The Oneida oral tradition is filled with wonderful tales from our Elders which knit generations together through stories. Whether scary, interesting, or amusing, these stories strengthen bonds between people in a community.

From the seemingly mundane to the overly dramatic, storytellers have their own style, reflected in their words, the pace of their stories, and the drama they infuse in every description.

Brenda Bush (Turtle Clan) recalled the following story from her childhood experiences on the Onondaga Reservation.

When I was probably about ten years old, we lived on the Onondaga Reservation. My sisters Shirley, Francis, Lucita, and I, we were outside in the yard. It was in the summertime because we were all home. It was probably about afternoon.

We looked up into the woods. We spent a lot of time in the woods. We used to go up there and pack a lunch and spend the whole day in the woods. But this one day, we were out in the yard and we looked out to the woods that we always played in and we could see these little men. We all could see the same little men. They were all green, so we called them "Little Green Men" but they were Little People.

We watched them for quite a while. They were all the same color, their bodies and their clothes. It seemed like they were at the base of a tree and it seemed like they were working very hard around the base of this tree. It even looked like they were digging a hole.

We called my dad and we told him what we could see in the woods behind our house which were probably about half a mile away. My dad said, "I don't see anything." We said, "They're there, they're there. We can see them." And we all could see them. We said, "They look like they're digging a hole. I wonder what they're digging for?" My dad said, "Well, okay, I'll go up and check and see what these little people are digging for." So he went up to the woods. We told him, we knew exactly the tree where they were. We knew because we used to go to this tree and gather butternuts so we told him it was at the butternut tree.

He went up to the woods and went over to the butternut tree. He said he saw nothing, there wasn't even a hole there.

He came back and he said, "No, girls, there's nothing there. I couldn't even find a hole."

My dad kept saying, "It's the way the wind is blowing." And we'd say, "No, no, Dad, it's not the way the wind is blowing," because they weren't the same color as the leaves. They were definitely there. That's what we saw.

We never told anybody about this, we never discussed the little people after that until we got older. We kept it to ourselves. I had to be an adult before I finally told somebody about the little people that we saw in the woods.

My sister Francis was with a group of people and they were talking about different things that happened when they were children. She told them about the little people that we saw. It really was something that we had kept a secret for so long. It was an experience that few children had, and usually only children see these little people. It's believed the little people are there to protect us. Now when we talk about our childhoods, I have to say, "I've got to tell you about the little people that we saw when we were little."

It was quite an experience and something I'll always remember. I was one of the privileged people to get to see the little men. They came to visit us, myself and my sisters.