This was the bedroom of a four-year-old. If the blinds to the window were closed overnight, the girl always slept peacefully and well. If the blinds were left open or raised and the little girl woke and could look outside, she started to scream bloody murder.
The first time it happened, the parents rushed into the room, expecting to interrupt a break-in or kidnapping. They found their daughter out of her bed, her tiny body backed against the wall. She was pointing out the window and shrieking hysterically, “The Little People! The Little People!”
When she calmed, her mother tried to get the details. She thought Little People came onto the lawn at night and paraded outside her window, grinning at her, mocking her, enticing her. They wanted her to come outside so they could pullher under the ground where they live. They laughed because, sooner or later, they would get her. Her descriptions of them and the events were unusually coherent. She showed her mother where they tried to grab her forearms.
Some nights the girl was afraid to sleep in her room. She spent many an hour in bed with her parents.
The family soon moved and had no further issues at their new home. The house that was the focus of it all was demolished in the 1990s to make way for the new wing of the Boys’ and Girls’ Club.
But stories of children’s encounters with Little People have surfaced about another house on Paine Street, and a few hundred yards to the south, on King. These reports come to us with less development, and we have not been able to interview witnesses. But what a Little People zone the core of East Aurora must have been! Could there be any connection to the rumor that the village had once been a prehistoric battlefield? There are plenty of ghost stories in this area as well.
The Strange Jungie
One of our Cayuga confidants remembers an aunt who, when a girl around 1960, had a Jungie as a friend. He came to visit her now and then at the Tonawanda Reservation and talked about things that had happened in her life. Usually they met outside, but sometimes he came to her family’s trailer on Shanks Road. He was her strange, beloved companion. Sometimes he warned her about things she needed to look out for. He could be jealous, though, of other friends. Once when some of her schoolmates were visiting, he bit a little white girl on the leg.
The Tuscarora Girl and the Little Man
One young Tuscarora girl used to think she saw a little man now and then in her grandmother’s house when she went over to spend nights. The grandmother always told her it was nonsense, but the little girl thought she knew more than she was saying. After a particularly traumatic night, the girl confronted her in front of the rest of the family. “I saw him in your bedroom, Grandma, right on your dresser. And he was bad!”
The girl was a fine natural artist and did a drawing of the little fellow she’dseen. It was not a hopeful one. He had a thatch of tangled, coal-black hair, pointed ears, and jagged teeth.
The girl was tragically killed in a shotgun accident in 2003. People who live in the murder house still report a dark, blurry shape a foot or so high that streaks across the floor now and then. One of the local elders called the case “bad energy.”
A Discerning Native
A friend of ours was one of a handful of white teachers on the Cattaraugus Reservation. He got along well with everyone and was a particular favorite of the children.
One day, the teachers took their classes on a field trip around the reservation. Community elders were stationed to explain the history of certain spots and buildings. One of them started to talk about a certain grove that was special to the Little People. He caught himself, looked around, and locked eyes with our friend. “Are you Native?” he asked.
Our friend is dark eyed and olive skinned and could probably pass for part Native. But he conceded that he was not. “I’m sorry,” said the elder. “We’re not allowed to talk about some aspects of our tradition with people who are not members of our society.” He scanned his eyes over the children. “We’ll get to that another time.” The discussion moved to another topic.
The Lucky One
In 1995 a white friend of ours was living in Riverside near Buffalo. He worked at an auto parts shop on the Tuscarora Reservation. His colleagues were all Seneca and Tuscarora.
His young son started to complain about visits from little human beings in his room at night. He described their sly little faces grinning at him, their little hands clutching. They wanted to take him away.
For the first few weeks, the parents thought it was just night terrors, but the matter escalated, and the boy’s descriptions sharpened. In every Little People dream he went deeper with them along a trail into a woods at night. He didn’t want to go, but they cast a spell on him, and he couldn’t resist. They were heading for the mouth of a cave. If he ever got into it, he believed, he was never coming back out.
The visions and dreams scared him so much that he was afraid to fall sleep. He could wake terrified after even a few seconds. The only rest he or his parents got was during the day. The situation exhausted the whole family. After an especially troubling night, our friend overslept and came late to work on the reservation.
“Man, you look terrible,” said his Tuscarora boss. “What happened?”
“I might as well be honest with you,” he said. “We’re really worried about my little boy. He’s having all these dreams and visions about Little People—”
At that word, his
