The Pukwudgie (also Pukwudgee) is a small elfin forest spirit found in the folklore of Native American tribes of the northeastern United States and Great Lakes that share the Algonquin language. These include the Ojibwe, Mohegan, Wampanoag, Miami, Algonquin, and Lenni-Lenape (Delaware). Pukwudgies have many magical powers and can shape-shift into animals or vanish into invisibility, but when in human form they are described as gray-skinned creatures, two to three feet tall, with very large noses, ears, and fingers. Similar to folk traditions such as fairies and lutins, pukwudgies are mischievous tricksters who can be friendly and helpful if treated well but dangerous if offended. The extent of their maliciousness varies by culture and region. An especially malevolent form haunts the eastern Massachusetts forests that were once home to the Wampanoag. Reports there persist to this day of creatures that appear and vanish in the woods and that may kidnap or kill people. Pukwudgies also reportedly still appear in Indiana, a homeland of the Miami and Lenni-Lenape.
Pukwudgie folklore symbolizes the remarkable spread of the Algonquian-speaking peoples across the eastern and Great Lakes regions of the United States and Canada, numbers that once included thousands of tribes. Because of this wide distribution, many alternate names and spellings can be found for Pukwudgie, including Puk-Wudjie, Bokwjimen, Bgoji-nin-wag, or Bagwajinini. In Mohegan culture, a similar forest spirit is called Mukheahweesug or Makiawisug; to the Mi’kmaq, it is Mikumwess; to the Miami, Paissa or Pia-sa-ki (Redfish and Lewis 2009; Eberhart 2002, 444).
Stories of pukwudgies, a name meaning “little wild man of the forest” in Wampanoag and Delaware (Coleman 2013, 64), are especially prevalent in New England. Folkorists and historians in Connecticut and Massachusetts have recorded stories about Algonquin little people since the early 1900s (Speck 1903, 11; Weston 1906, 425; Simmons 1986, 235–236). Some people believe that European settlers in the area, such as the Pilgrims, may have heard tales of pukwudgies from the Wampanoag long before this time. These are the same Wampanoags, including Squanto, who are connected with stories about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving.
Similar to the French Canadian lutin, pukwudgies were often seen as good-natured or neutral spirits who posed no threat unless provoked. Some cultures, such as the Ojibwe, usually characterized them as harmless pranksters who enjoyed playing tricks on people. But the Wampanoag warned that pukwudgies wielded dangerous powers and required great caution. If disrespected, they might shoot poisoned arrows, push people off cliffs, lure them to their deaths in the forest, start fires, or steal children.
Such warnings fit with the role given to pukwudgies in the folklore of Massachusetts, where the Wampanoag cast them as the enemies of their hero, the giant Maushop (or Moshup). A variant of the folktale was made famous by Jean Fritz in her 1982 children’s book, The Good Giants and the Bad Pukwudgies, in which the little forest dwellers attack people with knives and turn into blood-sucking mosquitoes. But even standard versions of the story depict pukwudgies as increasingly spiteful and vicious creatures. According to the legend, the pukwudgies grew very jealous of how much the Wampanoag people loved Maushop and his wife Quant (also known as Squant or Granny Squanit). Maushop was credited with creating much of the Wampanoag’s land, including Nantucket and Cape Cod. The pukwudgies also tried to be helpful, but their attempts always failed. Frustrated and envious, the little pukwudgies decided to harass people instead. They tormented the Wampanoag so much that people pleaded with Maushop’s wife for help. She went to Maushop, and the great giant gathered up the pukwudgies, shook them as hard as he could, and flung them all over New England.
Satisfied with his work, Maushop took a break. But while many pukwudgies died, some survived. They made their way back to the Wampanoag while Maushop rested, this time with far more destructive intentions. They kidnapped children, drove people into the forest, murdered them, and burned their homes. Desperate, the people again called on Maushop and Quant for help. The giant sent his five sons to battle the pukwudgies, but the outcome was not what he expected. The little forest dwellers took advantage of their height to lure Maushop’s sons into a field of tall grass, where they killed them with poison arrows. The furious parents responded by trying to smash all the pukwudgies. Again the wily survivors scattered and fled throughout New England, plotting their next move. Alas, this time Maushop became the victim. The vengeful pukwudgies lured him into the water and shot him with poison arrows. According to different versions of the tale, Maushop either died or went away in mourning for his sons. Regardless of the outcome, he never returned.
But the pukwudgies lived on. Rumor has it that their nasty forest tricks continue to this day in wooded areas of Massachusetts where the Wampanoag once reigned. Much of their activity centers on the notorious “Bridgewater Triangle,” an area in the southeastern part of the state that includes the Fall River–Freetown State Forest. People report seeing small gray trolls and being lured off the trail and into the deep woods by glowing orbs. Some report an overwhelming urge to jump off the edge of a one-hundred-foot cliff in the forest called “The Ledge.” A series of suicide jumps there remind people of stories that report pukwudgies pushing people off cliffs. (It should be noted that the limestone cliffs of the Fall River–Freetown State Forest are also a popular recreational cliff-jumping destination.) Sightings also persist in other areas of New England, including Vale End Cemetery in Wilton, New Hampshire (Balzano 2013; Stanway 2010).
New England is not the only landscape where pukwudgies still roam. Algonquian folktales of little people can be found around the Great Lakes, especially in northern areas of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota (Eberhart 2002, 444). Wisconsin might be the source of the most famous literary reference to pukwudgies. Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) was inspired to write his epic poem, “The Song of Hiawatha” (1855), after reading about Ojibwe folklore in the work of Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1793–1864). Schoolcraft met and married a part-Ojibwe woman, Jane Johnston, while serving as a U.S. Indian agent in Michigan. He learned Ojibwe stories and myths from Jane’s mother, a member of the Ojibwe people of La Point, Wisconsin. In Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha,” chapter XVIII tells the tale of “The Death of Kwasind.” In it, the “mischievious” Puk-wudgies grow angry and envious of the powerful giant Kwasind. They cause his downfall by overturning his birchbark canoe and pelting him with the blue pine cones from the fir tree, the only weapon that can kill him (Longfellow 1855; Lovell 2013; Leary 2006, 405).
Reports of pukwudgie activity also haunt east-central Indiana, where the Lenni-Lenape and Miami tribes once lived in settlements along the White River. In the 1800s, a Methodist minister near Marion, Indiana, reported that angry forest people attacked him and cut his throat with flint when he tried to chop down a tree that Native American lore suggested was a lair for the little creatures. In 1927, ten-year-old Paul Startzman of Anderson, Indiana, who grew up listening to the legends of the Pa-i-sa-ki (a Miami variant of pukwudgie) from his Native American grandmother, said that he met one of the little men while hiking. He reported that the creature wore a long blue gown. He also reported seeing the little people again several times in the 1930s (Swartz 2000; Eberhart 2002, 444). To this day, sightings of pukwudgies are occasionally reported at Mounds State Park near Anderson, a location that was once home to an ancient mound-building culture before the Miami and Lenni-Lenape settled along the White River by the 1700s.
Leslie A. Przybylek
See also Crichton Leprechaun; Nain Rouge; Nin-am-bea; Tommyknocker; Yehasuri
Further Reading
Balzano, Christopher. 2007. Dark Woods: Cults, Crime, and the Paranormal in the Freetown State Forest, Massachusetts. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Books.
Balzano, Christopher. 2013. “Pukwudgies: Myth or Monster.” Spooky Southcoast. July 19. http://spookysouthcoast.com/pukwudgies-myth-or-monster/. Accessed June 27, 2015.
Coleman, Loren. 2013. Monsters of Massachusetts: Mysterious Creatures in the Bay State. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books.
Eberhart, George M. 2002. Mysterious Creatures: A Guide to Cryptozoology. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Leary, James P. 2006. “Wenabozho.” In The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia, edited by Andrew R. L. Cayton, Richard Sisson, and Chris Zacher, 405. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p. 405.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. 1855. “The Death of Kwasind.” The Song of Hiawatha. Project Gutenburg eBook edition. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19/19-h/19-h.htm#XVIIIchap. Accessed June 30, 2015.
Lovell, Linda. 2013. “Henry Rowe Schoolcraft (1793–1864).” The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture.http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=2412. Accessed June 30, 2015.
Redfish, Laura, and Orrin Lewis. 2009. “Legendary Native American Figures: Pukwudgie (Puckwudgie).” Native Languages of the Americas website. http://www.native-languages.org/pukwudgie.htm. Accessed June 25, 2015.
Simmons, William Scranton. 1986. Spirit of the New England Tribes: Indian History and Folklore, 1620–1984. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England.
Speck, Frank G. 1903. “Mohegan Traditions of ‘Mukheahweesug,’ The Little Men.” Papoose (June).
Stanway, Eric. 2010. “Spirits & Hauntings & Puckwudgies, Oh My.” The Telegraph (Hudson, NH). October 10. http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/living/travel/876936-224/spirits--hauntings---pukwudgies-oh.html. Accessed June 30, 2015.
Swartz, Tim. 2000. “The Little People.” Strange Magazine 21. http://www.strangemag.com/strangemag/strange21/unnaturalindiana/unnaturalindiana2littlppl.html. Accessed July 1, 2015.
Weston, Thomas. 1906. History of the Town of Middleboro, Massachusetts. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.