The Pedro Mountains Mummy was a tiny mummified figure found in a cave in the 1930s by two prospectors hunting for gold in the Pedro Mountains of Carbon County, Wyoming, about sixty miles southwest of Casper. From the moment it was discovered, the mummy’s origins were a subject of great controversy. Some people regarded it as a hoax. Others believed it was a tiny full-grown man, possibly the remains of one of the legendary “little people” described in the folklore of many Native American cultures, including the Shoshone of Wyoming. Finally, x-rays taken in 1950 by a curator of physical anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City indicated that the figure was most likely the remains of a human baby that died before or shortly after birth from a congenital defect. Unfortunately, the mummy was lost in 1950 and has never been found. The disappearance has fueled ongoing speculation about its mysterious origins, and many inaccuracies and conflicting information about it continue to circulate.
The strange tale of the Pedro Mountains Mummy began with the dreams of two men seeking gold in the hills of central Wyoming. Frank Carr and Cecil Main were using dynamite charges to clear rock when one of their blasts opened up a small cave about two feet off the ground. There are conflicting dates for the moment of this discovery, either October 1932 or June 1934 (there are convincing arguments for both dates although folklore about the mummy clearly prefers 1932). Inside, the men found a tiny figure seven inches tall in a seated position, with a flattened skull, bulging eyes, and crossed arms. It was the only thing in the cave. If standing, the mummy would have measured about fourteen inches tall.
Over the next few years, the little figure had several owners. Newspaper stories suggest that Frank Carr and Cecil Main initially took their discovery back to Casper, where they sent it on a tour of the western sideshow circuit. This would have been a common promotional strategy for such a human oddity in the 1930s. Mummies were often featured as sideshow attractions at traveling carnivals (see, for example, the stories of David E. George, aka John St. Helen, and Elmer McCurdy). By 1936, an affidavit and photos filed by Cecil Main in Hot Springs County, Wyoming, indicated that ownership of the little figure had been transferred to a Chicago man, Homer F. Sherril. The remains were supposedly held at Chicago’s Field Museum, but no records from the museum can verify this. Whatever the story, the mummy did not stay in one place for long. The notorious curiosity bounced around the Casper region with multiple owners through the 1940s, including possibly a stint as a window display in a local drugstore (Hein 2013).
The mummy was finally bought by Casper businessman Ivan Goodman in 1950. Goodman again put the little figure to promotional use. It became a mascot for his used car dealership, where he displayed it under glass and advertised it as a “pygmy preserved as it actually lived” (Fugleberg 2014). But Goodman also did something important that other owners had not done (Burke 2005). He took the mummy to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, where it was examined and x-rayed by famed physical anthropologist Dr. Harry Shapiro, who would become known as one of the deans of forensic anthropology (the study of human skeletal remains to determine the impact of physical trauma). At some point, Shapiro’s x-rays were also shared with George Gill, a physical anthropologist at the University of Wyoming. Both men agreed: the mummy was that of a human baby that died due to a congenital birth defect known as anencephaly. This condition, which results in a baby being born without the front parts of the brain or skull, is immediately visible and causes the flat-topped head and seemingly bulging eyes that marked the Pedro Mountains figure (CDC 2015; Pace 1990; Hein 2013).
Although Shapiro and Gill’s assessment seemed clear, the mummy’s path took a turn that would complicate its tale for more than sixty years. After that first examination, Goodman took the Pedro Mountains figure to New York a second time later in 1950. He apparently placed it in the hands of a man name Leonard Wadler. Soon after that, Goodman fell ill and died. The mummy’s exact fate is unknown, but it was never returned to Goodman’s family. In spite of years of searching and even the offer of a cash reward of $10,000, it remains missing to this day (Burke 2005; Hein 2013).
The Pedro Mountains Mummy’s disappearance has fueled ongoing speculation about its origins. Some people believe that there is another possible identity for the figure. The folklore of many Native American tribes include stories of a legendary race of “little people” no more than three feet tall rumored to possess magical powers and poison arrows, such as the wily Pukwudgies of Algonquin lore. In the Pedro Mountains and the Wind River Range of Wyoming, the Shoshone believed in the Nin-am-bea, an extremely dangerous race of small hunters and people eaters who were regarded as true enemies of their human neighbors. According to legend, the Nin-am-bea supposedly used extreme methods to cull their own people once they were too ill or infirm to contribute to the group. They killed them with a blow to the back of the head.
The physical condition of the little mummy found in the Pedro Mountains led some people to believe that it was not a child, but a tiny adult male, his flattened head a sign that he had been killed violently, his skull bashed in by some ancient ritual. Rumors and speculation about whether the figure was the remains of one of Wyoming’s legendary Nin-am-bea started a few years after the discovery became public. On August 17, 1941, the Milwaukee Sentinel ran an article that asked, “Did a Race of Pygmies Once Live in America?” The article reported that the little figure was a fully formed adult that seemed to be about sixty-five years old and had pointed teeth “of the flesh-eating variety.”
Such details continued to find their way into written stories and television features about the mummy for decades. Today, websites still debate its identity (Drinnon 2012; Weiser 2014). Even after scientific examination confirmed that the mummy was the remains of an anencephalic infant, many people continued to support the theory that it was a tiny adult, evidence that Wyoming’s legendary people eaters once existed. In truth, if the figure does have a Native American connection, it is probably the remains of an Indian child removed from a grave. It may not be the only such example from Wyoming. After an appearance on the television program Unsolved Mysteries in 1994, George Gill received word of another child mummy found in Wyoming. Gill asked for and received permission to examine the tiny figure, called Chiquita by the press. He concluded that it too was a human infant that died of anencephaly and was naturally preserved by mummification in Wyoming’s dry climate. DNA analysis indicated that the baby was Native American (Fugleberg 2014).
The disappearance of the real Pedro Mountains Mummy ensures that questions about its mysterious origins will continue. Because only photographs and x-rays of the figure remain, different theories about what they show cannot be proven or disproven without further testing of the actual physical specimen. Since it seems unlikely that the real Pedro Mountains Mummy will ever turn up again, the debate will live on as a fascinating chapter of Wyoming folklore.
Leslie A. Przybylek
See also Cardiff Giant; Nin-am-bea; Pukwudgie; Yehasuri
Further Reading
Burke, Brendan. 2005. “Man Offers $10,000 for Pedro Mountain Mummy.” Casper Star Tribune website. February 3. http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/man-offers-for-pedro-mountain-mummy/article_c77f7c03-6169-5f9f-b3a8-4350c70b8966.html. Accessed July 2, 2015.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 2015. “Facts about Anencephaly.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. May 18. http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/birthdefects/anencephaly.html. Accessed July 2, 2015.
Coleman, Loren. 2010. “Pedro Mountain Mummy and the Mysterious Dr. George Gill.” Cryptomundo website. November 9. http://cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/pedro-mtn/. Accessed June 27, 2015.
“Did a Race of Pygmies Once Live in America?” 1941. Milwaukee Journal. August 17. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=i15QAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Dg4EAAAAIBAJ&pg=5374,2889228&dq=pedro+mountain+mummy&hl=en. Accessed June 17, 2015.
Drinnon, Dale. 2012. “Pedro the Pygmy Mummy of Casper, Wyoming.” January 30. Frontiers of Anthropology website. http://frontiers-of-anthropology.blogspot.com/2012/01/pedro-pygmy-mummy-of-casper-wyoming.html. Accessed June 25, 2015.
Fugleberg, Jeremy. 2014. “Meet Chiquita: A Tiny, Blond, 500-Year-Old Wyoming Mummy.” Casper Star Tribune website. July 6. http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/meet-chiquita-a-tiny-blonde--year-old-wyoming-mummy/article_eea4b82a-0525-5fd2-8f78-85f925c203cc.html. Accessed July 2, 2015.
Hein, Rebecca. 2013. “The Pedro Mountain Mummy.” WyoHistory.org website. http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/pedro-mountain-mummy. Accessed June 17, 2015.
Lawrence, Ed. 2007. Mysteries and Legends of Montana: True Stories of the Unsolved and Unexplained. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot.
Pace, Eric. 1990. “Dr. Harry L. Shapiro, Anthropologist, Dies at 87.” New York Times. January 9. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/09/obituaries/dr-harry-l-shapiro-anthropologist-dies-at-87.html. Accessed July 1, 2015.
Weiser, Kathy. 2014. “Wyoming Legends, Little People & the Pedro Mountain Mummy.” Legends of America website. http://www.legendsofamerica.com/wy-littlepeople.html. Accessed June 18, 2015.