Races of little people exist in the tales of many Native American tribes. For the Western Shoshone of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and California, the Nin-am-bea are a race of tiny people that inhabit small recesses in mountains. These minute people, while generally reclusive, have been known to attack humans with little bows with poison-tipped arrows. However, the Nin-am-bea, like other tiny people in the lore of the tribes in the region, appear to be more like fairies and leprechauns in the tales of Western Europe and the British Isles in that they are more mischievous than malevolent.
While most people cannot see the Nin-am-bea, some medicine men have developed the ability to see and interact with them, thereby gaining insight and advice. The Shoshone tell a story of the first medicine man to see a Nin-am-bea while stopped for a rest in the mountains. He witnessed an eagle swooping to the earth and battling with something invisible. The medicine man prayed to the Great Spirit to be able to see what the eagle was fighting, and the wish was granted. Seeing the Nin-am-bea, and conversing with him after the eagle flew off, he learned that the eagle and the Nin-am-bea were mortal enemies. He also learned that the Nin-am-bea only attacked humans if they questioned the existence of the Nin-am-bea or touched the flints that the Nin-am-bea cached around the landscape.
The Nin-am-bea appear identical to humans in most ways, excluding their small stature. Stories describe them as being approximately two to three feet tall. One aspect of the Shoshone version of the little people that lends some insight into precontact practices of the tribes of the Basin and Range region is the claim that the Nin-am-bea kill other Nin-am-bea with a single blow to the head when they become unable to contribute to society, which some anthropologists claim was a practice among some tribes of the region prior to contact with Europeans.
One story tells of a war party of Shoshone returning from the east when they came upon a natural hot spring. Unsure how to approach this spring, the Shoshone prayed to the Great Spirit who told them to find and consult with the Nin-am-bea. After a long search, they finally found a group of Nin-am-bea in the foothills who told the Shoshone of the spring’s therapeutic and curative powers and that the Great Spirit had provided this for the Shoshone people as long as they paid the proper respects to the waters.
The Nin-am-bea are seen as beings that belong to the land in the same way as the plants, animals, and indeed the Shoshone themselves. This collection of tiny people, while having the ability to do great harm to the Shoshone, nonetheless live in relative harmony when properly respected, and have provided key information and assistance to the ancestors of today’s Shoshone people, revealed in pertinent tales from Shoshone lore.
Kate Stockton Kelley
See also Fairylore; Nain Rouge; Pukwudgie; Tommyknocker; Yehasuri
Further Reading
Canfield, May. 2014. “Native American Beliefs in the Little People or Fairies.” HubPages website. June 4. http://hubpages.com/religion-philosophy/Native-American-Beliefs-in-the-Little-People-or-Fairies. Accessed November 6, 2015.
Dow, James R., Roger L. Welsch, and Susan D. Dow, eds. 2010. Wyoming Folklore: Reminiscences, Folktales, Beliefs, Customs, and Folk Speech. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Dwyer, Helen, and Mary Stout. 2011. Shoshone History and Culture. New York: Gareth Stevens.
Ricky, Donald. 2009. Native Peoples A to Z: A Reference Guide to Native Peoples of the Western Hemisphere: Volume 8. n.p.: Native American Book Publishers.
Smith, Anne. 1993. Shoshone Tales. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.
Nin-am-bea—Primary Document
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (1726)
In this passage from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, the narrator awakens on the island of Lilliput to find himself captured by a race of tiny people. Swift’s novel is often read as a literary satire of British political leaders of his day, but the account of Gulliver on Lilliput inspired generations of writers and storytellers to create other miniature worlds and to populate those worlds with kingdoms and people. While the Shoshone legend of Nin-am-bea appears to derive from other sources, the presence of the little people theme in literature testifies to its appeal across cultural boundaries.
I was extremely tired, and with that, and the heat of the weather, and about half a pint of brandy that I drank as I left the ship, I found myself much inclined to sleep. I lay down on the grass, which was very short and soft, where I slept sounder than ever I remembered to have done in my life, and, as I reckoned, about nine hours; for when I awaked, it was just day-light. I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for, as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the same manner. I likewise felt several slender ligatures across my body, from my arm-pits to my thighs. I could only look upwards; the sun began to grow hot, and the light offended my eyes. I heard a confused noise about me; but in the posture I lay, could see nothing except the sky. In a little time I felt something alive moving on my left leg, which advancing gently forward over my breast, came almost up to my chin; when, bending my eyes downwards as much as I could, I perceived it to be a human creature not six inches high, with a bow and arrow in his hands, and a quiver at his back. In the mean time, I felt at least forty more of the same kind (as I conjectured) following the first. I was in the utmost astonishment, and roared so loud, that they all ran back in a fright; and some of them, as I was afterwards told, were hurt with the falls they got by leaping from my sides upon the ground. However, they soon returned, and one of them, who ventured so far as to get a full sight of my face, lifting up his hands and eyes by way of admiration, cried out in a shrill but distinct voice, Hekinah degul: the others repeated the same words several times, but then I knew not what they meant. I lay all this while, as the reader may believe, in great uneasiness. At length, struggling to get loose, I had the fortune to break the strings, and wrench out the pegs that fastened my left arm to the ground; for, by lifting it up to my face, I discovered the methods they had taken to bind me, and at the same time with a violent pull, which gave me excessive pain, I a little loosened the strings that tied down my hair on the left side, so that I was just able to turn my head about two inches. But the creatures ran off a second time, before I could seize them; whereupon there was a great shout in a very shrill accent, and after it ceased I heard one of them cry aloud Tolgo phonac; when in an instant I felt above a hundred arrows discharged on my left hand, which, pricked me like so many needles; and besides, they shot another flight into the air, as we do bombs in Europe, whereof many, I suppose, fell on my body, (though I felt them not), and some on my face, which I immediately covered with my left hand. When this shower of arrows was over, I fell a groaning with grief and pain; and then striving again to get loose, they discharged another volley larger than the first, and some of them attempted with spears to stick me in the sides; but by good luck I had on a buff jerkin, which they could not pierce. I thought it the most prudent method to lie still, and my design was to continue so till night, when, my left hand being already loose, I could easily free myself: and as for the inhabitants, I had reason to believe I might be a match for the greatest army they could bring against me, if they were all of the same size with him that I saw. But fortune disposed otherwise of me. When the people observed I was quiet, they discharged no more arrows; but, by the noise I heard, I knew their numbers increased; and about four yards from me, over against my right ear, I heard a knocking for above an hour, like that of people at work; when turning my head that way, as well as the pegs and strings would permit me, I saw a stage erected about a foot and a half from the ground, capable of holding four of the inhabitants, with two or three ladders to mount it: from whence one of them, who seemed to be a person of quality, made me a long speech, whereof I understood not one syllable. But I should have mentioned, that before the principal person began his oration, he cried out three times, Langro dehul san (these words and the former were afterwards repeated and explained to me); whereupon, immediately, about fifty of the inhabitants came and cut the strings that fastened the left side of my head, which gave me the liberty of turning it to the right, and of observing the person and gesture of him that was to speak. He appeared to be of a middle age, and taller than any of the other three who attended him, whereof one was a page that held up his train, and seemed to be somewhat longer than my middle finger; the other two stood one on each side to support him. He acted every part of an orator, and I could observe many periods of threatenings, and others of promises, pity, and kindness. I answered in a few words, but in the most submissive manner, lifting up my left hand, and both my eyes to the sun, as calling him for a witness; and being almost famished with hunger, having not eaten a morsel for some hours before I left the ship, I found the demands of nature so strong upon me, that I could not forbear showing my impatience (perhaps against the strict rules of decency) by putting my finger frequently to my mouth, to signify that I wanted food. The hurgo (for so they call a great lord, as I afterwards learnt) understood me very well. He descended from the stage, and commanded that several ladders should be applied to my sides, on which above a hundred of the inhabitants mounted and walked towards my mouth, laden with baskets full of meat, which had been provided and sent thither by the king’s orders, upon the first intelligence he received of me.
Source: Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. London: Benjamin Motte, 1726.