The Nimerigar, fact or fiction?

I was looking at some of the legends of Wyoming, and found one I never heard of before but it is very interesting.

The Nimerigar were supposed to be an agressive race of little people which stand from 20 inches to three feet too. According to native American oral tradition, they lived in the south central mountains of Wyoming, known as The Pedro mountains.

Here is a site with more information about the Nimerigar.
www.legendsofamerica.com...

The story gets more interesting. In 1932 two men who were looking for gold in the Pedro Mountains found a cave with a mummy inside, which was sitting cross legged in the cave. The mummy measured 6 1/2 inches tall in the sitting possition, and it was stimated that it measured 14 inches tall in a standing position.

Several profesionals performed tests on the mummy, including ex rays to find out whether it was a hoax or not. They found that it was real, but meanwhile some of the scientists said it was an adult male, others said it was a deformed baby.

Anyways, the part that is most interesting of all is that in 2004 there was an article about the finding of a Hobbit like human spieces found in Asia which supposedly lived 18,000 years ago.

news.nationalgeographic.com...

Is it possible that the native American myth is no myth at all? I think it is very likely the Nimerigar are not just a myth but based in fact.

Evidence suggests it's one of the "old prospectors tall tales" type legends.

Here is a site with more information about the Nimerigar.
www.legendsofamerica.com...

I spent a little time looking at the Shoshone language, and this word doesn't appear to be Shoshone at all (Shoshone words end with vowels, not consonants.) I know that legends of "little people" do exist along with legends of giants, so I'm not dismissing that... it's just that the name is... wrong for the language.

Several profesionals performed tests on the mummy, including ex rays to find out whether it was a hoax or not. They found that it was real, but meanwhile some of the scientists said it was an adult male, others said it was a deformed baby.

I read a little more on the tests. From the first, the scientific community was divided with a set of doctors and x-ray specialists saying it's adult and the anthropologists saying it was an anencephalic baby.
(warning: link contains pictures. Not terribly gory but some may not want to view them)
en.wikipedia.org...

Microcephaly is also a possibility. In both cases you'd get skull proportions that were more like that of an adult than an infant (where the head is up to 1/4th of body length rather than 1/5th)
en.wikipedia.org...

After the mummy vanished from sight in the 1970's, the x-rays were reexamined by a forensic anthropologist who also said that it was an anencephalic baby.

I tend to believe the anthropologist is correct and the others are mistaken -- partly because of the courses I took in both professions. Doctors are taught the signs of common conditions (so they'd recognize Downs, for instance) in a LIVING person...but they are not as good at diagnosing older skeletons. Forensic anthropologists are great at diagnosing old bones, but you wouldn't want them practicing medicine on you!

The Hobbits are a special case and the skeletons found were adult. I'm skeptical about a tribe of pygmies in North America, though I could be convinced by archaeological evidence. So far, there hasn't been any.

I've spoken to people who saw the Pedro Mountain Mummy - and they say it looked like an adult. One even told me that there was "no way" it was a deformed baby. But, then again, they were trying to recall something they saw 50 to 60 years ago, so who knows.

I've also talked to people who claim the nimerigar still live in the mountains of Wyoming. They are not intelligent animals as some of the legends potray them as (i.e. tool users, bow and arrow) but more like some kind of nocturnal primate.

Sounds like the stories of the wee people and the Menehunes.