves that far predate the coming of Columbus. Finally, Iroquoian speakers in far parts have their own Little People traditions. The Cherokee, for instance, have their own Little People legends, and they broke off from the ancestors of the New York Iroquois thousands of years ago. The Huron/Wyandot waged wars against the Iroquois, and they have similar lore about the northeastern woods.
It was the Little People of the Fruits and Grains who set the rule that the Iroquois should save their fantastic tales for winter nights in the longhouse when nature was at stasis. Storytelling could do harm at other times of year. Suppose a poor beast were to be spellbound by the wondrous tales and stay listening too late to stock its winter home? Birds might forget to migrate, and burrowers skip their digging until the ground is frozen. Even the vine over the lodge door might forget to change with the cycles of the year. True storytellers obliged, lest a bird or bee hear them and take word of it back to the Gandayah.
But this rule may not be so strict for the greatest human storytellers, maybe because the need to hear is so dire in the human world. Duce Bowen gave a session one night in July 2002, and it was real stories he was telling. Surely the Little People will let you slide, whatever time of year you read these.
IMPARTING A RITUAL
So often in Iroquois supernatural tales, the human characters ask the beings they encounter, “What sort of dance can I bring back?” It would seem that one of the most significant features of any individual mystical experience was the ritual it might impart to the nation. Many tales serve as origin myths for cultural rites, one of the most solemn of which is the Dark Dance.
The Dark Dance
(Traditional)
Long before the coming of the Europeans, a Seneca boy looked down from a cliff in Zoar Valley and saw a strange scene. Two tiny boys at the base of a tall tree were firing needle-sized arrows at a big black squirrel. Their shafts didn’t even reach the creature’s perch. The human lad launched his own bolt from above, dropped their quarry, and climbed down to find the fairy boys examining the big mortal arrow. They were delighted when the Seneca boy presented the critter to them. The “buffalo squirrel” was their nation’s favorite prey. They invited him back to their village.
The human boy joined the family of his tiny hosts and shared their meal. No matter how many times he drained his thimble-sized bowl, it never ran out of corn soup. Their berry juice was intoxicating, and their sacred pipe hallucinogenic. Soon he barely noticed the difference in their sizes. The father of the boys told him about the three nations of the Djogao, or the Jungies. Then the drumming and the dance started, and through the smoke, the forms of many Little People joined them. They told him to learn the dance well enough to teach it, since it could bless his nation. He stayed what seemed like a few days and saw the rite enough times to remember it.
When he got back to his village, he found he’d been gone so long that everyone had given up hope of him. The boy was a leader, though, who soon had his village ready for the rite. True to his promise, the tiny father came to sit beside him during the first Dark Dance, though only the boy could see him. The Dark Dance is still held by the medicine society named for it. In honor of the invisible Little People, it is highly private and done in almost total darkness. No one but the celebrants knows what it is like.
Some Who Met the Stone Throwers
(Traditional/Contemporary)
A Seneca lad of seven was out playing with his toy bows and arrows. He longed for the day that he could use the real ones.
He was beside a stream, taking aim at birds and bugs, when he noticed something coming toward him in the water. It was so fast and small that he thought it might be an otter swimming with its head out of water. When it neared he was shocked to see that it was a tiny canoe with two men in it, each with a miniature bow and a quiver of finger-long arrows. They paddled right up to him.
“Like to trade your bow and arrows for mine?” said one of the little men.
“That’s not much of a deal,” said the mortal boy. “Look how small they are.”
“Not all big things are better than little ones,” the other paddler said. “You’ll learn that someday about life.” He took aim and fired straight above him. The arrow took off like it could hit the sun and vanished into a cloud. The tiny pair paddled off.
The boy told his grandmother about the event. “Don’t be so quick to judge things by the way they look,” she said. “Those bows are enchanted. With that bow and quiver you could have had any game in the world.”
The Ways of the Stone Throwers
Orphans are the heroes of many Iroquois tales. Centuries before Columbus, a scrawny orphan boy was cared for—as it were—by an uncle. He was so neglected and slovenly that the other kids called him Wrapped in Crap. No wonder he played by himself.
One day he was at the riverside when one of the Stone Throwers paddled by and offered him a ride. The canoe looked too small to seat him or float him, but the paddler was persuasive. At last the boy set foot in it, and the world seemed to shift. With a single mighty stroke, the little rock thrower swept the canoe off the river, up in the air, and into a cave on the side of a cliff. The boy went with it.
Inside was a whole community of Stone Thrower folk, who started their dance and song of welcome. The boy stayed for what seemed like days. He learned their songs, their dances, their mysticism, their rites, and their stories about other tribes of Little People.
Time came for him to go. He was given a bit of each bird and animal—a wing, bone, or claw—and told how to use it in ceremony. If things were done right, corn, beans, and squash would grow
at his bidding. Berries and fruit would ripen, harvests would be full, and flowers would bloom as he walked the land. Even as they chanted to him, he floated down to the valley from which he had come. The vision of the Little People faded, and he was back where he’d started. Things had changed.
He’d been gone for years. He was a man so big and good-looking that folk in his village didn’t know him until he called them by name. He taught them the ways of the Stone Throwers, and they’ve passed through the generations. Hunters and fishermen know their customs. Girls hear the stories from their grandmothers and sing the songs to their dolls. The words echo still in the chants of the medicine people.
Three Little People in a Stone Canoe
Living Native Americans in Mohawk country refer to this Stone Thrower group as “real ugly when you look at them.” Though not ill tempered, they have skinny, fishy faces.
While canoeing on the Sacandaga Reservoir, some of Abenaki author Joe Bruchac’s Native American friends were shocked to find themselves overtaking three Little People. They usually move faster in their stone canoes than any human boat and even slip under the water when they choose. This trio was clearly up for a little fun with the humans.
“Look at those guys behind us,” said one of the Little People in the Mohawk language. “Somebody’s got to say something to them. It’s only polite.”
“We don’t want to scare them,” said the one in back. “I’ll do it. I’m the best looking.” He turned to the humans and grinned as if posing for his picture. His face was narrow and streamlined like that of a fish. The stone canoe submerged smoothly, taking the little man and his grin with it.
“He was real ugly,” said Bruchac with a grin.
NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITTLE PEOPLE
Little People were seen often in the old days, reported Onondaga Wesleyan minister Thomas La Fort in the early 1900s. Often they were at work helping the Iroquois, he said, but they had virtually disappeared since the coming of Christianity. White author William M. Beauchamp asked his old friend what he made of that and did not record for us the answer.
M. R. Harrington (1882–1971) found few nineteenth-century Oneidas who doubted the existence of the Little People. When they wanted little favors from the fairy folk—say, a good round stone for a hammer or a corn crusher—they placed offerings of sacred tobacco under flat stones by creeks. The next day they went back to the spot of the gift and often found whatever they had asked for a few feet away.
Arthur Parker interviewed Seneca adults who reported sightings of the Little People as very rare. Hearing some of the sounds they made, such as the “water tomtom,” was far more common. When an initiate of the Pygmy Society hears these distinctive drumming sounds, he knows the Little People are calling a council. He heads back to the village and gets his crew together for rites of their own.
Parker found many Iroquois children who reported seeing these Little People as they played in the woods. They were about a foot high, and moved so fast that it was hard to be sure what they wore. Some dressed normally for Native Americans of the day.
Author David Boyle informs us that the Little People most often reported in Canada were about three feet high and pale yellow in color. They were fully clothed even in the hot weather. This made them quite different from the summer-clad fays of the Iroquois.
White New Yorkers who report seeing Little People do not find the dress remarkable. They either fail to notice clothing or describe it as “a little old-timey.” It’s as if the Little People’s dress is a couple of generations back in time of the society of the observer. This pattern was fairly common in the British Isles during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Little People are always out of style. They have better things to worry about.
Dealers of Fortune
(Traditional)
La Fort remembered stories about the Little People from his boyhood. He told Beauchamp an old tale about a poor Onondaga man hunting deer, hungry and miserable at his post in the woods. He had to keep at it. Times were hard, and his wife and children were in need. He prayed to the powers of the sky and forest to help his family. He had been still for hours when he noticed a tiny old woman standing right in front of him. How had she come upon him so suddenly? How had she found him?
She said she could make him happy. She offered him his choice of rewards: gold, silver, or successful hunting. He took the hunting. If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. “Enjoy your venison,” was all she said. He took a deer shortly after she left and was a fine hunter for the rest of his life.
Why the Girl Looked Back
In 1899, La Fort told Beauchamp a story his grandmother had told him. One morning when her grandmother was a girl she was out walking with one of her own grandmothers. A strange-looking tiny woman appeared out of nowhere and spoke. “You’ve been a good woman your whole life. Now you’re unhappy because you can’t walk like you used to. You can be young again if you do what I tell you. Have your grandchild keep walking straight ahead, and don’t let her look back till I give the word.”
The grandmother sent the little girl ahead. The fairy woman took a bone comb out of her coat and said, “Comb your hair with this as far out as your hands can reach.” The old woman did so and found her hair getting longer and darker. Even her skin changed color and tone the more she combed. A year turned back with every stroke. She stood straight for the first time in decades. She must have laughed.
Maybe that’s why the girl looked back. The fairy comb powdered into dust in her grandmother’s hand, and in a breath or two, her joints were stiff again. “My dear child, you have destroyed me!” she cried, raising her arms to her head, suddenly gray again. She dropped dead on the spot.
The Largesse of the Little People
A Seneca family recounted a strange happenstance to Edmund Wilson about one of its late uncles, probably from the early 1900s. As a boy of ten, he’d disappeared into the Allegany woods for about four weeks. When he came back to his family, he had no recollection of where he had been or how the month had been spent. He was pretty well cared for, for a kid who’d been in the woods that long. His clothes were clean. His hair was even combed. Everyone presumed he’d been taken by the Little People in order to save him, as they were thought to do, from some illness or danger. To the end of his life, the matter remained a mystery.
Little People to the Rescue
Seneca author and storyteller Leo Cooper (1909–1976), known as Hayendohnees, tells of an instance from his twentieth-century boyhood in his book Seneca Indian Stories. One of his neighbors took a shortcut home after a night of drinking. On the railroad tracks, he ran into a couple of gents with whom he was not on good terms and came out the worse for it. Knocked cold, he was left lying on the tracks where he was likely to be frozen stiff or hit by a train. A flock of Little People tugged him awake and saw him home. The frost was still on his coat when he woke the next morning. Doubtless he had rendered some service either to the natural environment or to the Little People themselves.
In 2006, a white friend of ours got friendly with the staff at the Seneca Nations Museum in Salamanca. They fell to talking about folklore of all types, and the museum guide confided in him that the Jungies had actually been seen on sunny mornings near a picnic bench under the trees of the little park outside the building. They must not be easily distracted. This park is right across from the entrance to I-86 and “stripmall city.” It’s also only yards from a casino. What fortunes have they made and lost?
Supernatural folklore is common in Europe in association with the megalithic monuments. There is always some tale about a witch, dragon, or wizard to explain an earth circle or a standing stone.
The Little People vs. the Iroquois
Michael Bastine has heard people suggest that some of the mounds and earth rings in Iroquois country were constructed by the Little People for purposes that are not clear to us. He recalls hearing about an incident in which one of the Little People, possibly a young and trusting one, was capture
d and mistreated by some band of the Iroquois. He died in their custody.
The response of the Little People was extraordinary. They trapped the young son of the nation’s chief and penned him inside a geoglyph monument, most likely some sort of ring ditch. They altered it in such an ingenious way that his people could watch the boy thirst and starve but do nothing to get him out. They had to make a deal with the Little People, and it took a long time to patch relations up. Rumors are that this event took place with the Senecas, and that the Little People in western New York may not have gotten over it quite yet.
The Hunters and the Salt Lick
(Traditional)
A small party of Iroquois hunters was on its way home. They got into a clash in hostile territory, and one of them was wounded too badly to walk. His friends huddled around him with prayers and embraces and left him by a salt lick near a cave.
Iroquois Supernatural: Talking Animals and Medicine People Page 32