Abishai100
New Member
Little people have been part of the folklore of many cultures in human history, including Ireland, Greece, the Philippines, the Hawaiian Islands, Flores Island, Indonesia, and Native Americans (source of information: Wikipedia).
Some specific mythologies actually name 'types' of little people --- e.g., fairies, dwarves, and gnomes --- or even 'clans' of little people --- e.g., the Menehune of Hawaii.
Others loosely and generically talk about possible tiny humanoid creatures (intelligent and rich) living in the forest or by rivers and streams.
Tiny people were explored in the iconic Jonathan Swift work Gulliver's Travels and comprise the subject-matter of the Belgian comics-art creatures The Smurfs.
Belief in tiny humanoids perhaps represents a curiosity about evolutionary deviations that are not necessarily ominous, threatening, gruesome, unsightly, or even disadvantageous. It is not inconceivable to imagine that monkeys started getting smaller and the species line split to create an evolving brand of monkey-humanoid that got smaller and smaller until it could completely remain hidden in the forests of Earth, undetected by the 'giants.'
I personally find that a mythological entertaining of such ideas caters to a natural human fascination with scale (or size) and environmental navigation. A blue whale is a giant and roams Earth's oceans, so why not posit that intelligent tiny humanoids are hiding in Earth's forests?
In fact, I'd love to read a revisionist retelling of Homer's epic and famous war-poem The Illiad in which two armies comprised of tiny little humanoids fight in some vast forest in the Americas (perhaps the Amazonian Rainforest).
Little People Mythology (Wikipedia)
Some specific mythologies actually name 'types' of little people --- e.g., fairies, dwarves, and gnomes --- or even 'clans' of little people --- e.g., the Menehune of Hawaii.
Others loosely and generically talk about possible tiny humanoid creatures (intelligent and rich) living in the forest or by rivers and streams.
Tiny people were explored in the iconic Jonathan Swift work Gulliver's Travels and comprise the subject-matter of the Belgian comics-art creatures The Smurfs.
Belief in tiny humanoids perhaps represents a curiosity about evolutionary deviations that are not necessarily ominous, threatening, gruesome, unsightly, or even disadvantageous. It is not inconceivable to imagine that monkeys started getting smaller and the species line split to create an evolving brand of monkey-humanoid that got smaller and smaller until it could completely remain hidden in the forests of Earth, undetected by the 'giants.'
I personally find that a mythological entertaining of such ideas caters to a natural human fascination with scale (or size) and environmental navigation. A blue whale is a giant and roams Earth's oceans, so why not posit that intelligent tiny humanoids are hiding in Earth's forests?
In fact, I'd love to read a revisionist retelling of Homer's epic and famous war-poem The Illiad in which two armies comprised of tiny little humanoids fight in some vast forest in the Americas (perhaps the Amazonian Rainforest).
Little People Mythology (Wikipedia)
