T. Peter Park
Sat, 11 Sep 2004 06:45:51 -0700
ULTRA-PYGMIES
How small can pygmies get? Are there any pygmy groups anywhere
outside the African rain forest and a few scattered jungle, mountain,
and island pockets in Australasia--e.g., in the Americas or Polynesia?
Official mainstream anthropology recognizes only two authenticated
"pygmy" populations on our planet, both of them with an average adult
height between 4 and 5 feet. There are (1) the Pygmies proper,
Negrillos, or Twides of the West and Central African rain forests,
usually considered dwarf offshoots or cousins of full-sized Black
Africans, and (2) the Negritos of the Malay Peninsula, the Andaman
Islands in the Bay of Bengal, and some remote inland mountain and jungle
areas of the Philippines and New Guinea, generally considered a dwarfed
offshoot of the "Australoid" racial group. Both populations consist of
dark-skinned woolly- or curly-haired folk with an average adult height
of between 4 1/2 and 5 feet on a "Stone Age" hunting-and-food-gathering
cultural level living in isolated, hard-to-reach jungle, mountain, or
small island areas. Officially, anthropology knows of no other pygmy
groups anywhere in the world--certainly none of a White/Caucasoid,
Oriental/Mongoloid, or Native American general racial type, and
definitely none living anywhere in Europe, mainland Asia (aside from the
Malay Peninsula), continental Australia, Polynesia, or the Americas.
However, there are persisting rumors and occasional reported
sightings of what we might call "ultra-pygmies" only 2 or 3 feet tall,
from Oceania and the Americas. In their _Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti,
and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide_ (New York: Avon Books, 1999),
cryptozoologist Loren Coleman and science & Fortean journalist Patrick
Huyghe discussed the _alux_ of Yucatán and other rumored New World
pygmies (p. 70), and Hawaii's _menehune_ and Fiji's _menehune_-like
dwarfs (p. 148). Many of them, they pointed out, have been reportedly
encountered by 20th century witnesses as well as described in
traditional legends and folklore.
The Maya of Yucatán described the _alux_ to the first
Spanish conquistadors--and still encounter them today. Many Mayan ruins
include tiny stone houses with 3-foot-high doorways, popularly called
_alux_ homes, in front of the main temples. Some Mayan ruins have
bas-reliefs showing naked little men much shorter than the large Mayan
priests and 5-foot-tall Mayan peasants. Mayas still allegedly see the
_alux_ in our own time. One night in 1977, Xuc, a caretaker of the ruins
of Mayapán, heard sounds of someone chopping wood with a machete, He was
then struck by small clay pellets thrown by a tiny man with a large head
and long black beard, wearing a white _huipil_ (Mayan tunic) and
carrying a long machete. Rumors of pygmy-like beings, known by various
local names, have been plentiful throughout much of Latin America. In
1944, for instance, a timber hunter encountered two little people in the
Honduras jungle. A 1970 publication of the Roman Catholic vicariate in
Puerto Maldonado, Peru mentioned the Yushe, a tribe of pygmies only 39
inches tall living along the banks of the Curanja River where Brazil,
Peru, and Bolivia meet. [1]
Hairy dwarfs recalling European gnomes and leprechauns and
the Mayan alux have also been encountered in modern times on Pacific
islands, including Hawaii and Fiji. The Hawaiian _menehune_, the
best-known of these Oceanic "little people," are described as 2 to 3
feet tall, with short, stout, hairy and quite muscular bodies,
red-skinned faces, big eyes hidden by long eyebrows, low protruding
foreheads, and short thick noses. They live in mountain forests and
usually come to the lowlands only at night. A census of the Wainiha
Valley in 1786 during the reign of King Kaumualii of Kauai supposedly
revealed that 65 of the 2,000 people counted were _menehune_.
Anthropologist Katherine Luomala suggested in 1951 that the _menehune_
might have been a "tribe of dwarfs." In the late 1940's, school
superintendent George London and about 45 schoolchildren in Waimea,
Kauai reportedly encountered a group of _menehune_ playing around the
large trees on the lawn of a local church. When the"little people" saw
the schoolchildren, the _menehune_ stopped jumping in and out of the
trees and seemingly dove into a tunnel under the parish house. According
to the July 19, 1975 _Fiji Times_, encounters with _menehune_-like
figures, "believed to be dwarfs," have also been reported from Fiji. The
six witnesses of this Fijian mid-afternoon encounter described seeing
eight figures, 2 feet tall and covered with black hair, run and
disappear behind some bushes. [2]
What are we to make of these dwarf and "ultra-pygmy" rumors
and sightings? Assuming that the witnesses were not all lying or
hallucinating, there seem to be two obvious possible explanations--which
need not exclude each other. The 3-foot-tall but otherwise quite
normal-looking "ultra-pygmies" may be ultra-dwarfed _Homo sapiens_
populations basically similar to the familiar African pygmies and
Australasian Negritos--but even smaller. The Yushe of Peru may belong to
this category, as may some of the other rumored Latin American pygmy
groups. Others, again, might belong to a distinct though related hominid
species--perhaps a dwarfed variety of Neanderthals or of _Homo erectus_?
This category may include the _alux_ of Yucatán, Hawaii's _ menehune _,
and the 1975 Fiji dwarfs. Coleman and Huyghe classified all these beings
as "Proto-Pygmies" in their _Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti..._, a rather
elastic category where they placed gnome-like dwarfs of the _alux_ and
_menehune_ type, possible _Homo sapiens_ ultra-pygmies of the Yushe
type, and small hairy bipeds suggestive of possible Australopithecine or
_Homo erectus_ affinities like Sumatra's _sedapa_ or _orang pendek_, Sri
Lanka's _nittaewo_, the African _séhité_, _agogwe_, and _kakundakári_,
and the South American _didi_. [3]
Coleman and Huyghe cited cryptozoologists W.C. Osman Hill,
who considered Sri Lanjka's _nittaewo_ a small form of _Homo erectus_,
and Bernard Heuvelmans, who believed some of the African little people
reports to be relict Australopithecine populations. However, they also
mentioned Ivan T. Sanderson's view that some Proto-Pygmies might simply
be pygmy _Homo sapiens_ who had retreated into the rain forests and
tropical mountain valleys of Africa or Asia [4]. As already mentioned,
Coleman and Huyghe cited Hawaiian anthropologist Katherine Luomala's
speculation that the _menehune_ might have been a "tribe of dwarfs." [5]
REFERENCES:
[1] Coleman and Huyghe, _The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other
Mystery Primates Worldwide_ (New York: Avon Books, 1999), pp. 70-71,
citing: Loren Coleman, _Curious Encounters_ (Boston: Faber & Faber,
1985); Bill Mack, "Mexico's Little People," FATE, August 1984; "39-Inch
Pygmies Reported," _Chicago Tribune_, October 21, 1970. Also see
_Toronto Telegram_, 20 October 1970, citing published statement by
Roman Catholic Church vicariate in Puerto Maldonado, Peru (citing Arthur
Custance, _Doorway Papers: The Fitness of Living Things_, Chapter 4,
"Dauermodifications in Man," Science & Faith (vol.. 8), Pt. IV, Ch. 4
http://custance.org/Library/Volume8/Part_IV/chapter4.html., p. 5 of 16
pp., 31).
[2] Coleman and Huyghe, _Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti..._, pp. 148-149,
citing: Janet Bord, _Fairies_ (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1997); Loren
Coleman, "The Menehune: Little People of the Pacific," FATE (July 1989);
Katherine Luomala, _The Menehune of Polynesia and Other Mythical People
of Oceania_ (Honolulu: Bishop Museum, 1951).
[3] Coleman and Huyghe, _Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti..._, pp. 29-31
(general discussion of Proto-Pygmies).
[4] Coleman and Huyghe, _Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti..._, p. 31
(theories of Osman Hill, Heuvelmans, and Sanderson), 100 (also on
Heuvelmans' Australopithecine theory of the African "little men").
[5] Coleman and Huyghe, _Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti..._, p. 148.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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