Re: question about the little people and migration Toliem Tue Mar 26 16:22:35 2002 Daven wrote,*br*: Red Turtle wrote,*br*: : in one of my discussions with some of the Native *br*: : friends here, i heard something interesting. he *br*: : sayd that some of the Cherokee have the Little *br*: : People as part of their worship/belief system. *br*:*br*: Completely different systems of belief. From my *br*: understanding (and it could be false) is that the *br*: "Little People" of the Cherokee is not *br*: the "Little People (read faries)" of the *br*: Celts.*br*:*br*: The Celtic set are Elves the Shide, the faries *br*: that Victorian England would go crazy over and so *br*: on. Sometimes benign, sometimes malevolent, *br*: sometimes just surley, from the Fir Darig, to the *br*: Pooka to the leprechaun to the cluricane and many *br*: others in between, they were an entire race of *br*: magickal beings.*br*:*br*: The Little People of the Cherokee were more like *br*: the little people of the Osage, or demented and *br*: malevolant spirits who died without honor or paint *br*: and did not move on to the West and their final *br*: rest in the "summerlands" or "happy *br*: hunting grounds". They are angry, hateful, *br*: spiteful, lost and willfull and contrary. They *br*: don't pass up an opportunity to hurt the living *br*: and they can't be redeemed from their state.*br*:*br*: At least, I think this is what your friend meant, *br*: but I really don't know about Cherokee *br*: spirituality. You may want to have him clarify *br*: with you what he means by "Little *br*: People".*br*:*br*: Daven*p*I have a friend who worked Pow Wows a few years back in upstate NY who passed this along to me. *p*"A few years ago I was working with All Nations Intertribal Counsel hosting*br*Pow Wows. Since I worked security I was usually at the site late, when the*br*participants were sitting around their fires and exchanging tales and lore.*br*One of my closest friends was the son of a Seneca Chief, and had lived on*br*the Seneca reservation in upstate New York. There's a mountain there that*br*is protected by spirits, and it is said only those on a spiritual quest may*br*venture beyond a certain point in safety. It is also said to be the home of the "little people", apparently an integral part of the Seneca tradition and believed to be physically present on the mountain.*p*In the last years there's been much unrest on the reservation, and a lot of*br*infighting as well as friction with the US government over casinos and*br*right-of-way regarding the highway that crosses Seneca land. During one*br*point of high tensions, some police were sent in to "keep order".*br*Naturally, the Seneca didn't much appreciate this, and began harassing the*br*unwelcome visitors, often pelting their patrol cars with stones. In the*br*midst of one such incident, I was told that the police reported "strange*br*looking children" in the area of the mountain, pelting their cars with*br*stones as some of the tribals had done. Of course, there were no children*br*in that area, and no tribal members on a quest at that particular time. *p*We swapped a lot of tales and shared a lot of cultural traditions that*br*night, and I mentioned the Celtic version of the Little People, with which*br*all present were familiar. I didn't press the issue, but my friend's*br*father, a pipe carrier and shaman, smiled a knowing smile as we compared our*br*people's "versions" of this phenomena. *p* Re: question about the little people and migration Daven 1072 Tue - Mar 26 - 3:29pm 209.255.2.222