Arizona's GoblinsBy Joe Durwin

in: in: Weird Arizona:Weird Arizona: Your Travel Guide to Arizona's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets (Sterling Publishing, 2007) (Sterling Publishing, 2007)

It has been observed that “fairies,” by one name or another, have existed in the lore of every known culture, and there is scarcely a region in the world where stories of small, mysterious beings do not exist. Arizona is rich in such history, boasting a host of diminutive hominid creatures. Though they go by a variety of distinct shapes and names from one native cultural group to another, some of them share interesting similarities in their appearance and in the powers attributed to them in legend.

Tribes in the Numic language group, such as the Paiute of Northern Arizona, tell stories of the Ninimbe, who appear as tiny elves, anywhere from 2 inches to 3 feet tall. They have tails and large heads, with short legs and small feet, and they usually dress in green cloth and in goat skins. They lurk around wells, bushes, and rocky places, and are said to be cannibals. A tail also appears in Hopi and Zuni depictions of the Kokopelli, who also can be recognized by their exaggerated noses and hunched backs. These same tailed, gnome-like spirit people appear on Hohokam pottery dating back 1000 years.

Pima Indian tradition tells of the “Si’ihe,” or “Elder Brother” (called “O’odham” by the Papago) – a short, bearded leprechaun-ish character who is one of their founding culture heroes. Si’ihe was said to live in a cave on the east side of Babavinic (Baboquivari) Mountain, or alternately on Greasy Mountain in southern Arizona. The Pima also told stories of the Vipinim, hideous little entities who were said to live below a certain pool or spring south of Sacaton, Arizona. Vipinim are closely related to, or are variants of “water babies” and “water monster children”; belief in such creatures is widespread in western North America. These evil manifestations resemble children but are covered in green or black hair and have webbed hands and feet. They mimic the cries of drowning babies to lure victims out into the water, where they drown them. Some may represent the ghosts of drowned infants, but most simply seem to be malicious monsters.

In the southern half of Arizona, tribes of the Hokan language grouping also passed down rich “fairie” lore. The Mohave of the lower Colorado basin tell tales of the Amatpathenya, shape-shifters who appear as white-haired pygmies, about two feet tall, and sometimes as rooster with human faces. They are believed to be born out of the earth itself, and it is said that when they wish to, they will appear to people to impart important lessons, or even to tell them the future. Some Mohave sources claim that if one of these little elves stops you on the road, he or she may “put you asleep” in order to show you things in your dream- a narrative with parallels in the realm of UFO abduction reports. In Yavapai lore, “Akaka” or “Qaya’qe,” three foot tall beings with round noses and nonexistent noses, may confer magical power to worthy shamans, and sometimes helped hunters find game. They traditionally lived in tiny cliff holes or caves in west central Arizona, north and west of Phoenix.

Since archaeologists in 2004 discovered hard evidence of a 3-4 foot species of early human that appears to have shared the earth with homo sapiens as recently as 18,000 years ago, some scholars and anthropologists have speculated that there might be a connection between mythic races of little people described by people world wide and some ancient “Hobbit” species. Told well while on a scenic hike across the desert, though, tales of the Ninimbe, Vipinim or Akaka don’t seem like something out of the distant past, but vivid and contemporary, as though you might actually come across one just around the next rocky bend in the trail.