I was talking with a friend last night on facebook and we got to taking about Pukwudgie. So I thought it might be a good idea to make a short post about this lesser known cryptid.

The Pukwudgie
 
A Pukwudgie is a 2-to-3-foot-tall (61 to 91 cm) being from the Wampanoag folklore. Pukwudgies' features resemble those of a human, but with enlarged noses, fingers and ears. Their skin is described as being a smooth grey, and at times has been known to glow.
In Native American lore, Pukwudgies have the following traits and abilities;

• they can appear and disappear at will
• they can transform into a walking porcupine (it looks like a porcupine from the back, and the front is half-troll, half-human and walks upright)
• they can attack people and lure them to their deaths
• they are able to use magic
• they have poison arrows
• they can create fire at will
• Pukwudgies control Tei-Pai-Wankas which are believed to be the souls of Native Americans they have killed.

Native Americans believed that Pukwudgies were best left alone. When you see a Pukwudgie you are not supposed to mess with them, or they will repay you by playing nasty tricks on you, or by following you and causing trouble. They were once friendly to humans, but then turned against them. They are known to kidnap people, push them off cliffs, attack their victims with short knives and spears, and to use sand to blind their victims.


"Legends of the Pukwudgie began in connection to 'Maushop', a creation giant believed by the Wampanoag to have created most of Cape Cod. He was beloved by the people, and the Pukwudgies were jealous of the affection the Natives had for him. They tried to help the Wampanoag, but their efforts always backfired, until they eventually decided to torment them instead. They became mischievous and aggravated the Natives until they asked 'Granny Squanit', Maushop’s wife, for help. Maushop collected as many as he could. He shook them until they were confused and tossed them around New England. Some died, but others landed, regained their minds and made their way back to Massachusetts.
Satisfied he had done his job and pleased his wife, Maushop went away for a while. In his absence, the Pukwudgies had returned. They again changed their relationship with the Wampanoags. They were no longer just a nuisance, but began kidnapping children, burning villages and forcing the Wampanoag deep into the woods and killing them. Squanit again stepped in, but Maushop, being very lazy, sent his five sons to fix the problem. The Pukwudgies lured them into deep grass and shot them dead with magic arrows. Enraged, Squanit and Maushop attacked as many as they could find and crushed them, but many escaped and scattered throughout New England again. The Pukwudgies regrouped and tricked Maushop into the water and shot him with their arrows. Some legends say they killed him, while others claim he became discouraged and depressed about the death of his sons, but after these events Maushop disappears from the Wampanoags' mythology."
There are reportedly encounters of the Pukwudgie in the Freetown-Fall River State Forest in Massachusetts. Ironically, part of the FFR state forest belongs to the Wampanoag Nation. There have also been several odd suicides at a ledge in the state forest. The suicides have led some to believe that the Pukwudgie pushed the people off the ledge.

Here is a video done by Animal Planet about Pukwudgie.



Some say that Pukwudgie is nothing more than a troll or a hobbit, while others say it is a jinn because it shape shifts abilities. Regardless of what you may call it or what it's appearance may be, I think we can all agree that the Pukwudgie is a scary cryptid.   


Thanks
~Tom~

This post by Thomas Marcum, Thomas is the founder/leader of the cryptozoology and paranormal research organization known as The Crypto Crew. Over 20 years experience with research and investigation of unexplained activity, working with video and websites. A trained wild land firefighter and a published photographer, and poet.

(source:wikipedia )

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The Ebu Gogo are a group of human-like creatures that appear in the mythology of Flores, Indonesia. In the Nage language of central Flores, ebu means 'grandmother' and gogo means 'he who eats anything'. A colloquial English equivalent might be something like "Granny Glutton."

The Nage people of Flores describe the Ebu Gogo as having been able walkers and fast runners around 1.5 m tall. They reportedly had wide and flat noses, broad faces with large mouths and hairy bodies. The females also had "long, pendulous breasts." They were said to have murmured in what was assumed to be their own language and could reportedly repeat what was said to them in a parrot-like fashion.


The legends relating to the Ebu Gogo were traditionally attributed to monkeys, according to the journal Nature.


The Nage people believe that the Ebu Gogo were alive at the time of the arrival of Portuguese trading ships in the 17th century, and some hold that they survived as recently as the 20th century, but are now no longer seen. The Ebu Gogo are believed to have been hunted to extinction by the human inhabitants of Flores. They believe that the extermination, which culminated around seven generations ago, was undertaken because the Ebu Gogo stole food from human dwellings, and kidnapped children.


An article in New Scientist (Vol. 186, No. 2504) gives the following account of folklore on Flores surrounding the Ebu Gogo: The Nage people of central Flores tell how, in the 18th century, villagers disposed of the Ebu Gogo by tricking them into accepting gifts of palm fiber to make clothes. When the Ebu Gogo took the fiber into their cave, the villagers threw in a firebrand to set it alight. The story goes that all the occupants were killed, except perhaps for one pair, who fled into the deepest forest, and whose descendants may be living there still.

There are also legends about the Ebu Gogo kidnapping human children, hoping to learn from them how to cook. The children always easily outwit the Ebu Gogo in the tales.

The discovery of the remains of a meter-tall hominid on Flores Homo floresiensis, alive at least as recently as 13,000 years ago, has inspired more literal interpretations of the Ebu Gogo stories. Anthropologist Gregory Forth, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alberta, Canada has stated that "wildman" myths are prevalent in Southeast Asia and has investigated their linguistic and ritual roots, speculating that H. floresiensis may be evidence that the folktales of Ebu Gogo and similar creatures such as the Orang Pendek on Sumatra may be rooted in fact.


- Source: wikipedia -

I really don't have anything to add to this one other than to say it reminds me of Orang Pendek. The size and description are very similar.

Thanks
~Tom~


This post by Thomas Marcum, Thomas is the founder/leader of the cryptozoology and paranormal research organization known as The Crypto Crew. Over 20 years experience with research and investigation of unexplained activity, working with video and websites. A trained wild land firefighter and a published photographer, and poet



This post sponsored in part by

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