Sightings of rare and unusual 'Pukwudgies' reported in Southwest Alabama

Artist's rendering of a 'Pukwudgie'

Are pukwudgies real and do they live in Southwest Alabama?

These are questions that many have asked in recent weeks thanks to a renewed discussion of reports of these mysterious creatures in Conecuh County.

On Fri., Sept. 26, local radio personality Luther Upton mentioned on his morning show that a number of years ago a Pennsylvania man traveling on Interstate Highway 65 through Conecuh County called him to say that he’d seen a pukwudgie standing beside the highway. Upton also mentioned that when he originally reported the sighting, a resident of Flat Rock called him to say that pukwudgies had also been seen in the Flat Rock community.

I have to admit that prior to Sept. 26, I’d never heard of pukwudgies, and I honestly thought Luther was pulling my leg. As it turns out, after I Googled it, I came to learn that a pukwudgie (pronounced “Puck-Wu-Gee”) is a two-to-three-foot-tall creature from Indian folklore. These troll-like beings are said to look like humans, but they have big noses, fingers and ears.

Native Americans believed that you should leave pukwudgies alone because they had the reputation for being tricksters and sometimes violent. They are said to sometimes shoot poison arrows, attack people or lure them to their deaths, use magic, create small fires, disappear at will and shape-shift into porcupines.

According to the 1982 book “The Good Giants and the Bad Pukwudgies” by Jean Fritz, pukwudgies “are known to kidnap people, push them off cliffs, attack their victims with short knives and spears and to use sand to blind their victims.” Native Americans also believed that pukwudgies controlled Tei-Pai-Wankas, which were believed to be the souls of Native Americans they’d killed.

Folklore from cultures around the world, including Native Americas, are riddled with tales of “little people.” One man from Flomaton called the radio station to say that Creek Indians from this part of Alabama believed in “little people,” but thought that they could only be seen by children and medicine men. As with pukwudgies, the Creeks believed that the “little people” were best left alone.

As you might have imagined, reported sightings of pukwudgies in Alabama are extremely rare, but many people believe that a pukwudgie may have been involved in a March 2006 incident in which residents of Mobile’s Crichton neighborhood reported seeing a leprechaun in a tree on Le Cren Street near Bay Shore Avenue. Now known as the “Crichton Leprechaun,” this incident gained international headlines after WMPI-TV reported the incident on March 17, 2006. Some now say that the witnesses in this case may have been seeing a pukwudgie instead of a leprechaun.

In the end, I’d like to hear from anyone in the reading audience who thinks they have seen a pukwudgie or any other unusual creature. Call me at the office at 578-1492 or send me an e-mail to courantsports@earthlink.net. You can also write me at The Evergreen Courant, ATTN: Lee Peacock, P.O. Box 440, Evergreen, AL 36401.