We all know the Celtic peoples of Europe believed in fairies and other magical beings — pixies, brownies, and their ilk. But what about North American peoples?
Few genuinely ancient rock art sites exist in Michigan. Among the few is the site of Burnt Bluff on the Garden Peninsula near Escanaba, where ancient people painted pictographs — red ocher drawings. The Algonquian Indians have legends of the May-may-gway- shi, the North American equivalent of the fairy. Like fairies, the May-may-gway-shi have an affinity to water. The Algonquian legends associate the May-may-gway-shi with ancient red ocher rock art from the Pre-Columbian era, into which the Burnt Bluff pictographs fall. Some legends say the fairies created the rock art.
The pictographs appear both on the face of the 140-foot cliffs at Fayette as well as in caves that pockmark the cliffs. Archaeologists have dated the pictographs to between 300 and 800 AD. The drawings, including figures nicknamed Spider Man and Big Man, range in height from six inches to two feet.
Some of the caves served as makeshift crypts for human burials. The projectile points strewn throughout some of the other caves may signifiy offerings ancient people made to the May-may-gway-shi, the fairy-like spirits believed to live in caves and other hideaways near water. The projectile points may have been shot into the caves from canoes on the lake.
The Micmac Indians relate legends of water fairies — beautiful women who live in an underwater realm or in caves. The water fairies generally segregate themselves from mankind, though some legends speak of them bearing children to mortal men.
The Passamaquoddy Indians tell of how the hero Glooskap created elves first, then humans. The elves were small beings who lived in the rocks.
click here— or buy from these retailers —
click here to buy it from Amazon.comclick here to buy it from
Barnes & Noble
— the Kindle e-book edition —
click here to buy the Kindleclick here to buy the Kindle
wireless reading device
— praise for Backyard Bigfoot —
"As informative as it is entertaining."
-Midwest Book Review
"Absolutely one of the best types of investigative reporting I've seen."
-Beverly Pechin, Reader Views
"Some of [Shiel's] explanations are ingenious."
-Andrew Grgurich, Marquette Mining Journal
"A brave voice of wondrous encounters."
-R. Lee, The Orange Orb
"Skillfully written...[Shiel] is daring in her approach."
-Thom Powell, author of The Locals