TL;DR

  • Many Native American stories insist somebody lived here first—giants, dwarfs, ant-people, spirit-folk.
  • A few match archaeology (e.g. Inuit oral memory of the Dorset Tuniit).
  • Motifs: earlier builders, cataclysms, territorial bequeathal, moral warnings.
  • Earliest textual records span Danish, Spanish, Nahuatl, K’iche’, Quechua, French, Algonquian, and English.

1 · Arctic & Sub-Arctic

Inuit — Tuniit / Tornit#

  • Profile. Enormous, shy seal-hunters “easily put to flight.”
  • Mythic role. Built tent-rings, hauled walrus on their backs, fled when Thule Inuit arrived.
  • Record. Knud Rasmussen, Fifth Thule Expedition field notes, 1921–24.1

Labrador Inuit — Inurajait / Ijirait#

  • Vanish when seen; plausibly folk memory of Paleoeskimo bands.2

2 · Southwest & Great Basin

Hopi — Ant People (Anu Sinom)#

Sheltered clans underground between world-cataclysms; taught sprouting beans in caves. First written by Alexander M. Stephen, 1893–94.3

Northern Paiute — Si-Te-Cah#

Red-haired cannibal giants on tule rafts; final battle at Lovelock Cave, Nevada. Primary narrative in Sarah Winnemucca’s Life Among the Piutes (1883).4

3 · Eastern Woodlands#

NationEarlier BeingsNotes / First Text
Ojibwe & CreeMemegwesiwagTiny hairy riverbank stone-workers. Fr. Jean-André Cuoq, 19th c. Algonquin manuscripts.5
HaudenosauneeStone-Coats / GenonsgwaFlint-armored cannibals; recorded by Seneca author David Cusick, 1828.6
CherokeeNunnehiMountain-dwelling immortals giving refuge before calamity. James Mooney, 1900.7

4 · Mesoamerica

Maya (K’iche’) — Mud & Wooden People#

Failed proto-humans destroyed by flood; survivors became monkeys (Popol Vuh, c. 1550).8

Yucatec Maya — Aluxo’b#

Knee-high dwarfs guarding milpas and ruins; linked to the Dwarf-King of Uxmal and referenced in Chilam Balam books.9

Mexica-Aztec — Quinametzin#

Colossal architects of Teotihuacan and Cholula; wiped out when the “Sun of Rain” ended. Book X, Florentine Codex, 1577.10

5 · Andes & Southern Cone#

CultureElder RaceSource
Quechua / IncaViracocha’s Giants drowned or petrified for disobedienceSarmiento de Gamboa, 1572.11
Aymara & QuechuaGentiles—pre-Inca stonemasons turned to hills at sunriseQuechua sermons; Godofredo Taipe, 2003.
MapucheGentiles again—mountain people petrified into the landscapeFélix José de Auguste-Saint-Hilaire, 19th c. notes.

6 · Patterns#

  1. Deep-time memory. Cataclysm motifs (floods, volcanic winters) sometimes align with late-Pleistocene events.
  2. Folk archaeology. Stories cluster around anomalous ruins or mummies later confirmed older than the tellers.
  3. Human ⇄ Other. Predecessors slip between physical populations and numinous forces—useful for staking land claims or encoding taboo.

FAQ#

Q 1. Did any myth get verified by science? A. Yes—the Inuit Tuniit map cleanly onto the genetically distinct Dorset Paleo-Eskimos, replaced c. AD 1200.

Q 2. Are “red-haired giants” at Lovelock Cave real? A. Mummies exist, but red coloration is post-mortem; cranial metrics match regular Northern Paiute ancestors, not giants.

Q 3. How old is the Popol Vuh account of pre-human races? A. The surviving K’iche’ manuscript dates ~1550 CE, but scholars argue it preserves Preclassic oral material centuries older.

Footnotes#

Sources#

  1. Rasmussen, K. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921–1924. Gyldendal, 1931.
  2. Winnemucca, S. Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims. 1883.
  3. Cusick, D. Sketches of the Ancient History of the Six Nations. 1828.
  4. Sarmiento de Gamboa, P. Historia de los Incas. 1572 (trans. 2007).
  5. Christenson, A. J., trans. Popol Vuh. BYU P, 2007.
  6. Sahagún, B. de. Florentine Codex, Book X. 1577.
  7. Briggs, J. Inuit Morality Play. Yale UP, 1998.
  8. Bricker, V. Maya Folk Tales from the Yucatec. Vanderbilt UP, 1981.
  9. Cuoq, J.-A. Lexique de la langue algonquine. 1886.
  10. Mooney, J. Myths of the Cherokee. BAE, 1900.

  1. Rasmussen, Knud. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition 1921–1924. Gyldendal, 1931. ↩︎

  2. Briggs, Jean. Inuit Morality Play. Yale UP, 1998. ↩︎

  3. Stephen, Alexander M. “Hopi Journal,” Field Columbian Museum Anthropological Series 8 (1936). ↩︎

  4. Winnemucca, Sarah. Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims. 1883. ↩︎

  5. Cuoq, Jean-André. Lexique de la langue algonquine. Montréal, 1886. ↩︎

  6. Cusick, David. Sketches of the Ancient History of the Six Nations. 1828. ↩︎

  7. Mooney, James. Myths of the Cherokee. Bureau of American Ethnology, 1900. ↩︎

  8. Christenson, Allen J., trans. Popol Vuh, 2nd ed. BYU Press, 2007. ↩︎

  9. Bricker, Victoria. Maya Folk Tales from the Yucatec. Vanderbilt UP, 1981. ↩︎

  10. Sahagún, Bernardino de. Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex), Book X, 1577. ↩︎

  11. Sarmiento de Gamboa, Pedro. Historia de los Incas. 1572 (trans. 2007). ↩︎