Society Islands (Tahiti, Moorea) and the fair-dwarfish pre-Polynesians

The French Polynesia includes many groups of islands, one of the best known is the Society Islands archipelago, which includes Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora, Taha'a, Huahine and Ra'iatea, and some more smaller ones (see Google map). Their Polynesian name is Tōtaiete mā

Since my childhood I dreamed about visiting Polynesia, Capt. Troy with his sailing boat in "Adventures in Paradise" showed me the wonders of that region. Later Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard with the "Mutiny on the Bounty" gave me a Technicolor view of Tahiti. Luckily, my wife and I had the chance to visit these islands in 2017, and really enjoyed the experience!

Two views of Taha'a (top) an Huahine (bottom). Copyright © 2025 by Austin Whittall

Were these islands uninhabited?

The current chronology for the peopling of these islands, according to a genetics paper published in 2022 is the following: "Settlers also fanned out from Rarotonga northeast to the Society Islands (represented by Tahiti in our dataset but also containing the culturally significant island Raʻiātea) around 1050 CE, thence northeast to the Tuamotu Archipelago (represented by Mataiva in the Palliser group in our dataset) by 1110 CE." There is no formal records of any previous inhabitants. However, during the late 1800s, the missionaries who lived in the region collected ancient tales and myths about the original "first people" in these islands.

An article published in The Polynesian Society in 1895 included an interesting description of little people in Tahiti by the Rev. John B. Stair, describing the "early Samoan Voyages and Settlement". Under the heading (10. The Sixth Voyage Tangiia to Tahiti Eastward - Discovery of Dwarfs or Pigmies [sic] at Tahiti) says the following:

"In the narrative of this voyage we have a remarkable discovery of pigmies at Tahiti by Tangiia and subdued by him and ruled over by him or his adopted son. They were found at a place called Puna auia and are described as of four classes or tribes called O le Neke O le Mana une O le Kai lila and O le Avakevake They were very ugly and very short
... Dr Pickering makes mention of the wild people who used to inhabit Tahiti as being described to him as those who were accustomed to go all over the mountains by tracks and pathways which were utterly unknown to natives of that day.
... interesting relics of the distant past. Commenting upon the description of these pigmies (sic), S. Percy Smith says 'Probably they are the same as in the Hawaiian stories of the Menehune people said to have been pigmies and the first inhabitants of Hawaii. They are known to the Maoris as a people of Hawaiki under the name of Manahune' which is precisely the name as given in the records as the name of the third of the four classes of little people conquered by Tangiia who are called Manaune; an interesting fact, as showing how much the back history of the different islands is interwoven."

I will look into the Manahune in my next post.

Stair mentions another interpretation given to these ugly people: "it is thought the account must refer to some monkeys that had been seen by Iro [also called Whiro] on some distant land which he is assumed to have visited." which he dismisses stating that it was Tangiia and not Iro who discovered and subjected them to his authority. They were people, not monkeys.

The map above shows the current global range of primates, if someone in Tahiti had to travel to see monkeys, they'd have to head east to the coast of South or Central America, across the Pacific, or west to Sulawesi, Borneo, or the Philippines, and the latter is what some authors have suggested, as we will see below.

Primitive People who had not yet mastered the art of making fire

The story of Whiro - Iro (a Maori god and navigator) and the monkeys, mentioned above, according to J. M. Orsmond, commented by S. Percy Smith, is the following: "The description of the people called Te aitanga a nuku mai tore who lived in trees in the wharawhara plants and amongst the kiekie, and who had small heads, large chests and waists, and who the story says 'were not human beings' seems to be some indistinct recollection of monkeys, the more so as these 'people' were not acquainted with fire. Knowing traditionally Whiro's powers as a navigator it is not improbable that he visited the East Indian Archipelago and brought back stories of monkeys who in process of time have acquired the name given above."

Interestingly, there were tales about the natives of the Mariana Islands, stating that the natives didn't know about fire either! This was first noted by French historian Charles Le Gobien in his Histoire des Isles Mariannes (p. 44), published in 1700 where he states that: "What is even more astonishing, and what will be hard to believe, is that they had never seen fire. This essential element was entirely unknown to them. They knew neither the use nor the qualities, and but they very surprised when they saw it for the first time when Magellan descended upon one of their islands and burned about fifty houses to punish them."

The Chamorro made pottery, so surely they knew how to light fires. However, this story probably reflects some ancient myth of the locals, probably regarding a hominin (like the Flores Island Hobbit, or the Fuegian Yosi) that had not yet learned to manage fire.

French philosopher Voltaire repeated this unusual fact in his Essay on the Manners and Spirit of Nations (Chapter CXLIX): "These Mariana Islands, located near the line, deserve special attention. The inhabitants did not know fire, and it was absolutely useless to them. They fed themselves on the fruits that their lands produce in abundance, especially coconut, sago (the pith of a type of palm tree that is far superior to rice), and rima (the fruit of a large tree called the breadfruit tree, because its fruit can be used as a substitute for rice)."

The Mu

Another group of small people who didnt master fire were the mysterious Mu people of Hawaii (see p. 25 in Luomala, Katharine, The Menehune of Polynesia And Other Mythical Little People of Oceania, 1951) quoted below. The Mu are sometimes mistaken for the Menehune. But they are different types of dwarves. The Mu are "brown, diminutive (about the same height of the Menehune), stocky and active. Their heads are shaggy and their beards and eyebrows bushy. Their speech -full of strange, uncanny grunts and cries- differs from the Hawaiian. The people are wild, easily frightened... They lack fire."

The Mu are not related in any way to the pseudo-scientific lost continent of Mu in the Pacific, a counterpart of Atlantis in the Atlantic. Mu was "invented" before plate tectonics, and attempted to explain the Polynesian myths and the dispersion of mammals and marsupials, and similar species found in South America and the Western Pacific. So the explanation that was concocted was a continent that vanished under the seas and only small fragments (the islands) survived.

The Fair Fairies of Moorea

There is also another myth, probably linked to the Urukehu and the Patupaiarehe of New Zealand, fair, fairy-like people. According to Frederick William Christian (1910), in his work Eastern Pacific Lands; Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands, p. 45, there were blond creatures on Moorea:

"On a placid Sabbath morning we sight Moorea, the island of fairy folk with golden hair.¹
[1] Cf. Paumotan mokorea, a fairy woman with red-gold tresses, a mermaid. Niué, moka, blonde, auburn-haired."

The footnote [1] says "Cf." which comes from the Latin word confer, and means "compare"; and then it gives the word mokorea, used by the people of Paumotan (Tuamotu) and the other word "moka" is used by those of Niué Island which have a similar meaning "golden fair hair".

Moorea is an jungle-covered island that is just 16 km (10 mi.) west of Tahiti, with an extinct volcano, Mount Tohivea standing like a pinnacle over it (height: 1,207 m - 3,960 ft), it has a steep relief, and two large inlets. It is surrounded by an atoll. I have not been able to find any other references to fair haired fairies. Instead, I came across several texts about the Tahitian and Society Islands Manahune people. These have a similar name to Hawaii's Menehune, but were real people. I will write about them in my next post.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Menehune, the pre-Polynesian dwarf people

Besides the fairy like Patupaiarehe of New Zealand, and their Uriukehu offspring, in my previous post, I also mentioned the Manahune or Menenhune, an enslaved group of first migrants to reach the Polynesian Islands.

They were the lowest class in Tahiti, where they were known as "Manahune" (Source). They are found in the ancient oral history of the Polynesians, in Rarotonga, they were known as "little people". There, and among the Maori of New Zealand, the word "manahune" means scab, or mark on the body. They don't appear to have had a different skin color (white, or fair, or black).

In 1897, Percy Smith suggested that the name was due to some ritual scarring that left cicatrices, and writes the following (Source):

"...Fornander [see Abraham Fornander, An Account of the Polynesian Race, Its Origin and Migrations and the Ancient History of the Hawaiian People to the Times of Kamehameha. (1878), Volume 1, p. 55] seemed to be of the opinion that this was a racial name applied by the Polynesians to themselves in ancient times and derived from one of their remote ancestors named Kalani Menehune but from Maori and Rarotonga accounts they appear rather to have been an alien race. The vague notions the Polynesians generally have in regard to the Manahune their living in the mountains and forests the wonderful powers of sorcery &c accredited to them seems to point to their having been a race living in the remote past conquered by the Polynesians and probably often enslaved by them.
There seems to be two possible or probable theories to account for the Manahune. Either they were the first migration into the Pacific or they were one of the races the Polynesians came into contact with in Indonesia or further to the west and some of whom they brought with them in their migrations as slaves. In this latter case the stories of their having inhabited Hawaii and Hawaiki are Indonesian events localised in process of time in the Pacific homes of the Polynesians. The latter theory is probably the more consonant with what is known of the Manahune."

Menehune in Hawaii

Percy Smith also noted that they appear in the traditions of the Hawaiian natives and "they appear to have been at one time very numerous and lived in the mountains but were in a state of subjection to the Hawaiians performing for them many works that required great numbers in order to complete the task at once. Like the Patupai arehe of New Zealand these people are said not to like the daylight but worked at night. Many of the heiaus and some of the loko i a or fish ponds of Hawaii are said to have been built by the Menehune."

There is a remaining structure that is attributed to these Menehune, the "Menehune Ditch", registered in the National Register of Historic Places, from where the following information is taken (Source):

The Menehune, or Peekauai Ditch, also known as Kiki-a-'ola, was built by the junction of the Waiamea and Makaweli rivers, on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai. It is 7,000 ft. long (roughly 2.1 km) and runs along the foot of a cliff or pali and the wall of the ditch was built with blocks of stone. See it in Google maps.

"The ditch was built prehistorically to irrigate the taro (Colocasia esculenta) patches in lower Waimea Valley. Legends and chants tell of Ola, King of Waimea, who, through Pi, his kahuna or priest, caused the great water-lead to be built which is still called Kiki-a-'ola. Pi then chose the location and contacted the Menehunes (legendary race of small people reknown for their overnight construction activities) to construct the ditch features in one night
... The earliest written account of the ditch is by Captain George Vancouver in 1792 when he visited Waimea Valley...
The construction of the causeway is unique in the use of dressed and jointed stones. The other examples of cut stone construction are limited to Kukuipahu Heiau (temple) in North Kohala and several out-of-context stones in Kailua-Kona, both on Hawaii Island. However, Kiki-a-'ola is the only example of jointed stonework and offers a unique example of this type of causeway construction. Additionally, there are three types of joints represented, including double joint, square joint, and notched joint. The prehistoric appearance of the ditch wall would have been impressive with a 24 foot high faced wall of dress and jointed stones. Today, the scale of the causeway is only suggested in the exposed upper two to three courses of stonework."

There is an article (Stories of the Menehunes - Hawaii The Original Home of the Brownies (See p.112) with plenty of information about these people and their buildings (which included ancient temples or "heiaus").

Mehune ditch. Source

In my book, I mention that:

"Dwarfish people are deeply rooted in the ancestors of Polynesians and they are found along the route they followed as they made their way across Austronesia: the duwendes of the Philippines, otu dogkek of Borneo, Orang Pendek of Sumatra, lai ho’a of Flores, To Uta of Sulawesi, Kanika of New Guinea, Leimuba of Nendo, Sengalengale of Vanuatu, and ‘autotoe of Samoa, to name a few.
Among the Polynesians, in Hawaii, there was a similar myth to the chélep regarding the Menehune, who were short people, not more than 90 cm tall (3 ft.), yet stocky and strong. They had dark or red skin and lived in the forests; they could work and shape stone skillfully. They built walls, roads, and canals during the night.
This myth probably reflects the encounter of two cultures when Polynesians from Tahiti reached Hawaii ca.900 AD and confronted the first wave of Polynesians from the Marquesas Islands that had settled the islands around 400 AD.
The Hawaiian legend says that: 'The Tahitians found the islands already inhabited by Menehune, and they pushed the Little People all the way back to Kaua’i, the last large island sitting at the edge of the Hawaiian Island chain. Ultimately, the Dwarves were forced to escape into the high mountains and hidden valleys, and outside the world of man'. (Source) This encounter echoes what happened to the Haush when the Selk’nam reached their territory, and to the Teushen or Chüwach a Künna, who were displaced to marginal land by the Tehuelche."

The “Hobbit” and dwarfish hominins

Minute non-human hominids are not unknown to science. For instance, the so-called “hobbit” (Homo florsiensis), just one meter tall (3.3 ft.), was discovered in 2003 on Flores Island, Indonesia; it was alive just 13,000 years ago, and thus co-existed with modern humans. In 2010, the Callao Cave hominin was discovered in Luzon, Philippines, 2,740 km (1,706 mi) north of Fores. Its 67,000-year-old remains show it was a diminutive hominin, which may have been or not a H. sapiens.

Dwarfish hominids have also been found on the Pacific islands of Palau (7°30’ N, 134°30’ E), 1,750 km (1,100 mi.) southeast of Luzon. Their remains are very recent, less than 2,800 years old, and they are minute: these creatures weighed between 29 and 43 kg (64 - 95 lb.)-.

Could it be possible that Yosi, the pre-human Tachwüll of the Tehuelche natives, and the Fuegian people, the Yagan’s post-Deluge dwarves are all an ancient racial memory of the Hobbit imprinted in the minds of the Patagonian natives and perpetuated in their myths? If so, we would have to explain how beings living nearly halfway across the globe from each other could have come into close contact.

Perhaps the Hobbit traveled from Asia to America, being the first hominid to colonize the New World long before the arrival of modern humans, or they could have evolved independently in America from some prior migration of hominids (i.e., Homo erectus). In either case, the Paleo-Indians would have met the Hobbit in America. H. florsiensis is an ancient Homo lineage and related to our distant ancestors Homo habilis and Homo erectus. The Hobbit managed to survive for a long time since it left Africa around 1.75 Ma. and could have reached the New World.

It predates the discovery of fire and would have used primitive Oldowan stone tools of the “core and flake” variety, in which a stone core was hit with a hammer stone, chipping it to produce flakes and leaving a chopper core. Both flakes and core were used to cut, bash, and scrape.

Remarkably, the islands of Palau and Luzon are only accessible by sea, so if the dwarf population on both islands originated elsewhere, then these pygmies were seafarers. Crossing by sea from Southeast Asia and Melanesia to America would avoid the problem of explaining Hobbit survival along the difficult trek from the tropical insular western Pacific to America through tough polar climes. It would also explain the Polynesian dwarf myths.

Fascinatingly, the Australian Aboriginal people also have legends about wild hairy pigmies that they call Gubba; these are very similar to the Fuegian Yosi in appearance and size, being barely one meter tall (3 ft. 4 in.) In the Australian case, the explanation is simple and quite feasible: Flores Island is only 720 km (447 mi.) from northern Australia, so it is very likely that the Aboriginals could have met Hobbits when they first entered Australia, crossing Sunda 50,000 years ago.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Black dwarves or pygmies in America

This is another post in our series on Armando Vivante's article* (Online here - Spanish) about pygmies in America. In it we will look into the section on "Little Black Men" (section 13, p.250 of his article).

* Vivante, A. (1963). Estado actual de la discución sobre los pigmeos americanos. 1. El primer contexto de este problema. Revista del Museo de La Plata. Nueva Serie. Sección Antropología, Artículos, Vol 5, No 28.

Little Black Men

Vivante cites Lehmann, who in turn cites Nordenskjöld who mentioned a book (Geografí de Colombia - See p. 878) that included a reference about these black pygmies in the Darien, in the border region between Panama and Colombia, which features a thick jungle.

This article was written at the time that Panama was still a province of Colombia (1901) shortly before the U.S. president Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt promoted the independence of Panama (1902) in order to build the transoceanic canal there and exert direct control over it. Below is the text on the Darien people:

"According to reports from one of their main chiefs, in those mountains there existed ten years ago remains of an aboriginal population, small in stature, with black skin, very scarce in my region (100 to 200) and entirely savage: he reported that the Cunacunas took from that people the land they occupy today, after a great massacre, and they fear finding any of those who remained, believing them to be sorcerers and even demons."

The Debunked Negrito-Tasmanian Theory

Vivante then mentions that Italian anthropologist Giuseppe Sergi who studied cranial forms and concluded that America had been populated in different waves, one came from Western Africa, and was comprised by Negrito people, "we can certainly affirm that, besides those of the Tasmanian type, another human branch entered America, this one of short stature, which is usually called pygmy with a short cunciform skull Sphenoidis brevis." (from Gl'indigeni Americane: ricerche antropologiche, Rome, 1928 p.164).

Despite living under Mussolini's fascist regime, Sergi was a pacifist, anti-German, and not at all racist. Unfortunately his theory on "Mediterraneanism" was co-opted by the fascists to back their racist ideology.

These racialist Tasmanian-Negrito-Pygmy migration theories were in vogue in the late 1800s and early 1900s (see, for instance, an article on Pygmies in the U.S. from 1896). Since the mid 1900s, they have been debunked. Closer to Patagonia, Argentine anthropologist José Imbelloni supported a similar notion where South America was populated by several waves of people, and the first were pygmies, ancestors of both the Tasmanians and the Fuegian Yamana people (see Imbelloni, J. The peopling of America. Acta Americana. vol. I, No 3, Jul.-Sept. 1943).

Vivante states that he mentions these theories as potential evidence of an "ancient pygmy layer or layers then fragmented and liquidated, leaving behind reduced nuclei and tiny islands" when the later Amerindians arrived and wiped them out.

Tasmanian. Source

Nowadays the ancient Lagoa Santa remains from Brazil, and the Australasian genetic imprint suggest that the original inhabitants of Southeastern Asia somehow played a role in the peopling of America.

Mythical Dwarfs

Vivante's paper also mentions the mythical dwarves across America, and he also mentions some Patagonian examples, such as a reference from 1863 by Cox about the "peuquenes" close to Puerto Blest in Neuquén, the "'pichuchu', tiny men" (citing Daniel Hammerly Dupuy, 1953. Nahuel Huapi. Panoramas, Leyendas, Historias, Soc. Geogr. Americana, B. Aires, pp. 72-74) and several authors about the "Anchimallén".

Below is an excerpt from my book, on Cox and the Peuquén (also posted here):

"“Peuquen” – the Patagonian gnome
Guillermo Cox is the only reference that I have found regarding the Peuquen. He wrote about them in 1862, calling them “mountain genies […] small men that are clothed in avellano [Gevuina avellana, a native Chilean tree] leaves […] they also have a hat made from its bark, and an axe made of its wood.” Like Trauco, it lives in the forests of Chiloé, chopping trees. Yet like Yosi, it does not use its wood to light fires. Those who come across him face a nasty fate: their heads are turned backward for the rest of their lives. Like Yosi and Trauco, he is a lewd creature and seeks sexual intercourse with women. The children conceived during these trysts are born with their skin like the bark of an avellano, that is, rough and light brown.

I cite his work: Cox, G., (2006). Expedición de la Patagonia Norte: un viajero en el Nahuel Huapi: 1862-1863. B. Aires: Continente-Pax. pp.67-69

I also mentioned Kossler-Ilg, Francisco Moreno, Gregorio Álvarez, Father Mascardi, and Parodi regarding the Anchimallén (also posted here). However, this is the first time I hear about "pichuchu" the name applied to a dwarf. The word is used as a friendly, affectionate diminutive for tiny, sounding tender or childlike. But I have never encountered it in the Patagonian dwarves context until now.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Pygmies and White Indians - von Humboldt

I came across an interesting article about Pygmies in the Americas, written in 1963 by Armando Vivante "Current state of the discussion on American pygmies" (Estado actual de la discución sobre los pigmeos americanos, Vol 5, No 28, Revista del Museo de La Plata. Nueva Serie. Sección Antropología).

Pygmies

I have posted about dwarves in the past, the mythical beings which are evoked in many Patagonian native legends. And in my book, I explored the "pygmy" option to explain the origin of these myths, below is an excerpt on this subject:

"Science, facts, and the Patagonian dwarves
Reports of minute people have surfaced periodically across South America since the arrival of the Spaniards. Mostly fantasies, some may hold some truth in them. For instance, in Cuzco, Perú, the heart of the Inca Empire, Spanish conquistador Pedro Pizarro wrote in 1571 about “three Indians, not seen before, very small, like dwarves.” Closer to Patagonia, in 1612, Ruy Díaz de Guzmán, another conquistador, mentioned “pygmies that live under the ground” in eastern Bolivia.
We could dismiss these stories of dwarves as fantasies of superstitious ill-educated soldiers, but in the early years of the 20th century, some scientists proposed theories about the peopling of America involving a “primitive” dwarf race, the “Diminutive Negroids,” or “Negrito” people.
American archaeologist Harold Sterling Gladwin (1883-1983) advanced the theory that “Diminutive Blacks” were the first people to arrive in America and that later migration from Asia assimilated or annihilated these first arrivals. He suggested that small blacks who had lived in southern China until the Chou dynasty could have moved north and entered America through the Bering Strait.
There are several groups of pygmies scattered around Southeast Asia, such as the Andaman islanders, the Semangs of Malaysia, and the Philippine Aetas. mtDNA studies have proven that these people descend from early human migrants out of Africa, who remained isolated in their specialized environments; but there is no proof that any of these people moved on to America.
Looking for such proof, in the early-20th century, Swiss anthropologist, Dr. Josef Kollmann, found pygmy remains in the Chincha Valley, Perú, and stated that they still survived as the short Changos of northern Chile, whose men were only 1.6 m tall (5 ft. 3 in.) and the women barely 1.45 m (4 ft. 8 in.) Small people indeed, but not dwarves.
The neighboring Mochica people were of a similar height, as shown by a 25-year-old female mummy (Lady of Cao) dating from 450 A.D., which measured 1.48 m (4 ft. 9 in.)
It is interesting to note that the Mochica spoke a language that “appears to be a linguistic isolate” totally unrelated to all other American Indian languages, and it “contains features that are rare both within South American languages and in the languages of the world.”
It seems that there is some reasonable basis for a “short” - but not dwarfish-group of Indians in the Americas north of Patagonia; but what about Patagonia itself?
We have two different pieces of evidence; one was put forward by Father Manuel Molina, who suggested that the Tachwüll dwarves may be based on fact. The other involves a mysterious group of short people in northern Patagonia, the Kofkeche..."

Fair Indians and Pygmies

In his 1963 article, Vivante begins by mentioning some of the literature on the subject and also notes that Alexander von Humboldt wrote about pygmies in the sources of the Orinoco River, but does not provide additional information about it.

So, I looked up Humboldt's journey along the Orinoco and found tha while he was at Esmeralda, Venezuela in the year 1800 (see map), he mentioned pygmies and also "white" Indians! Below is the relevant text from his work Personal narrative of travels to the equinoctial regions of the New Continent during the years 1799-1804.

"...the Oroonoko [sic - Orinoco] receives on the north the Ocamo, into which the Rio Matacona falls. At the sources of the latter live the Guainares, who are much less copper-coloured, or tawny, than the other inhabitants of those countries. This is one of the iribes called by the missionaries fair Indians, or Indios blancos, respecting whom I shall soon treat more at large." (p.559)
...
"I shall here proceed to give some information respecting the tribes of dwarf and fair Indians, which ancient traditions placed for centuries near the sources of the Oroonoko. I had an opportunity of seeing some of these Indians at Esmeralda, and can affirm, that the shortness of the Guaicas, and the fairness of the Guahariboes, whom Father Caulin calls Guaribos blancos, have been alike exaggerated. The Guaicas, whom I measured, were in general from four feet seven inches to four feet eight inches high (ancient measure of France). We were assured, that the whole tribe were of this extreme littleness; but we must not forget, that what is called a tribe constitutes, properly speaking, but one family. The exclusion of all foreign mixture contributes to perpetuate varieties, or the aberrations from a common standard. The Indians of the lowest stature next to the Guaicas are the Guainares and the Poignaves. It is singular, that all these nations are found close to the Caribbees, who are remarkably tall. They all inhabit the same climate, and subsist on the same aliment. They are varieties in the race, which no doubt existed previously to the settlement of these tribes, (tall and short, fair and dark brown) in the same country. The four nations of the Upper Oroonoko, that appeared to me to be the fairest, are the Guahariboes of the Rio Gehette, the Guainares of the Ocamo, the Guaicas of Canno Chiguire, and the Maquiritares of the sources of the Padamo, the Jao, and the Ventuari. It being very striking to see natives with a fair skin beneath a burning sky, and amid nations of a very dark hue, the Spaniards have forged two daring hypotheses, in order to explain this phenomenon. Some assert, that the Dutch of Surinam and the Rio Esquibo may have intermingled with the Guahariboes and the Guainares ; others insist, from hatred to the Capuchins of the Carony, and the Observantins of the Oroonoko, that the fair Indians are what are called in Dalmatia muso di frate, children whose legitimacy is somewhat doubtful. In both cases the Indios blancos would be mestizoes, sons of an Indian woman and a white man. Now, having seen thousands of mestizoes, I can assert, that this comparison is altogether inaccurate. The individuals of the fair tribes, whom we examined, have the features, the stature, and the smooth, straight, black hair, which characterizes other Indians. It would be impossible to take them for a mixed race, like the descendants of natives and Europeans. Some of these people are very little, others of the ordinary stature of the copper-coloured Indians. They are neither feeble, nor sickly, nor albinoes ; and they differ from the copper-coloured races only by a much less tawny skin. It would be useless after. these considerations, to insist on the distance of the mountains of the Upper Oroonoko from the shore inhabited by the Dutch." (p.564)

Back to Vivante and the 1963 article

Vivante looks into the conquistador and Spanich chronicles and notes that the references are vague, racist, and place the pygmies in the upper reaches of the Amazon and Orinoco rivers. He notes the chronicle of Nicolas Federmann (1530-31) who mentioned a tribe of pygmies in that area of Venezuela, the Ayaman people, "a nation of dwarves."

The article then mentions several authors, including Kollman, and Haliburton (Science, 1896) who reported pygmies in the Guyanas (close to Humboldt and Federmann's sightings). Sullivan, in 1898, repeated similar stories about people along the upper Negro River (Amazonia): "I met, while on the Rio Negro, one of the tributaries of the Upper Amazon, a race of remarkably small people". As well as D.G. Brinton (The Dwarf Tribe of the Upper Amazon, American Anthropologist, Vol. 11, No. 10 Oct., 1898, p.319).

Dwarf Tribe in the Amazon. Brinton, 1898

Vivante cites those who are in favor of pygmies and those who oppose the idea and criticizes both groups. He also mentions the black dwarves, and the mythical dwarves (including some Patagonian examples). Overall, he seems to favor the idea of an ancient, relictual mutation appearing, fragmented, among certain native groups. However, he suggests further research with objective methods to clarify the matter.

Next Posts...

I found some interesting material in Humboldt's book, and also in Vivante's work, which I will explore and present, with additional information, in the next posts.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Tachwüll more information

 

The text on Tatchwell.[2]

While conducting some additional research on the Tachwüll (what can I say, I read all I can on Patagonia and sometimes come across interesting information), I came across an article by Mateo Martinic : "Documentos inéditos para la historia de Magallanes 'Memorándum Referido a los Patagones'", published in 2007.[1]
Martinic presents it as an "unpublished" document which was sent to him by Mrs. Jean Cameron, in charge of the Archives at Falkland Islands, which bears the title "Memorandum respecting the Patagonians". The notes did not indicate the author or the year it was written, and Martinic correctly (as we will see below) dates it to around 1840-41.

There are two parts to this story, one regarding the "unpublished" letter, the other about the "Tachwüll". This post will deal with both.

The "unpublished" letter

Martinic was wrong, the letter had been published before, in 1843 by the British Parliament's House of Commons. [2] It was written in 1842 (Martinic was quite close in his estimated time frame):

The above notes were furnished to the Lieut governor by Captain Allen F Gardiner RN who collected them in Patagonia in the early part of the present year 1842. [2]

The text was mentioned again in print in 1964 [3]. So, it was not "unpublished" after all.

The positive thing is that it mentions some people named Tatchwell, and states that they are natives, not dwarves.

Tatchwell or Tachwüll

I will quote Gardiner's text in full (the part that mentions these natives). By the way, Allen Francis Gardiner (1794–1851) was a British Royal Navy officer and missionary and he starved to death in Tierra del Fuego, after an unsucessful attempt to set up a mission among the Yaghans.

First he stated that "There are five tribes of Patagonians [...] and one on the sea coast west of the Cordilleras [...] [these are the] Tatchwell Cho karro west of the Cordilleras 4,000 [population] "[2]

I am at a loss to explain what Cho karro is. But lets go to Gardiners memorandum; he then gives an account that he got from a man, his wife and son, who belonged to the "Tatchwell tribe":
My comments are in brackets:

The district by the Tatchwell is wet and rainy and heavily timbered with trees of great size tents dress and stature is similar to that of the other Patagonian tribes they have canoes but these are only employed for crossing rivers and are merely a light covered with guannco skins.


[Note that they are "the same size" as the other Tehuelche, these Tatchwell are not dwarfs]

They use no paddles but are towed across by their swimming before with a lasso attached to their tails. This country is represented as about north west of Oazy Harbour [Which is located on the Strait of Magellan at 52° 30' S; 70° 31' W ] but in order to reach it is necessary to travel from thence considerably to the northward as the pass through Cordilleras in that part is better suited for horses than one farther south which they do frequent.


[This is correct, there are no passes south of Lake Pueyrredón 47° 16'S. Because of the Southern Continental Ice Field that reaches from the Pacific Ocean coast to the Andean Peaks between lakes San Martín and Mount Payne.]

In the neighbourhood of this pass there is a large lake with an island in it. This of the country and around the lake is inhabited by a tribe called Thit titch whose chief named Tchucato.

[There are several lakes with Islands in them in the area: Lake Belgrano (47°51'S, 72°10'W), San Martín (48°47'S, 72°50'W), Pueyrredón (47°14'S, 72°05'W) and Buenos Aires (46°24'S, 71°45'W. Though Martinic believes that the natives were talking about Lake Nahuel Huapi (41°01S, 71°27'W), which is too far north in my opinion.

I have heard the name Thucato before, but not Thit Titch]

They are more numerous than all the three Choanik [Tehuelche] tribes wear ostrich feathers on heir heads woollen ponchos and a sort of trowsers cultivate ground and have numerous flocks and herds of sheep cattle and horses. Their is different from that of the Choanik they trade occasionally with the Spanish settlements. Through this people they pass on their way across the Cordilleras and direct their course towards the south west [to go to the Strait of Magellan].

[These Thit Titch natives are without doubt, some Mapuche group, because these were Farmers, cattle breeders and weavers. The Tatchwell live to the west of the Andes]

The lake above mentioned they call Chobit it is about seven days on horseback from Oazy Harbour and thence to the Tatchwell on account of the ruggedness of the route and the forests would occupy ten days more. Another tribe called Eaks was also mentioned by the same individual they a district north of the Tatchwell between the Cordilleras and the sea [to the East, the Pacific Ocean as we will see below] but there is intercourse between the two people as their language differs and in one direction a considerable river which they cannot cross in their canoes runs between them.


[Seven days at about 35 km a day (roughly 20 mi.) is 245 km or 150 mi. Then another 10 days or 350 km (217 mi.), the lake's native name is not recorded though, Chobit sounds a lot like Chubut, the name of a Patagonian River and Province.

The distance from Oazy to del Toro Lake by Mount Paine is about 240 km. And this lake has an island in it. An additional 350 km places the territory of the Tatchwell in the area between lakes San Martín, Belgrano and the mouth of Baker River on the South Pacific Ocean.]

The Eaks are a shorter race than the Patagonians and are habited in ponchos. It appears to me probable that the lake called Chobit by these people is the same from Viedmas testimony is marked on the maps Capar [current lake Argentino or perhaps lake Viedma] and the wearing of feathers in the hair and other circumstances related by the Tatchwell man Wao principally the former is I think sufficient to identify the Thet titch with the Pewenches of which nation they are probably a tribe. [2]

Intrigued by this text and the names of different native groups (new to me) I did some further research: [4]



The text above was written in 1851 by the South American Missionary Society (of which Gardiner was its first secretary in 1844). Below is the "text version":

the Tatchwell are found far to the westward near to the eastern slopes of the Cordillera fronting the archipelago of Madre del Dios as nearly as I could ascertain from the account given me by a native of that part of the country whom I met in 1842 during my stay in Coazy [sic] harbour . [4]

Which places these Tatchwell on the Chilean side of the Andes, close to Madre de Dios islands. These are located south of Taitao, and of the Gulf of Penas, (50° 15' 47 S, 75°18' 30 W). This is between del Toro Lake and Baker river's Mouth. To the west of the Continental Ice Sheet. If so, the Tatchwell were living in a dreadful environment, and were very likely Alakaluf canoe people which were not Tehuelche but a differente group, with their own language and culture.

Regarding the Eaks which lived to the north of the Tatchwell, the name does not appear in any book or paper regarding Patagonian natives however, I did find an interesting remark [5] which gives the word used by the Northern Tehuelche (Günnuna Kenna or Gennakenk ), also known as Pampa (or Puelche, the name given to them by the Mapuche): [5]

The Pampa called these groups with the following names: Tehuelche = Ehnakena; Mapuche = Telunakena or Iaskas.

So here we have a word Iaskas (the last "s" is the Spanish plural), whose english pronounciation is easkah, which sounds very similar to Gardiner's Eaks. Furthermore, the fact that they wore woven clothes and had domestic animals and were farmers is a clear indication that they were Chilean Mapuche (the only sedentary natives in Patagonia). However Martinic in his paper [1] says that these may be "Pampas Indians" due to the different language (maybe he is referring to the Mapuche speaking "Puelche" and not the "Tehuelche" speaking Gennakenk which bear the same name.

Summary

There was a native group, of Tehuelche stock living to the west of the Andes somewhere between del Toro Lake and the mouth of Baker River, in Chile. They lived south of the Mapuche (Eaks). Were similar in dress, tents and size to the other Tehuelche of the Patagonia. They used light rafts to cross rivers. They were not dwarves.

The problem is that the only known natives in that area were not Tehuelche but Alakaluf, another totally distinct group, with their own language and clothing and way of life. They did have canoes but did not venture far inland. They did not have horses and did not ride from the Strait of Magellan to the Madre de Dios Islands.

Regadding my dwarf, the Tachwüll, these mysterious natives, the Tatchwell may have recieved their name from the dwarf, as they lived in the same area, in the mountains and forests which the Tehuelche feared and seldom entered.

This deserves some further research and a letter to the journal (Magallania) to rectify Martinic's paper.

New. Nov. 2, 2010 Today I wrote to Magallania, sending them a "comment" about the author and publication in 1843 of this paper as well as some interesting information regarding the "tatchwell". The letter is online, (in Spanish) at the following link:
Comentario sobre un Memorándum inédito referido a los Patagones (Martinic, 2007) by Austin V. Whittall.

Sources.

[1] Mateo Martinic B. DOCUMENTOS INÉDITOS PARA LA HISTORIA DE MAGALLANES "MEMORÁNDUM REFERIDO A LOS PATAGONES". Magallania [online]. 2007, vol.35, n.2 [citado 2010-10-27], pp. 159-164 . Disponible en: . ISSN 0718-2244. doi: 10.4067/S0718-22442007000200013.
[2] Accounts and Papers. COLONIES. Session 2 February 24 August 1843. 33. VOL XXXIII. House of Commons papers, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. HMSO, 1843
[3] Boletín de la Academia Nacional de la Historia, (1964), Academia Nacional de la Historia (Argentina). vol. 35, pp. 280.
[4] South American missionary society, (1851). Remarks on the Aborigines of South America from Personal Observation THE PATAGONIANS. In The Voice of pity for South America . London, J. Nisbet & Co. pp 92+
[5] Bórmida, Marcelo, and Casamiquela, Rodolfo (1958). Etnografía gününa-kena. Testimonio del último de los tehuelches septentrionales. Runa, Buenos Aires, vol. 9, nºs 1-2, pp. 153-193

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall © 

Dwarf at Gualicho Cave?

 

 

Rock Art at Gualicho Cave. Dwarfs?. The black and white image is from [1]

Gualicho Cave is located by the shore of Lake Argentino about 10 km (6 mi) east of the town of Calafate in Santa Cruz province, Argentina, (50°17’ S, 72°10’ W) . It was discovered by chance by Francisco Moreno in the 1870s when he explored the area. He named it Gualicho, after the evil spirit of the Mapuche natives. The name is not the one given to it by the local Aonikenk. In it he found the mummified remains of a native which can be seen at the La Plata Science Museum.

It has ancient (about ten thousand years old) rock art. The example shown above is an interesting one.

The colored one (below)shows two figures, with three digits on their feet and three fingers on their hands. Salesian priest Manuel Jesús Molina believed that these were depictions of the fuegian monkey (Yosi), because they were drawn to show movement just like monkeys. He included other images (above in black and white) which are tailed, and one of them has three fingers.

I will quote Molina extensively below:

On a rock wall at Gualichu Point at Lake Argentino are some humanoid paintings of a faded purple color which may depict these fuegopithecus. They are drawings totally different from others of human hunters like the hunting scenes of the upper Pinturas River or in the dancing scenes at Charcamac Gully.

In one of them it is sitting on its legs [...] with its arms open like making signs with its hands. In others it is seen in the ungainly position it adopted while it walked [...] what can not be seen in these figures is the weapon the fuegian monkey used to attack or defend itself.[1]

The small figure in the colored image, on the right has a tail (though it could be a young boy and what hangs between his legs may be his penis not a tail). The three digits may be a stylized way of depicting people. Hard to tell after ten thousand years!

Now, if it is a dwarf, it may be Tachwull, the aonikenk dwarf and not Yosi, the Fuegian monkey.

Sources.

[1] Molina, M., (1973). El yóshil o mono fueguino. Karukinká. B. Aires. v.1:10-14.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall © 

Volcanos and the city of dwarves

 

Volcanoes in Southern Patagonia. Copyright © 2010 by Austin Whittall. [4]

Aonikenk Chief Papon, who died a poor drunkard in 1892, had been in his heyday the supreme Chief of all the native groups that lived between the Santa Cruz River and the Strait of Magellan.[1]

At the end of his life he was so poor that he sold at Punta Arenas a set of boleadoras that he believed were made of brass but were actually pure gold.

When asked about where he found the nuggets, Papon said that he found them by an ancient city that was buried under the recent lava flows of a nearby volcano (some believed that the city was the famous lost City of Caesars, mentioned in the previous chapter). This city, according to Papon was inhabited by dwarfs. [1]

His tribe occupied the area by Dinamarquero River and being nomads could also be found in the “interior zones of Ultima Esperanza” and after Papon’s death, at Valle del Zurdo. [2] I have marked these three areas with “light blue dots” on the map above.

The city that he mentions must have been located in that area, and the volcano that erupted near it, must be one of the active volcanoes shown within the “green triangle” on my map.

The volcanoes are marked with black triangles and the lava fields are shaded blue.

Some active Patagonian volcanoes
In Argentina:

Viedma Volcano (49°21.5', 73°17'). Argentina, Santa Cruz. 1500 m .
Erupted in 1988 and is located under the ice sheet of the Southern Patagonian Ice Fields Northwest of Lake Viedma. It has four large craters or calderas.[3] I doubt that this volcano could be the one mentioned by Papon.

Pali Aike Basalt Field (52°0', 70°0'). Argentina, Santa Cruz and also in Chile. 282 m.
It covers 3,000 km² (1,170 sq.mi.) of basalt fields of “modern origin” (that is in a geological sense, as they date to Pleistocene or Holocene times). The youngest flows are in the Southeastern tip of the field.[3]

The name in Aonikenk language means "country of the devil" and shows that they feared this area. It is protected by a Chilean National Park.

Regarding this field, Musters during his trip through Pali Aike in 1869, remarked that they had probably been formed not too long ago and was told by chief Casimiro (of the Aonikenk) about an active volcano belonging to that range whose eruption shook the ground and knocked down the natives’ tents and poisoned the water of some stream close to it. This may be Diablo volcano which has had “recent activity”.[5]

Another report by the Chilean authorities based in Punta Arenas, dated 1847, stated that these same Indians (among which was Casimiro) reported an active volcano which has been identified as Mount Burney. Which “made the earth shake continuously”.[5]

This seems to be a likely candidate for Papon's volcano.

Some recently recorded eruptions of Chilean volcanoes (there is a blank before the 1870s though as there were no settlements in the area): [5]

- Lautaro (49°01’S, 73°33’W) Chile, 1878-79, 1934-35, 1959-60, 1995, 1998.
- Burney (52°29’S, 73°24’W) Chile, 1910, 1970. ca. 3970 and 1500 BP
- Diablo (52°07’S, 73°24’W) not older than 15000 BP.
- Aguilera (50°20’S, 73°45’W) Chile, ca. 6300, 3345 BP
- Reclus (50°57’S, 73°35’W) Chile, ca. 14990 and 3345 BP

Any of these or even the Cerro del Fraile basalt field could have erupted in historic times and be remembered by Papon. However I am inclined to believe that we can reduce our search to Diablo volcano or to some small flows in the Basalt Fields close to Papon's tribal range.

I will keep researching on this matter and also look into lost cities in that area.

The original quote on Papon's city (23. Sept. 2010)

Below I copy the translated text regarding Papon's city.

the Aonikenk chief had told, with signs and words, about the existence of a city squashed by the volcanic lavas of very old eruptions. Besides, rcent eruptions completely covered the remains that until shortly before, marked the evident signs of the buried city. At the site indicted as the city's layout, chief Papon had picked up the piece of gold used to make his boleadora [...] there in the area that Papon had pointed out, was a site where fruit trees had been planted, and many have gathered petrified fruits [1]

Comments and possible "cities"

As you can see, the text states that the city was buried not once but twice (once long ago, the other burial recent). The petrified fruits and the fruit trees are interesting and may indicate a failed European colony.

But there were only two settlements in the area, both by Sarmiento de Gamboa, the failed Port Famine -actually its name was "Rey Felipe" close to current Punta Arenas, and "Nombre de Jesús" at the entrance to the Strait of Magellan, at Cape Virgenes.

There was another failed attempt to settle the Straits, and it was attempted by Captain de Gennes, under the auspices of the French crown in 1696. His fleet of six vessels however returned from the Straits without establishing a settlement.

It is noteworthy that the Spanish towns (1584) did plant some crops and also "vines and quince and other plants brought from Rio de Janeiro". Later, in 1699, Gouin de Beauchesne, a Frenchman, "sowed some seeds [...] which grew into healthy and vigorous plants" (we do not know if they were fruit trees or just garden vegetables. [6] Could these be the origin of the fruit trees mentioned by Papon?

What is a city?

We should consider what Papon would consider as a city. He had seen Punta Arenas (then a very small town - actually a village) but he had also been to Buenos Aires which at the time was a very big city with over one million inhabitants. The natives lived in mobile camps, with tents (toldos) made from sown guanaco skins. The mere notion of a town implies that its inhabitants were not Indians.

So, setting aside the absurd notion of Templar knights in Patagonia, or survivors of Atlantis, then the inhabitants of this city must have been Europeans perhaps shipwrecked survivors of some of the expeditions that explored the region and never returned home (i.e. Bishop of Plasencia).

In fact, this was believed true by the Spanish conquistadors, who believed that there was a mysterious city of Caesars in Patagonia. I will post on this enigmatic legend soon.

Last but not least, the "city" may have been some camp of rival natives that lived in the region maybe in caves and were destroyed by the eruption of a volcano (this is reflected in the Tachwull myth, dwarves who died in a cataclysm or the Chelep cave men.

Sources.

There seems to be a lot of quotes based on articles published by Mateo Martinic Beros. Well I guess it is due to the fact that he has written many papers about the Strait of Magellan's history.

[1] Martinic B, Mateo, (2007). Los Cesares De La Patagonia, ¿Otra Fuente Indígena Para La Leyenda O Una Hasta Ahora Desconocida Creación Del Imaginario Aónikenk?Magallania, (Chile), 2007. Vol. 35(2)7-14.
[2] Martinic B, Mateo, (1995). Los Aonikenk Historia y Cultura. Punta Arenas: Vanic, Punta Arenas. pp. 153
[3] Grupo de Estudio y Seguimiento de Volcanes Activos. University of Buenos Aires.
[4] Map by Austin Whittall ©, based on Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería, Chile and pp. 166 of The geology of Chile, Teresa Moreno, Geological Society, 2007.
[5] Martinic B, Mateo, (2008). Registro Historico de Antecedentes Volcanicos y Sismicos en la Patagonia Austral y La Tierra del Fuego. Magallania, Punta Arenas, v. 36, n. 2, nov. 2008.
[6] Martinic B, Mateo, (2000). El establecimiento de la agricultura en Magallanes (1843-1880). Historia (Santiago) v.33 Santiago.
[7] Payró Roberto, (2008). La Australia Argentina. Biblio Bazaar. pp. 97.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall © 

Chelep, the hairy Patagonian dwarf

 

Orangutan, from an old engraving.

Some more information on the intriguing subject of Patagonian dwarves. In previous posts, I have written about the different kinds of dwarves that have been reported in Patagonia. Today we will look into the Chelep, a dwarf that was likened to an orangutan.

Chelep, monkey like dwarf.

Chelep is an interesting creature and shares several features with the Fuegian Yosi and the Chiloé Island Trauco. Both of which are dwarfish, hairy, carry sticks or clubs, and very monkey-like.

Chelep may also be the origin of the myth regarding the “first men” or Tachwull .

The source on Chelep is a diary written by a Santiago Dunne, a Chilean government official in 1845, at Punta Arenas. He jotted down reports from a man named Centurión, who was not a native, but lived among them.

Below I will quote extensively from this diary (I have translated it from Spanish to English respecting the style of Dunne):

“that between the Negro and the Santa Cruz Rivers, along the inland road which is where the Indians travel, there are two places where there are many stone homes painted with various colors, and which are inhabited by a race that as described by the Patagons [Aonikenk] have a lot of resemblance to the orangutans: these sites are [not] along the same road but [towards] the Andes. Small size, hairy body and a club or baculus always in their hand. The cover with a short guanaco fur in the same way those [natives] of Tierra del Fuego do.
The Patagons call them Chelep. Most of these groups of Indians have visited those places and have been in the same homes, but have never been able to take one of their inhabitants despite that they have seen them and ran very close to them and even been hit by stones thrown by them; which has led them to take them for witches and they do not go to their caves because they must not be other than [illegible] in great numbers.
It should be noted that the Patagons [Aonikenk] only when they go to the Negro River, which does not happen frequently, is when the chelep see them arriving, because they have always done so during daytime, run away and get lost in forests [*] abandoning their lodges in which can be found bones and guanaco hides and that sometimes those that have slept close to such homes, have been robbed and some of their horses killed” . [1]

[*] though the Spanish word “montes” can also mean “mountains”.

More on the Chelep. A close encounter.

Centurión, Dunne’s informant had not been to the Chelep’s country, but his wife had, and she told Dunne the following:

She was at those homes only accompanied by her elder sister, because all the others that were going with her [to the Negro River] had gone out to the fields, far away […] while alone with her sister, the dog that they had with them began to bark and then they saw coming towards them a woman carrying a child and her club; this frightened them and her companion hid among a pile of hides that were there, but that she could not do the same, she pretended to be dead;
The new arrival saw her and with the tip of her club moved her but the child she carried in her arms cried every time she touche her and that at last she left her without harming her and only to the dog, which had bothered her, clubbed it. [2]

What kind of creature is the Chelep? a Homo erectus?

Dunne wrote that the natives frightened their children with these stories, but he believed that they may have some truth behind them, and that the Chelep were probably some "lost" tribe of the Tehuelche group.

However, their pre-human appearance, their monkey-like features may indicate some kind of non-human homind (i.e. a homo erectus or, if tiny and dwarfish, even a variety of Flores Island "hobbit") in southern South America. The cross cultural similarities (the creature appears under different names among all the Patagonian natives from Tierra del Fuego to Central Chile) also support this idea.

See this Map for a clear idea of where the different varieties of Patagonian dwarves lived.

Bibliography

[1] Martinic Mateo, (2005). De la Trapananda al Aysen: una mirada reflexiva sobre el acontecer de la Región de Aysen desde la prehistoria hasta nuestros días . Pehuén. pp. 29.

[2] Martinic Mateo, (2000). Informaciones Etnográficas extraidas del diario inedito de Santiago Dunne, Secretario de la Gobernación de Magallanes (1845). Anales del Instituto de la Patagonia: Serie Ciencias humanas, Vol. 28., Instituto de la Patagonia. Pp. 49 -50

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall © 

Lake Maihue - Lake of the Week

 

It is located in Chile, (40°17’ S, 72° 01’ W) and has a surface area of 46km² (17.7 sq. mi.), nestled in the western Andean slopes this lake is home to dwarves and strange lake animals.

Dwarves
At Rupumeica, right by the lake, the local Mapuche people tell of small beings which were once abundant; the “dwarves […] used to cross the roads, now there are none of those. They were surely exterminated!”[1]

Noisy, they used to frighten the sheep; these dwarfs were “small but thick […] we saw that man, a man with a blanket, small and wide […] there was an old poplar where the dwarves appeared”.[1]

Lake Animals

The lake also had some strange aquatic beasts that belonged to the “owner of the waters”; a mythical spirit that acted as a custodian of nature. In this case it was abuelito (grandfather) “wentellao” or “huenteao".

This spirit used to “give his animals to”, the “ancient” Indians. These were “lake animals” which the natives captured in the water with special lassos woven from rushes. Though abundant in the past, they eventually disappeared and the ancients “could not [lasso them] any more”, perhaps they had become extinct.[1]

This lasso method is similar to the one we mentioned at Maquehua, close to Temuco, Chile, where the locals lassoed water bulls.

A Beautiful photograph of Lake Maihue.


Bibliography.

[1] Guerra, M., et al., [Comp.], (1999). Las Ñañas. Santiago: LOM Ed. pp. 36 and 53.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity
 
Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall ©
 

"Peuquen" - a Patagonian gnome

 

The Peuquen are small gnomes that live in Chiloé. I have only found one reference about them, written by Guillermo Cox, in 1862. He calls them “mountain genies”.

They are in his words: “small men that are clothed in “avellano” [Gevuina avellana is a native Chilean tree] leaves… they also have a hat made from bark and an axe whose handle is of avellano.” The Peuquen lives in the forests chopping trees with its axe in this it resembles the other dwarf that the Mapuche natives place in the same region, Trauco. Yet (just like the Fuegian Yosi dwarf) it does not light fires with the wood.

Those who come across him face a nasty fate, their heads are turned around for the rest of their lives.

Pequen, like Yosi and Trauco, is a lewd and lascivious creature. It likes to have sex with women. If a child is born of these trysts, its skin is like the bark of an avellano.

The similarity between these three gnomes (Trauco, Yosi and Peuquen) is incredible considering that they are mythical creatures belonging to different groups of people (the Chilotes of Chiloé the Mapuche of northern Patagonia and the Selk'nam of Tierra del Fuego) separated by thousands of miles of barren steppes and dense forests.

This may imply a common origin for this myth, which may have been inspired by a real "dwarfish" hominid.


Bibliography.

Cox, G., (2006). Expedición de la Patagonia Norte: un viajero en el Nahuel Huapi: 1862-1863. B. Aires: Continente-Pax. pp. 67-69.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall © 

Fiura - The ugly hag dwarf

 

Fiura lives on Chiloé Island. She is a very ugly woman, who is said to be the wife of Trauco.

She is a forest creature just like her husband. And also, like him, a sexual predator.[1]

She assaults men after "taking their breath" (an enchantment she performs to seduce them), to do so she gets close to them and breathes on them, absorbing their breath to take control of her victims.

She has dirty long hair and dresses in a gray gown.

Fiura Troll at Chiloé Island stamp. Correos de Chile.

She is the daughter of "Condená", another mythical being, and she takes after her because Condená, which means "the condemned one", is also an ugly old hag. Depraved and lascivous, she too, like her daughter, sexually attacks lonely men.[1]

Chilean folklorist Vicuña Cifuentes compiled a slightly different version in which Trauco (the male) is also known as Fiura, and his wife is known not as Fiura but as Trauca (where, in Spanish, the final "a" indicates femenine gender).

She is also known as Huella and adds "Vir qui thraucam somniat cum viro coibit" hinting at her perverse nature.

Bibliography.

[1] Cárdenas Alvarez, R. (1998). El libro de la mitología. Punta Arenas: Atelí.
[2] Vicuña Cifuentes, (1915). Mitos y Supersticiones Recogidos de la Tradición Oral Chilena. Santiago: Imprenta Universitaria.pp. 87

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall © 

Lake Caviahue – lake of the week

 

Small “Dark people similar to African blacks”[1] have been mentioned mentioned in northwestern Neuquén, at Lake Caviahue (37°52’ S, 71°02’ W), this week's Lake of the week.

This small horse-shoe shaped lake, with a surface area of only 10 km² (4 sq. mi.) is set at the foot of 2.900 m (9,500 ft.) high Copahue volcano. It was a sacred place for the Mapuche natives.

Here, according to Argentine folklorist Gregorio Alvarez, a native named Tranavil once saw “black men bathing; they came out to the sandy shore and lay there for a while to rest”.[2]

These “Negros del Agua” (water blacks) are described as being slightly smaller than men; their aquatic nature is confirmed by their webbed hands and feet. They are evil, and swim in groups looking for canoes to overturn and drown their occupants.

We have mentioned in a previous post that the Patagonians feared “dark” man-like creatures. However those were “wild men”, man-sized beings. These, at Caviahue, are smaller dwarfish creatures.

Other strange creatures live in the lake:

animals that should not have been there, like threatening bulls and horses […] and a female entity associated to these waters named “la sirena” [the mermaid] who is mentioned many times in the stories of the elderly locals.[2]

As you can see,even though it is a very tiny lake, it has the full repertoire of Patagonian monsters from bulls and calimayos to dwarves and mermaids.

Below a stamp that I designed for our lake of the week.

Stamp with "Calimayo" image at Lake Caviahue. Copyright © 2009 by Austin Whittall

Caviahue is also well known for its ski resort and is only 17 km (11 mi.) from Copahue’s thermal spas.

Click on the following links for official tourist info: on Caviahue and both Copahue and Caviahue.

Bibliography.

[1] Fernández, C. and López, H. El valle secreto de los Mapuches. Año Cero 126. 07.11.2000. Ed. America Iberica. 11-2000. Online.
[2] Alvarez, G., (1968). El Tronco de Oro. Neuquen: Pehuén. pp. 116 -7.



Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters

"Yosi", Some possible scientific explanations - Last Part (3)

 

In our previous posts we have mentioned Yosi the Fuegian dwarf that terrorized the Selk'nam natives. In today's post, the third and last of our Yosi series, we will try to find some scientific explanation for this strange creature.

a. Humans. We are monsters

The legends regarding sexually aggressive incubus-like dwarves like Yosi can be explained either by the victims experiencing walking dreams, sleep paralysis or by nocturnal arousal and orgasm. These guilt-producing situations could be explained away using the notion of a lecherous creature that assaulted the victim and provoked such situations.

Another valid explanation involves monsters of a different kind; perhaps the nocturnal molester was a real person such as a friend or a relative. The victims may have found it easier to explain the attack as supernatural rather than confront the idea of being raped by someone in a position of trust.

b. The Patagonian monkey

Although we could assume that some archaic dwarf race extended far south all the way into Patagonia, there is no proof beyond the myths and tales of the Tehuelche natives and the Fuegians to support this idea.

An alternate explanation for Yosi is Father Molina’s belief that the creature really existed and was a monkey. The problem is that, nowadays there are no monkeys in Patagonia; the closest are confined to the jungles in northern Argentina, over 3.300 km (2,000 mi.) away.

The only Patagonian creature that bears the name “monkey”, is the “monito del monte” (small forest monkey) a tiny -less than 10 cm (4 in.) long- arboreal marsupial (Dromiciops gliroides). They are a relict species that lives in the Patagonian woods and are the world’s southernmost marsupials, ancestor to all other marsupial groups including Australian kangaroos.

Nevertheless, 20 million years ago (Ma.), a now extinct New World monkey species lived in Patagonia, the Homunculus patagonicus. It is the ancestral species for all modern American monkeys.[1]

More recently, 16 Ma., lived the Killikaike blakei, a species of anthropoid related to modern capuchin monkeys. It had a large brain, was capable of a complex social behavior and like the capuchins was able to handle tools and had superior cognitive abilities.[2][3][4]

Ckull of Killikaike blakei. From [5].

These early primates later migrated to the subtropical forests further north when the Andes surged higher some 5 to 12 Ma. altering their habitat by blocking the humid western winds. These new arid conditions forced the Southern beech forests, which had reached the Atlantic shores, to retreat towards the Andes shaping a drier Patagonia, similar to how it is today.

Did the Patagonian monkeys die out with this change or did they somehow manage to survive in the dwindling forests and later gave birth to the mannikin myths?

Molina believed that Yosi was a contemporary relative of the H. patagonicus, and had only been recently exterminated by the Haush and Selk’nam natives. Unfortunately no remains of the Yosi ape have been yet found in Tierra del Fuego to prove Molina’s theory. This lack of Yosi fossils could be due to many factors such as their intelligence (not easily trapped in peat bogs), the harsh damp Fuegian climate which could impede fossilisation, and last but not least, lack of funding and research in the field, something not uncommon in South American paleontology.

Another stumbling block is that all American monkeys are small, arboreal and have prehensile tails; in this they differ from Old World apes that walk on two feet. Therefore Yosi as a bipedal tail-less homunculus cannot be associated to any extant American monkey.

Setting aside scientific rigor we can speculate that some branch of the New World Primates could have evolved leading to a tiny bipedal hominid that was later wiped out when modern men arrived in America. This idea may not be as far fetched as it seems; a similar process actually happened at Madagascar Island, where the tiny “lesser Primates” or Lemurids evolved just before the arrival of man 2,000 years ago into large semi-terrestrial ape-like creatures resembling gorillas which disappeared when humans arrived.

Could the New World Primates have evolved in a similar way, acquiring Hominid adaptations (i.e. lack of tail, bipedalism)? Perhaps, but this idea is just wild speculation, and we have no proof to support it.

c. Culture clash

A more plausible explanation regarding Yosi stems from the fact that both Tonelli and Molina mention Punta María as a place where many Yosi used to live. Punta María is a Point on the Atlantic sea coast of Tierra del Fuego Island. The area is marks the boundary between the arid Magellanic steppe and the Andean forest. It is a transition zone where trees clump together in small groves that gradually increase in density and height from north to south and inland, away from the coast. We know that the area was inhabited by the Selk’nam when the Europeans arrived; yet Molina places the ancient Haush there, confirming that it was originally peopled by Haush people who were later displaced by the Selk’nam towards the inhospitable southeastern tip of the island.

This opens the possibility that Yosi were actually humans who acquired dwarf status when beaten by the Selk’nam.

The Yosi wore guanaco skins, had wives, children, looked like men, bore weapons and tried to kill Selk’nam. This description (except for the small size) is applicable to a Haush hunter ambushing the encroaching Selk’nam.

We can picture a Haush man, quietly stalking a lonely Selk’nam in the forest, ready to kill him to defend his family and his dwindling territory. This would indubitably instill fear in the Selk’nam, who would then avoid the forests and leave the Haush alone.

Perhaps Yosi (i.e. Haush) did not light fires to avoid detection by its mortal enemies.

The flaw in this theory is that Molina clearly stated that the ancient Haush also hunted Yosi to eat them at Punta María. If this was so, Haush and Yosi are indeed different creatures.

Closing Comments

Unfortunately we will never know for sure which is the truth because both groups, Haush and Selk’nam disappeared during the first years of the XXth century and their ancient knowledge and beliefs are now merely words written in books and not real memories in the minds of living people.
Never again will their stories be told and retold from father to son, grandmother to granddaughter. They are lost forever with the ghosts of the dead Fuegians. Yosi too disappeared with them, but who knows, perhaps the tiny ape-like being still gathers branches and casts its spells in the gloomy forests wondering where its mortal enemies have gone.

See previous posts:
Part 2 Here.
Part 1 Here.

Bibliography.

[1] Hartwig, W., (2002). The Primate Fossil Record. Cambridge University Press. pp. 162+
[2] Tejedor, M., et al., (2006-03-27). New primate genus from the Miocene of Argentina. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 103: 5437. doi:10.1073/pnas.0506126103.
[3] BBC Mundo Ciencia 30.03.2006. Un mono avanzado, pero cabezón.
[4] Tejedor, M., Tauber, A., Rosenberger, A., Swisher, C., Palacios, M. New primate genus from the Miocene of Argentina. Published online before print March 27, 2006, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0506126103 PNAS April 4, 2006 vol. 103 no. 14 5437-5441.
[5] Brooklyn College Anthropologist Identifies New Prehistoric Monkey.



Copyright 2009 by Austin Whittall ©

Patagonian Monsters