While the Ohdowas are skilled at almost anything, it’s hard for them to hunt most natural animals who have gotten used to their scent. This is why the members of the Iroquois Pygmy Society save their nail clippings, sew them into bags for hunting medicine, and leave them outside or toss them over cliffs for the Little People. The hunter fairies make a broth out of these human parts and bathe in it to disguise their scent. In gratitude for favors like these, the Ohdowas often warn human communities of trouble. Sometimes they join their elfin kin above ground at nightly festivals in the deep woods. We know this by the rings left behind in the grass.
The Stone Throwers
The Gahonga, the Seneca “stone throwers,” live in caves beside lakes and streams. They care for the natural balance, freeing fish from traps and leading them to deep caves if people take too many. They’re as mighty as they are small. They can uproot trees and pitch big rocks, and they often challenge human warriors to tests of strength. Sometimes they visit people in dreams or visions and take them back to their dwellings. Associated with water, they are particularly common in the Mohawk territory by the Hudson, the Mohawk, and the Champlain.
Iroquois elders and medicine people appeal to these spirits in times of drought. They head far from the villages and look in mountain streams until they find signs of the Gahonga: little cup-shaped hollows in the soft earth at the edge of the stream. They scoop these out whole, dry them in the sun, and take them back to the lodge. These are the “dew-cup charms” that kick-start other fairies to work in the ground or garden.
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
