“E Wah Chu”: Encounters with Massachusetts’ Murderous Pukwudgies

In honor of Thanksgiving, I decided to pick a story that originates with the guests at the first feast. For thousands of years before a Puritan ever set foot on Massachusetts soil, the Wampanoag fished, hunted and farmed in the area. And as they did so, they encountered a creature that they would name the pukwudgie, or “person of the wilderness”.

These tiny grey-skinned beings stand at only three feet tall, but don’t be fooled by their size. According to Wampanoag lore, pukwudgies go around armed to the teeth with poisonous darts. In addition, they are capable of turning invisible and shapeshifting, as well as casting illusions of a ball of light.

At first, the pukwudgies got along pretty well with their Wampanoag neighbors. However, when the nation began making friends with the giant Maushop, the tiny terrors got angry. In response, the Wampanoag asked Maushop to get rid of the pukwudgies that had begun to harass them.

Maushop’s solution was to swing the creatures around until they were dizzy, and then toss them as far away as he could. But this only proved a temporary cure, not a permanent remedy. The pukwudgies came back to Massachusetts, and they came back murderous.

From that day on, the people of the wilderness began a campaign of terror from their lairs in the Hockomock Swamp. They stole Wampanoag children, fatally poisoned people with darts, set villages ablaze, led travelers into danger, and hypnotized particularly unfortunate victims into walking off one of the area’s many cliffs.

Now at this point, I’d imagine at least some of you are thinking that this is a cool story, but nothing more. And that’s where you’d be wrong: people have seen pukwudgies in the flesh. Just ask Bill Russo Sr. of Raynham, Massachusetts.

Back in the 80s, Bill worked the 3 pm to midnight shift at a nearby ironworks. And the first thing he did when he got home was take his Rottweiler/Shepherd mix Samantha on a walk. That evening, they went off of their usual route, to a spot nicknamed the High Tees, for the electrical wires that crisscross the area. This location also backs right up the woods, and various animals passed through regularly.

Now Samantha was an absolutely fearless dog. According to Bill, she once tried to attack a bison at the zoo, after it charged at him. So when she started freaking out as they were about to head home, Bill knew something was very wrong.

And then he heard the source of her distress: ““Keer. Keer. E wan chu.”” As that phrase repeated, it increased in volume. Bill thought it was a lost toddler at first, but as the creature stepped in to the light from a nearby streetlight, he knew this was no child.

The grey-furred, three foot tall, potbellied being was nothing he had ever seen before. As Bill stared, it began to beckon him forward, out of the light and into the dark woods. Trying to make out what exactly this was, Bill took a step forward, and Samantha began to bark louder and pull harder. Taking that as a sign, he turned around and the pair hurried home in record time.

Once they reached the safety of the house, Bill tried to do what so many witnesses do, and make sense of the bizarre events. He gradually concluded that the monster was speaking a garbled version of English, telling him to come here, because we want you. Were there more, standing just out of the light?

As he continued to dig into what had happened, Bill came across stories of the pukwudgies, and concluded that was what he had seen that night. He came to believe that it was trying to trick him into thinking it was harmless, so he would go with it, and then come to a particularly nasty end.

Thankfully, he had Samantha with him to provide a warning about the monster’s true intentions. Not everyone can be so lucky. So if you find yourself near the Hockomock swamp, and see something you can’t explain, follow Bill’s example and get away as fast as you can. Otherwise, the pukwudgies might claim you as their next victim.

Sources:

https://allthatsinteresting.com/pukwudgie

https://discover.hubpages.com/religion-philosophy/I-Survived-the-Bridgewater-Triangle

Image:

Art Gallery [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14571036