Previous part: Giants of antiquity. Part two
Legends of various cultures tell about ugly creatures of small stature - from 12 to 90 centimeters, appearing on the surface of the earth after sunset. They cannot stand sunlight and turn to stone under its influence. They are often credited with supernatural abilities. The dwarf's focused gaze terrifies ordinary people. Nevertheless, these unusual creatures are benevolent and sometimes help people. They live underground and are well aware of all the hoards, as well as mineral deposits.
Probably, the Anunnaki used dwarfs as a kind of geologists to search for ores of metals, precious stones, etc. Most likely, they were brought to Earth from another planet or "made" with the help of genetic engineering, like people and giants. It is possible that this is another kind of aliens who, independently of the Anunnaki, developed the bowels of our planet and sent minerals to their homeland.
There are quite a lot of evidences of the presence of "little peoples" on our planet.
On the islands of Polynesia and Micronesia, many megalithic monuments have been discovered: dolmens, temples destroyed by time, canals, cities flooded by the sea. The Polynesians attribute the construction of these ancient structures to white, red-bearded gods who came from across the ocean, or to the Menehun dwarfs who descended from the flying three-tiered island of Kuaikhelani. Legends say that the gods once created a huge flying island and settled on it a tribe of dwarfs. Folklorist K. Luomola gives the following description:
Kuaikhelani is a fabulous island floating at night in the clouds or in the ocean. When the Menehuns needed to move to work on other islands, the magical island gently descended from the clouds to the surface of the ocean and swam to the desired island where the Menehuns landed. If they had no desire to stay in these valleys, then the fabulous island took them back. They do any work playfully, in one night, and finish before sunrise. There is no hard work for them.
The African Dogon tribe and other neighboring tribes have legends about the yeban dwarfs. The Iebans are the descendants of the pale fox Yoguru and Earth, who appeared as a result of incest. Dwarfs, the offspring of the first immortal gods, are considered the oldest population of the Dogon country. It was the iebans who got the fire, found metals in the ground, became the first blacksmiths and built dolmens. They have a small body and a huge head, for some reason turned back. Dwarfs still live in caves or underground, hiding from sunlight and people. Only dedicated Dogon can see these babies and even talk to them.
Many legends about dwarfs have survived in South America. In Yucatan, the Indians believed in undersized deities - Alush. About one foot in height, they looked like little children, yet their heads were adorned with beards and crowns made of clay. They were very numerous, lived in the mountains and had communication with the world of people. One of the magical abilities of the Alushs was the sending of evil winds that bring disease and disaster.
Promotional video:
The woodland men caneki, according to the beliefs of the Indians, are black and white dwarfs who live in caves, patronize animals and avoid people. Miguel Covarrubias, researcher of Central American history, wrote:
Chaneks are very ancient dwarfs with childish faces, two feet tall, spirits of the jungle, masters of fishing and games, they live in caves or under waterfalls, where they hide the best grain and their treasures; they are wild and dangerous to human beings, but at the same time can cause rain if asked to do so.
Dwarfs are credited with the ability to take any form at will, as well as the ability to witchcraft.
The largest expert on the prehistoric past of the Canary Islands, the Frenchman R. Verno wrote that in ancient times a small and dark-skinned people lived on the islands of the archipelago, leaving numerous rock paintings and inscriptions that have not yet been deciphered. And only much later, no less mysterious settlers came to replace the dwarfs: tall, blue-eyed, fair-haired Guanches.
Mentioned about dwarfs and in the legends of Hercules. When he defeated the Libyan giant Antaeus and rested after fighting him, the dwarfs living in the sands crawled out of their underground burrows and attacked him in full armor. They wanted to avenge the defeat of Antaeus, since they were, like him, children of the earth. Hercules, waking up, gathered them all in his lion's skin and took with him. The further fate of the "Lilliputians" is unknown.
Herodotus talked about the little "cave Ethiopians" and how they were destroyed by the ancestors of today's Tuareg of the Sahara - horse riders-garamans:
There live people named Garamants, a very numerous tribe … these Garamants hunt cave Ethiopians in chariots drawn by four horses. After all, cave Ethiopians are the fastest-footed among all the people we have ever heard of. These cave dwellers eat snakes, lizards and similar reptiles. Their language is unlike any other: they make sounds like the squeak of bats …
The Frenchman Henri Lot, who thoroughly studied the famous petroglyphs of Tassili (Sahara), argued that among the images there are very often drawings of dwarf people with round disproportionately large heads decorated with "horns". He called these mysterious images "the style of the round-headed", or "the style of the devil", considering them one of the oldest in the Sahara (in his opinion, they were made about 8-10 thousand years ago). Later cave paintings also depict chariots of riders-garamantes (mentioned by Herodotus), who hunt the fleeing "cave Ethiopians", or "troglodytes", as they were often called by many ancient authors.
The medieval fairy tales "A Thousand and One Nights" tell about an expedition to North Africa undertaken by the Arabs in search of vessels sealed with the "seal of Solomon", in which recalcitrant jinn were supposedly imprisoned. During their journey, they met in the Atlas mountains one ancient tribe that had escaped from the Flood and, out of fear of another catastrophic flood, settled in the mountains. The leader of a small people of Negroes, dressed in animal skins and speaking an unknown language, through guides explained to the astonished travelers that his people, despite their dwarf growth, had no kinship with the jinn, but descended from the forefather Adam along the line of Ham.
The Vikings encountered dwarf people during the colonization of Greenland and Vinland (Newfoundland) in the early 11th century. They called the little aborigines the word "skrelingi", which can be translated from Norwegian and Irish as "shriveled screamer." The Saga of Eric the Red describes them as follows:
They were small and cunning people. They had large eyes, cheek-cheeked faces, and hard hair.
The cruel Vikings ruthlessly destroyed the small tribe.
According to Scandinavian myths, dwarfs originated from worms that originated in the corpse of the primordial giant Ymir, which itself was formed from the vapor of water and earth. The gods gave the imperial worms human forms and intelligence - this is how a tribe of dwarfs appeared.
Amazing legends about the Land of Eternal Youth exist in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and the Orkney Islands. At night, according to legends, at a certain time of the year, the hills open up and the unearthly light pouring out of them beckons random travelers to the land of dwarf seeds who went underground in ancient times. They also live on the islands of the Promised Land and occasionally visit their kin. The dwarfs have wisdom and countless treasures. Professor A. A. Smirnov writes about the Sids as a really existing people:
Whether they are immortal or only have the gift of longevity is difficult to establish. Apparently, they do not know natural death, but can die in battle. They also have the ability to change their appearance or become invisible. They often leave their abode and interfere in people's lives.
In Irish legends there is information about people taken by the Seeds to the Land of Youth. These people end up on the island, in a huge castle that stands "on white bronze feet." Time flows slower there than on Earth. It seems to people that they have spent only a year in the castle, but when, after much persuasion, the Sids release the abducted, they no longer meet their relatives, since centuries pass on Earth.
In 1850, a violent storm broke up the topsoil in the grassy hills along the Skara Baer, Orkney Islands. Local residents discovered an amazing dwelling in one of the hills: masonry walls, miniature beds, lockers, low ceilings and doorways. All this was done for people no more than one meter tall. Decades later, English archaeologists unearthed a mysterious settlement and discovered a whole Late Neolithic dwarf town underground. The dwellings were deliberately built as underground shelters. At first, walls were erected from stone slabs, then the ceiling was made of wood, which was covered with stones, a layer of earth and peat. A small hole was left for the entrance. Inside the premises there was a hearth lined with stones. Small cabinets for household items were made of stone slabs. Remains of canopies have been preserved over the stone beds. All underground dwellings were interconnected by passages along which the inhabitants of the town moved.
Where the dwarf people went is unknown. Obviously, they left their homes in a hurry and did not even take their belongings with them. Jewelry, dishes, stone tools and weapons are neatly stacked in stone cabinets. Archaeologists noticed one strange detail: there were piles of sand on the floor of the rooms and in the aisles. The local population still has beliefs: everyone who, without permission, invades the home of a small people, will turn into sand, and the witnesses of this incident will forget their name and will wander in search of lost memory. People believe that these little creatures, trying to preserve their kind, can drag a child right out of the cradle. Some of the kidnapped children return to the human world after a few years, but they cannot get used to ordinary life, remaining "strange" forever. Until now, the inhabitants of the island put pieces of iron in the bed of babies, which, they claim, has magical power over the dwarf people.
In the Don steppes in the area of the Second Vlasov burial ground, archaeologists of Voronezh University excavated a low mound of the Bronze Age and, when removing the embankment, discovered a mysterious labyrinth of branched, intersecting passages with flat floors, straight walls and vertical ventilation wells. All the holes converged to the center, to a large rectangular pit, in the middle of which there was a certain stone or wooden object, possibly an idol. To illuminate the premises, the ancient inhabitants used torches, which was indicated by the numerous blotches of charred coals on the floor of the aisles. The peculiarity of this dungeon was that the underground passages and manholes were too small for the movement of even a very short person. Scientists reconstructed the premises of the mound and came to the conclusion thatthat only very small creatures could live in such a dungeon - up to 80 centimeters tall and weighing about 25 kilograms.
Due to lack of funds, the study of the dungeon was suspended, and only twenty years later, Nikolai Prokhorov, one of the participants in the previous expedition, organized new excavations of an unusual mound. With the help of aerial photographs and photographs taken from space, it was established that three more "hollow" hills are located in the same area.
In July 2001, researchers arrived at the excavation site. Attempts to hire workers in the nearby village of Bolshiye Sopeltsy, despite unemployment, did not lead to anything. Local residents flatly refused to work in this forest, claiming that it was "unclean". The next morning, next to his pillow, Prokhorov found a severed horse's head. The camp duty officer did not see anything suspicious at night. The canopy and walls of the tent remained intact. At the same time, the batteries of the "Niva" and the "UAZ" truck were completely discharged, the batteries in flashlights, a transistor receiver, a cell phone, and also in all electronic watches were exhausted. The alarmed members of the expedition quickly turned the camp, started the truck with a "crooked starter", took the Niva in tow and were in Voronezh in the evening.
And at night, five of the seven participants in the failed excavation ended up in the toxicology department of the hospital with signs of severe poisoning. The doctors managed to save only two - Prokhorov and Irina Pisareva, the other three died. Two more died at home, as it was not possible to call an ambulance in time due to the lack of telephones in the apartments. Doctors considered the cause of death to be mushroom poisoning, although Prokhorov claimed that neither he nor the other members of the expedition ate mushrooms. What happened to the people in the excavation area and what kind of curse was imposed on this place is unknown.
Legends about dwarfs are widespread among other peoples of Europe. Mentioned about unusual creatures in the "Elder" and "Younger Edda". The famous researcher of ancient Icelandic myths M. I. Steblin-Kamensky writes:
They live in stone or underground and turn to stone when exposed to sunlight. In the Old Norse language there is even a special verb that means "to turn into stone, being caught by the dawn" … They are known to be guardians of treasures, skilled craftsmen and masters of wisdom. The dwarfs, according to the Eddam, took part in the war of the gods, which caused terrible catastrophes.
The gnome is a dwarf, a fantastic creature in Western European mythology that lives in the bowels of the earth and mountains and protects underground treasures and treasures. Gnomes are often mentioned in fairy tales, in epic poetry.
In Germanic-Scandinavian mythology, elves are the spirits of nature that inhabit the air, earth, mountains, forests. Sometimes a distinction is made between "black" (maras) and "light" elves. The latter in popular beliefs are usually presented as benevolent to people, light, airy creatures leading merry round dances under the moon. Black elves wear robes of gloomy colors and appear only at night; they themselves, despite their childish growth, are old and ugly. All descriptions point to their wrinkled faces, large noses, shining eyes, disproportionate body parts, humps on their backs.
In German myths, the Nibelungs are mentioned - a people of dwarfs, owners and guardians of treasures hidden in the earth. Another name for dwarfs is zwergs (zweig). They live in impregnable caves, deep mountain gorges. These are mountain spirits, inhabitants of dungeons not illuminated by the sun. Their faces are emaciated and deathly pale, like those of the dead. Folk legends represent them as skillful blacksmiths or miners who extract precious metals.
The Ossetians have legends about the people of the dwarf bicenta living in the sea. They are endowed with supernatural powers. A dwarf can knock down a huge tree at a glance. In addition, the Ossetians argue that the ancestors of the Caucasian peoples are mythical backgammon who came out of the sea and gave people knowledge and culture.
The Adyghe people believe that the dolmens, which are located in the mountains along the Black Sea coast, built dwarfs. Their legends tell of the war between cunning dwarfs and powerful, but stupid giants. The dwarfs won and forced the giants to build houses for themselves from multi-ton slabs and stones. Indeed, the entrances to these mysterious megalithic structures, made in the form of a small round hole, are too small for an ordinary person.
In Slavic mythology and Russian legends, there is a lot of information about the "dwarf" people. For example, gmurs live in mountains and caves. They are also called homozuli and gnomes, which means "big-eyed men", as well as "do-hee people". These master blacksmiths, who know all the secrets of the mountains, are very similar to ordinary people, but only smaller in stature, so it is convenient for them to walk through the dungeons. When dwarfs come to the surface of the earth, they cannot look at the light with their huge eyes, they have to squint and frown. Because of this, the gmurs were nicknamed "hmyryi".
Gmurli are little people that look like frogs. They usually live in hills and along rivers and marshes. The dwarfs living in swamps were called swamp dwarfs by the Slavs. They make an intoxicating drink from rose hips.
There is also a special type of dwarfs - pans. They are shorter than the gloomy ones, their eyes are even larger. Hairless, they resemble bats. Since ancient times, the pans have been ruled by the birdmen of the underworld - the moguls. Unlike gmurs, lords do not work metals and are indifferent to gold.
Alves (Alvins, Albasts) are relatives of gmurs, but they don't like dungeons. These sages and wizards came to people and taught them magic and secret sciences. But nowadays there are very few elves left, they almost all perished from the wrath of the lords of darkness. Legends say that somewhere in the ocean there is a magical island where they settled, but there is no way for ordinary people. There, no one bothers the alves, they eat fruits, sing songs and never grow old.
VN Demin in his book "The Riddles of the Urals and Siberia" provides numerous information about the underground inhabitants who inhabited the Ural and Siberian expanses in ancient times. Among the peoples of the north of Russia, dwarf underground inhabitants are called differently - siirta, sikhirta, sirte. Russian scientist Alexander Shrenk, traveling in the northeast of the European part of Russia, wrote:
In former times (when this country was barely known), it was inhabited by a completely different tribe than those who inhabit it now. This tribe, as well as many others who do not speak Russian, are known among Russians under the general name "Chudi", that is, a foreign people. The Samoyeds call them "sirte" and say with confidence that they lived in this country before them, but that then they left, as if underground.
For example, one samoyed of the Malozemelskaya tundra told me that at present the Sirts live underground because they cannot see the sunlight. Although they speak their own language, they also understand Samoyed. “Once,” he continued, “one Nenets (that is, a Samoyed), digging a hole on some hill, suddenly saw a cave in which the Sirts lived. One of them told him: “Leave us alone, we avoid the sunlight that illuminates your country, and we love the darkness that reigns in our dungeon; however, here is the road that leads to our rich fellow tribesmen, if you are looking for riches, and we ourselves are poor. Samoyed was afraid to follow the dark path indicated to him, and therefore rather closed the cave he dug. “But it is known,” the narrator continued, “that the sirts are for the most part rich: they have an extremely large amount of silver and copper, iron, tin and lead. And how could they not have all this when they live underground, from where, as they say, all these objects are obtained.
At the beginning of the 20th century, ethnographer N. Ye. Onuchkov reported about some divine peoples who lived in the territory of the modern Urals, who lived in the underground and possessed a "secret power":
Their culture is the greatest, and the light in their mountains is no worse than the sun. Divya people are small, very beautiful, with a pleasant voice, but only a select few can hear them. They portend different events for people.
According to local legends, “divya people” (chud, sirt) still live in underground cities and only rarely come to the surface. It is noteworthy that in the Irbitsky district of the Sverdlovsk region, caves of unknown origin were found, which are very similar to artificial ones and are too cramped for an ordinary person. In 2004, local hunters found miniature human skulls next to the mounds in the Tobolsk Zabolotye of the Tyumen Region. They clearly belonged to adults, since the teeth were worn out from prolonged chewing of food. According to experts, the growth of these people during their lifetime did not exceed half a meter.
In Russia, the ancient people, who previously lived in the Ural Mountains and Eastern Siberia, were called “white-eyed chud”, “underground chud”, “white-eyed lop”, “divy peoples”. Some legends have come down to our times:
It was as if a white-eyed chud lived on the Ural Mountains many thousands of years ago. And it was as if the Chud people had one hatchet for all. If some odd little hatchet is needed, he shouts at the neighboring mountain, and he throws the hatchet from mountain to mountain. And when the Russians came to the Urals and heard a chud bell ringing, they built themselves underground shelters in remote places. But the Russians also entered the forests. Then the Chud cut down the pillars of her underground dwellings and buried herself.
Legends about the dwarfs were preserved among the Altai Old Believers:
It was here that Chud went underground. When the White Tsar came to Altai to fight, and as the White Birch blossomed in our land, Chud did not want to remain under the White Tsar. Chud went underground and filled up the passages with stones. Only Chud did not leave forever. When the happy time returns, and people from Belovodye come and give the whole people the Great Science, then the Chud will come again, with all the treasures obtained.
The reality of the existence of dwarf tribes is confirmed by a number of unusual archaeological finds.
In 1996, in the vicinity of the city of Kyshtym (Chelyabinsk region), a living creature the size of a baby was found, which surprisingly closely resembled the preserved images of the Chud miners. The dwarf refused food and soon died. Scientists were unable to examine tissue samples and conduct DNA analysis: according to some sources, a certain businessman bought the corpse, according to others - it was taken with them by special services. One way or another, the "Kyshtym dwarf" disappeared without a trace, as is often the case with unusual finds that can significantly change our worldview. Dozens of local residents have seen the mysterious creature, so it is likely that dwarf people still live somewhere in the Urals.
In 2004, a group of paleontologists from Australia and Indonesia, led by Peter Brown, worked on the island of Flores (Indonesia). In a deep cave, scientists discovered a skull and bones of a previously unknown human species less than one meter tall. The remains that were found certainly belonged to an adult upright individual. The volume of the cranium was 380 cubic centimeters (in an ordinary person, about 1500 cubic centimeters). The weight of a living dwarf could be equal to 30 kilograms. The teeth of the mysterious creature were not monkey's, but completely human. According to scientists, the age of the find is 13-18 thousand years. Fragments of bones from several more similar individuals have survived near the almost complete skeleton.
The local population of the island has preserved legends about little people who were called "ebu-gogo", which translates as "omnivorous or voracious grandmothers." The last representatives of the dwarfs were seen only a hundred years ago: according to descriptions, these forest dwellers are about a meter tall, long-haired, with rounded tummies, long arms and fingers. They spoke among themselves in their own language in low voices and were able, like parrots, to repeat human words. The representatives of this people have never seen stone or other tools of labor, as well as weapons. They ate everything raw - vegetables, fruits, meat (including human meat). Sometimes the ebu-gogo stole crops from the fields, but when they stole a small child and ate it, the locals drove the dwarfs away from their homes.
Three hundred kilometers from Limpopo (Africa) on top of a hill there is a mysterious fortress. It was discovered over 150 years ago by elephant hunter Adam Render. In 1871, the German scientist Karl Mauch was engaged in the study of a complex of ancient structures. The Tatabele tribes living in the area called the ancient ruins "Zimbabwe". The citadel consists of a massive tower and a wall that encircles a significant area in a ring. The conical 15-meter tower is a giant monolith without an entrance or interior. The citadel wall is about 10 meters high and is made of huge stones and is 4–5 meters thick. The builders lifted the boulders along the slope of the hill and carefully adjusted them to each other. Megaliths and dolmens located on other continents were built in the same way in prehistoric times.
In the walls of the fortress, staircases were cut, the steps of which are so small that it is difficult for an ordinary person to fit their feet on them. The first explorers of Zimbabwe immediately noticed that the height of the doorways barely reaches one and a half meters, and the passages in the citadel are very narrow. And nearby were abandoned mines and drifts, the entrances to which are clearly designed for people of very small stature. The entire area adjacent to Zimbabwe was dug by ancient miners who mined copper, iron and gold. During the excavations in the fortress, iron and copper artifacts, wire and gold jewelry were found. The more ancient name of this settlement, located in the center of Africa, is "Monotapa", which means "Lord of the mines". Examining the remains of wooden structures at the foot of the stone walls, scientists have established the age of the structure - VI-VIII centuries AD. e. There is an assumptionthat this settlement belonged to African pygmies, whose tribes still live in Africa, although their height exceeds the size of doorways, manholes and the height of the adits in the mines.
There are strange miniature structures in Spain too. In the cave, the walls of which were obviously artificially polished, halls and passages were found that are so small that only children or dwarf people can squeeze through them. The cave with the cultural layers of the Stone Age has not been fully explored, since it is extremely difficult for an ordinary person to enter it.
In Uxmal, the ancient city of the Maya Indians, the so-called House of Dwarfs appeared to the eyes of archaeologists. This is a building with such small entrances and rooms as if they were built for the pygmies. Scientists put forward a variety of hypotheses, including the assumption that the Maya built these houses for spirits or some mythical creatures that they wanted to give shelter to. But, as you know, spirits do not leave material traces of their vital activity. There is also an opinion that dwarf tribes once lived in these places.
According to mythological descriptions and legends, the "composite" of the dwarf looks something like this: a small man with huge round eyes that turn into slits in the light; the bridge of the nose is located high on the forehead; sometimes there is a hump and mysterious "manipulators" instead of fingers.
Many peoples of the world have mysterious figurines, reliefs, masks that differ significantly from the images of ordinary people. The most characteristic feature of these ancient "photographs" is large round eyes or closed slit eyes. For example, the huge eyes of a wooden mask of the African people Dan (Liberia) are for some reason covered with a strip of white fabric with slits. Such "glasses" were probably used to protect dark-accustomed eyes from bright sunlight. Images of faces with squinted eyes are characteristic of the Olmec culture, big-eyed creatures are present on artifacts from Japan, New Zealand, Eastern Siberia, etc. On ancient rock paintings and reliefs there are also images of little men, which are much smaller in size than people or animals nearby …
South of the famous Nazca plateau (Peru), a rock carving of a very fragile creature with a disproportionately large head and huge round eyes was discovered. Ufologists believe that this is an ancient drawing of an alien. But the "gray dwarfs" observed by witnesses today usually have ellipsoidal eyes. In addition, the Peruvian dwarf has strange outgrowths instead of fingers - as in the drawing of an elf from Retra and on a figurine of the Jomon culture (Japan). This is probably still an image of one of the varieties of dwarfs.
The numerous information about the dwarf people, preserved in the legends of different peoples, is far from a fairy tale. As you know, legends do not arise from scratch. In time immemorial, little people probably really existed on Earth. And it is quite possible that they still live somewhere in the remote corners of our planet.
"Extraterrestrial footprint in the history of mankind", Vitaly Simonov
Next part: Cosmic cataclysm. Part one