reply to post by breakingdradles
I'm sure by now you appreciate that your post painted the subject with a very broad brush, particularly in relation to intelligence.
You appear to have made the mistake of equating poverty with lack of intelligence, yet this simply is not the case.
As you'd no doubt be aware, many who're described today as geniuses were in fact poverty stricken their entire lives and died in poverty.
Conversely, many of those who witnessed the 'little people' and left an account (whether written or oral) have been demonstrably of high
intelligence. Some were wealthy, some poor and some middle-class.
What needs to be borne in mind as regards accounts of the 'little people' is that the vast majority of accounts are drawn from eras long before mass
communication. These witnesses were not out to make a name for themselves. There was no You Tube or internet .. not even newspapers. We're talking
many hundreds, even thousands of years ago.
It's sometimes difficult for people today to envisage life before internet, before movies and tv, before easily accessible printed material, before
newspapers.
The fact is, though, that until relatively recently, the majority of people ventured very little beyond the communities into which they were born.
They lived isolated lives, very often .. on farms, in tiny hamlets and villages.
When people live in small communities, they have to be extremely careful in word and deed, for their judges and juries are their communities.
Once a reputation (of whatever kind) is gained in a small community, it's almost impossible to shift. Not only that, that reputation is required to
be borne by all the individual's family members and descendants, often through several successive generations. So, for example, if an individial
were to do or claim something that his community decided was 'crazy' or 'blasphemous' .. then the individual would be described as same for the
rest of his life or until he departed that community (which was easier said that done, in fact. For each village and town was required to contribute
scarce monies for the upkeep of widows and orphans, cripples and the aged and did not welcome 'incomers' who might add to the financial burden).
Today, anyone can put up a hoaxed video on You Tube, anonymously. No matter how outrageous the hoax, it will not negatively effect the anonymous
author either in his workplace, neighbourhood, family or friends groups. In short, people can do virtually anything they like these days, via
internet, and 'get away with it' as far as relating accounts of things which may or may not have occurred.
The people of past eras did not have that luxury. If you were caught stealing .. just once .. then your reputation as a 'thief' was likely to
follow you lifelong. If you were heard blaspheming just once, there were those who would report you and penalties
were imposed and you would
be labeled as 'godless' and shunned. No anonymity back then.
So, in light of the above, it stands to reason that people had to be very careful in what they said and did and claimed.
Why, then, did individuals relate their experiences of the 'little people' ?
The answer seems clear: their claimed experiences of the 'little people' were not considered 'wrong', 'sinful' or 'crazy'.
Why not ?
Because
others had seen the 'little people' too. The little-people were not an 'out there' theory, back then. They were considered part
of life.
Why ?
Because
many people saw them. They compared experiences. There were common elements. Therefore, 'little people' were accepted as 'real'.
Therefore, it was 'ok' to talk about them and about one's experience of them.
That many people .. from many and diverse societies .. saw the 'little people' and interacted with them, is illustrated in the number of different
names used by those many and diverse societies to describe the little-people. Scandinavians used a different name for the little-people than did the
Icelandics, for example. The Scots had a different name for them to the Irish. Different Counties in England each had a different name for the
little-people. Unique Native American tribes had different names for them, as did the Hawaiians when compared to islanders of the north Pacific.
Could it possibly be claimed that ALL these diverse peoples were 'unintelligent' ? Or that for some reason, the people of Ireland and those who
inhabited the plains and mountains of North America long before the whites, 'just decided' to INVENT and name a 'little people' hoax -- at varying
times in history and without any knowledge that there existed tribes other than their own ?
The people of the Irish countryside had NO idea there existed a place later to become 'The United States', let alone that people lived there and
were ALSO seeing and interacting with little-people.
The peoples of the Pacific Island had NO knowledge of Scotland or Canada or Germany. But those Pacific Islanders DID know that a race of 'small
people' lived alongside their own community. They gave those little-people a name. It was a different name given by the Germans to the
little-people they encountered. And the Native Americans of the plains and up in Canada gave names to the little-people familiar to their own
societies.
Those Germans of a thousand and more years ago never had the chance to discuss little-people with the peoples of Iceland or Canada or South America.
They didn't have the chance to compare notes.
Instead, people lived in often isolated hamlets. They didn't know much of the world beyond their village. They didn't have newspapers or tv or
internet. They didn't have fake nails or chrome mufflers on their non-existent vehicles. They rose with the sun and went to bed when it grew dark.
Their lighting was from fires or candles. They didn't go to school, yet they knew when rain was coming, when snow was due, when to harvest, when to
sow, how to birth babies, which plants to apply to wounds.
They were practical people .. ALL the peoples of long-gone history. They had to work in order to survive. No fancy stuff. They had just what was
needed to survive. And that included their topics of discussion.
Amongst the topics they discussed (along with poor harvest, weather, livestock, barter, fuel, food sources, etc.) were the little-people. And most of
the information that was passed from mouth to mouth was a warning about the little-people. Little-people (however they were named by the community in
question) were reputed, 'known', to steal newborns. They were reputed, 'known', to substitute a little-person for the newborn.
People handed down warnings to their children about the little-people. 'Don't speak to them. Don't interact with them', was the warning given by
Native American tribes to their children. Just as they taught their children to leave gifts for the little-people when planting new corn. Failure
to 'gift' the little-people would result in destroyed crops, no harvest, starvation of the entire tribe. Similar warnings about the little-people
were passed down by parents in Germany, Scandinavia, Hawaii, the frozen reaches of Canada, Ireland, Scotland.
These were practical folk. They sometimes dealt with a birth and a death during the same day. A lame horse could mean starvation for the family. An
early or late frost, likewise.
They discussed what was relevant, important to survival and they passed it down to their children, so they could survive.
They didn't 'invent' or 'imagine' the little-people -- why would they -- all those individuals groups of people scattered all over the globe ?
The only explanation is that those diverse and separated groups of people experienced the little people and mostly feared and were wary of them.