Evening star., 1936-12-30
BELIEF IN 1MPS
OF INSANITY TOLD
AnthropoIogicaI Society
Hears of Tribes Fear
of Dwarf People.

IN primitive American mytnOlOgy VIII
were supposedly responsible for a
queer kind of insanity were described
before the American Anthropological
Society, meeting here yesterday. by
DR.. Marian w. Smith of the Univer-
sity Of Washington.
Fear of these weird imps Is mani
tested still. DR.. Smith said, among the
Salish Indians living south of Seattle.
although nobody actually has seen"
one for generation.
They are not regarded by the
Indians actually as supernatural. Ac-
cording to the lore gathered by DR..
Smith, this race inhabited the same
country as ordinary men but were
seldom seen. They stayed away from
places where men lived and had their
own dwellings. often in thickly grown,
damp gullies or overgrown creek beds.
They did not make special houses,
but sometimes If man stayed at
night in a hollow tree he would be
uncomfortable and know that he had
trespassed into the home of one of
the dreaded creatures. When one went
through damp sections he sometimes
heard water gurgle. and this sound
was supposed to be the talking of the
little people.
Known as Little Earths".
They we're called Little Earths." :"
They lived on berries and roots. Berry
pickers used to leave the small berries
for them. Sometimes meat was thrown
into the bushes for them as a gesture
Of friendship. There was only one
point, DR.. Smith said, at which the
lives of men and the lives of the
Little Earths" could impinge on one
another. The little creatures always
we're trying to marry human, and
weird courtship. There was no es-
Gaping Little Earth" If the slightest
encouragement was given.
It was especially dangerous to take
drink from stream in the woods
without giving grunt to notify the
imps that the drinker wanted nothing
to do with them. Once such a rela-
tionship was established a definite
psychctic condition was set up which
had elements of various insane syn
dromes.
Seemed Stupid on Return.
Said DR.. Smith:
"Those who took spouse among
the Little Earths' acquired a whole set
Of affinal relatives, they wandered
away from men into the woods and
seldom came back to their old haunts
When they did pay visit to their
blood relatives, in their former homes,
they spoke of children of their own
and of persons of whom men had no
knowledge, people who existed in their
other life. Aside from this they acted
like anybody else, except that they
were not really interested in what
their old friends were doing and so
they seemed stupid. And they slept
a great deal. These visits might occur
frequently and last through whole
Winter season. Or the person who
had gone among the Little Earths'
might only approach berry pickers and
hunters from a great distance and
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and never be seen again.
"The Little Earths' were completely
outside of the religious concept, they
had absolutely no relation to the SUI
pernatural powers, they could affect
the life Of man or the world in which
man lived only in the one way which
has been described Nevertheless,
they were feared. They we're feared
because men and women did not want
to leave their homes and friends and
children and relatives and live an
other life. The life of the Little
EarthS' was abnormal. And people
who lived it were considered insane.
Early Cure Devised.
"The behavior I have described
was recognized by these Salish people
as abnormal and as undesirable.
Occasionally it struck all of a sudden
and person who had acted up to
that time apparently like every one
else. would just disappear to return
IN the state described. Sometimes a
person began by showing signs of
iassitude and of wandering attention
and in such cases the usual curing
techniques were used to heal and bring
them back from the Little Earths'
and re-establish their identity in the
normal life. These techniques some
times succeeded and the person was
thereafter quite normal
apparently the insanity also had
It's manic phases, for tales of lone
hunters being attacked by persons
who had wandered of alone several
months before the attack are still
extant. Such people sometimes also
lost the power of human speech and
repeated one animal-like sound over
and over when they were seen from a
distance"
Confession Technique Practiced.
A form of medical treatment very
close to psychoanalysis among Ojihwa
Indians living near Lake Winnipeg,
IN Canada, was described yesterday
by DR.. A. Irving Hallowell of the
University of Pennsylvania.
Diseases which resist cure by drugs
and conjuring of the medicine men.
DR.. Hallowell said, are believed to
be due to unconfessed sins, and the
only cure is confession to a sfaman.
He collected Is case histories which
might have been transposed literally
from the pages of Freud. After the
confession the person often responds
to ordinary medical treatment, which
previously has done no good.
A people who painted red the bodies
OF their dead once lived in New Eng
land.
Excavation of a former habitat of
these people, containing much cul-
tural material and two graves. was
described to the anttropologists to-
day by DR.. Douglas S. Byers of Phil
lips Academy. There were many bone
implements. avis, needles and a har-
poon foreshaft made from a fragment
Of swordfish sword.
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