Stick Indians

Ever wondered what a warrior would do when surrounded by stick Indians in thick fog? Or how to keep one away from your lunch?  We did! And we've got the answers in our latest episode AND managed to irritate Soairse (again). Join us for the fun and the stories!

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:00

Yeah.

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Coming to you live from the dark and stormy highlands east of Springfield. Welcome to the Dr. Kitsune Odd Bob Uncanny Coffee Hour. Brought to you this week by Dr. Kitsune's Wonder Wax for all of your waterproofing needs. One million and one uses. Wax canvas, slogging boots, mustache wax, and more. Cures chapped lips, chapped thighs, chapped eyes, hemorrhoids, and more. Get some today.

SPEAKER_03: 0:52

Baby!

SPEAKER_02: 0:54

Get some. Whoa! Good girl, good girl. What is going on? Why are you on a horse and who is cleaning up after it? Here, have a beer. Whoa, do you always make that noise?

SPEAKER_04: 1:18

Every feckin' time I change shape, big boy.

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Hi, Saoirse.

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Hello, Bob.

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Sorry, I didn't mean to sound irritated.

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That was an exhilarating ride. I didn't realize it was you. Watch who you be calling an animal monkey spawn, or next time I'll take a shite on your floor.

SPEAKER_02: 1:37

How's it going, Mitch? I'm doing pretty good. Hit me with some hot water, man. Sure. Alright.

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Don't forget my feckin' beer. So,

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we're doing our... coffee and tea pairing for the episode ahead that's right what are we going to call this

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call it my mom is ashamed i am doing a podcast as a middle-aged man

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we'll come up with we'll come up with something next time how about another story okay another time sure yeah okay sounds good but tell me what are you drinking today uh so um i am drinking a latte that has hemp milk again but this time how do you milk a hemp you can milk anything i hear dude this is the way to go it's hemp milk and it has some cinnamon in it sounds delightful yeah so i'm drinking a yerba mate from the health food store down the street. I wish it was mate de coca, but, you know, we can't always get that

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in.

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What's that, Saoirse?

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You need none of that stuff, Yedget. You're sharp enough as it is.

SPEAKER_02: 2:53

Well, thank you very much.

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Besides, it tastes like someone took duck butter and swamp water and served it up in a hobo's boot.

SPEAKER_01: 3:00

What?

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Today I'm drinking a dead guy ale from Rogue Brewery by the ocean. Had a lovely visit with an Umi Debito there last weekend. I don't give a flying shite if it pairs well with your episode. It pairs well with me present mood.

SPEAKER_02: 3:19

I don't think it tastes like somebody's poured dirty water through a hobo sock. No, that's Laphroaig. You wouldn't. Oh. You ever want to taste armpit juice squeezed through a dirty hobo's sock? That's Laphroaig. Laphroaig. It was

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weaned on Laphroaig.

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All right. Okay. I think we can go on with that.

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I'm lovely. You boys, on the other hand, look like a hundred miles of bad road.

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What are we talking about today? Stick Indians. Stick indigenous peoples. Stick Indians. Little people. Is that because Columbus came here thinking he was going to find little Indians and misnamed them? Columbus was a dickhole. Yeah, we forgot that. Saoirse, calm down.

SPEAKER_04: 4:12

I tried to kill that fecker more than once, but his soul was not his own. It belonged to Leviathan and Mephistopheles. Ugh. Ugh. Together they were stronger than I.

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We all agree he was a dick.

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He's the reason they have abandon ship drills.

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Okay, but what are stick Indians?

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All right, come closer boys and listen close. I'm only going to say this.

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Once. Before we go into the tale, I'm about to tell about my relatives from Turtle Island. You need to understand something about the deep woods and the open spaces where few humans will choose to live. The places where the sunlight barely touches the ground and the places where you can see for miles. Where the sky fills your vision more than the earth. You see the forests around here and in many places are home to more than just trees and animals. There are beings who dwell in the shadows. Beings that some call stick Indians. Now that is just a name we use. The tribes and nations of the first peoples have their own names. Names whispered in reverence and respect. Names best left unspoken by the timid and irreverent. These aren't your ordinary creatures. They are spirits. Some say dangerous spirits that watch from the trees. They can lead you astray, play tricks on your mind, and some say, do much worse. They are not evil. They are not all malicious or malevolent. Some are just mischievous, and like my own kind, if you are lucky, they will take favor on you and help you in your endeavors. They are a reminder that the woods are not always safe, that there are things out there that you don't understand, They are the flicker of movement in the corner of your eye. They are the playful voices of children on the wind. They are the little people of the world between. Just remember if you see a light in the woods where no light should be, or when you hear a strange voice in the dark, or feel eyes watching you from the trees, keep your eyes downcast and be courteous. you might just have met a stick Indian.

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Hey Mitch. So I know that you've spent a lot of time outside both, you know, um, in service of our country and as a ranger and just on your own, what sort of experiences or what's the weirdest thing you've seen, um, when it comes to stick Indians? Or heard something strange. You ever hear a name called or anything? Oh, when I was a ranger or when I was just out in the woods? Yeah, when you're out in the woods. Oh, shit. So, yeah. I was out bow hunting one evening. I live real... Well, I live out in the woods, but... Or close enough. I drove about three miles from the house to this nice little hunting spot. And I parked my truck in a rock quarry. And I went... walking along a little trail that I like to walk. And as I was walking, a really thick fog set in. When I say thick fog, it was thicker than sea poop. And, you know, I couldn't literally... Thicker than pea soup. Oh, okay. Sorry. No, yeah, yeah. It's an old sailor term. Yeah. So I literally couldn't see the tip of my bow... in front of my face. I could barely make out my hand when I extended it. And I was about, I'd say a half a mile on this trail, a fairly well-used trail. And I thought, well, I have to head back to the truck now because it's going to get dark soon and I'm not going to be able to find the truck. So I turned around 180 degrees on the trail. I started walking, feeling my way with my feet and And I realized I'm going to lose the trail. So I got down on my hands and knees so I could feel the trail. And this is, imagine crawling half a mile, quarter mile on your hands and knees. Yeah. Very slowly so you don't lose the trail. Yeah. And through the fog, I hear this voice. Hey. So I stop. And I hear a stick break off in that direction. Then off to my left, I hear, hey. Hey. And I'm barely breathing now, trying to hear this voice. And it doesn't make any sound for a while. So I start crawling a couple more crawl steps. And I hear, hey. I'm scared now. Yeah. I'm actually scared. The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up. I'm getting shivers. And I keep crawling. And I hear behind me, hey. And I keep crawling a little faster now, and I hear,

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hey, hey.

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I keep crawling, and I hear, hey, hey. They're from all directions, I'm hearing these voices. And, you know, I know the old stories, and these are stick Indians. These are little people. They are trying to lead me off the trail. They're They're not necessarily malicious, although some can be malicious. So you don't answer them? I don't know. I don't answer them. No, I'm barely breathing. I don't want them to hear me. What happens if you answer them? I don't know. I didn't answer them. Okay. So they might take me with them. And there's all kinds of stories I've heard about stick Indians taking people with them and that you can't come back to the world of the living. You have to live with the stick Indians afterwards. Okay. You know, my wife's waiting at home and she's cooking dinner and I want to get home and eat dinner. So I start crawling and I crawl and I'm feeling the trail and I feel the trail and all of a sudden the trail comes to an end in thick brush. And I'm thinking, oh shit, I took a wrong turn somewhere. And I'm feeling to the side and there's no trail. I'm feeling the other side, there's no trail. And I'm feeling behind me and I wasn't crawling on a trail at all. So I turn around and I start crawling back to see if I can feel the main trail. I can't find the main trail now. And every couple of minutes I'm hearing, hey, hey, hey, hey. And I'm pretty terrified at this point. And so I just take a wild ass guess and I start crawling. The direction I think the truck is through heavy brush. And this is, this is fern, fern break. This is downed logs, downed trees, thick brush, you know, with, in there too and blackberries and you know I'm I'm getting pretty cut up and I also have to be careful because I know there's a couple of cliffs nearby and I could crawl off the edge of a cliff and kill myself you know these are like 40 foot cliffs you know where they've mined the rock out for gravel and I I keep hearing these voices and I see this huge black rock in front of me just an outline of a rock in the fog and I think I all right, I'm going to get to that rock. I'm just going to get to that rock and I'm going to put my back to the rock. And I'm going to just sit there until the fog dissipates. You know, whether that takes 24 hours, whether I have to wait until sun up, which is a long ways away, especially when there's voices out there that sound a little malicious. And I'm crawling up to the rock and I put my hand out to feel the rock. It's an unusual texture and it's my tire. The rock is my truck. And so I get up, I jump in the truck real quick and I start the truck and I turn the headlights on and the fog is so thick that the headlights don't do any good. It's like a wall in front of me. Right. And I think, well, I basically have to crawl my truck home. Yeah. And like I said, I'm only three miles from home. Took me four hours to get home off that hill. Wow. And I get home and I'm exhausted, sweaty, exhausted. My heart's still racing a little bit. Your wife wondered where you were. Yeah, my wife asked me, so did you get a deer? I didn't want to tell her story right away. I said, no, I didn't get anything. I didn't get a shot. I didn't even see anything. She says, funny, there was a five-point that bedded down in the garden as soon as you left. Oh, man. Well, I wouldn't shoot a deer in my own garden. That's kind of like the law if The native law, you know, if it comes to your home, if someone comes to your home and asks for sanctuary, you offer them sanctuary. Do not

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kill the door that feeds

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there. So special message for all of our dear listeners out there. If you're around Mitch's house, just go as close as you can to the house. He can't hurt you. Well, you know, there's, yeah, there's dear lady. I would never hurt her. No, of course not. Anyway, yeah, that's the only strange story. Well, not the only. That's the biggest strange story I have about being out in the woods, strange things I've seen. I love that story. That is a great story. Although it could also just be some hippies that came out there from Eugene. I'm trying to sell you a little bit of Dave and Doug. Are you sure they weren't going, hey, Doug. No, no. Actually, I think that I... Now... The scientific, rational side of my mind, which argues with the open spiritual side of my mind all the time. Dr. K analyzed this. Yes. So in my mind, I think, well, no, that wasn't stick Indians. That was ravens. We have a lot of ravens in the area. Yeah. And they can speak, and it wouldn't be unusual for them to be saying, hey, or, you know, or whatever. But was it in a deep voice like that? It was... many different tones. Yeah, yeah. And it sounded like many different people or voices. Yeah. And, yeah, but, you know, it could have been a raven or... It was a stick Indian, all right? Yeah, no, I believe you. I think that we are in a unique place. You know, I really enjoy the habitat that we happen to live in, and I think that there's a lot of very unusual, uncanny things that can happen here that maybe couldn't happen on other parts of the world.

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All right.

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So you have another stick Indian story? Oh, yeah. This is actually a Forest Service story back when I was a firefighter. About the stick indigenous peoples? Stick Indians. Okay. So this one isn't a scary story at all. Nothing freaky about it. I was on a little hand crew up in...

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What?

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What is a hand crew? A hand crew? Basically, we just dig fire line and we go and do brush disposal. So we try to eliminate fuels... small fuels that are going to be a fire hazard or fire danger. We try to create fire breaks. And we're not like a first-line fire crew that goes in right when the fire starts blazing. Although we did do a little bit of that. When there were lightning strikes, we would go line the lightning strike and put out the lightning strikes. Had a couple of really fun things I did in wilderness areas where we walked in with two-man crosscut saws. because no motorized chainsaws are allowed in wilderness areas. But anyway, that's not, that's getting away from the story. The story is we were out, we were, we were cutting small diameter trees, falling trees and piling in this, this area, preparing the land for a, for a burn and a fuel fuels burn, a controlled burn. And, I was in very good shape back then. I was running about 530, 545 miles. I mean, we're both pretty much like, I know the listening audience can't see us, but we're somewhere between Dwayne Johnson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you picture those two guys sitting here talking to each other, you pretty much have a picture of Mitch and I. I am a 150-pound man who is in excellent physical condition. I carry a 70-pound rucksack of fat everywhere I go. I'm a stud, man. Not many people could do that, carry 70 pounds everywhere they go. You know, well, I do it every day, too, so, you know. Uncanny Coffee. The story is, we're out cutting small diameter coffee. trees and pile and brush and we park the the crummy the the crew vehicle in this open spot and we're all carrying our chainsaws and our our fuel cans and we're we're walking down to the unit that we're going to be cutting and we get about I'd say a good quarter mile away from the truck so we can still see the truck pretty easy and someone turns back and looks over their shoulder and They say, what the fuck? I said, yeah, of course, then we all look. And there's this, what looks like a little boy standing on top of the truck. And he's standing there kind of like Peter Pan, you know, that spread legs, you know. Power stance. Power stance with his hands on his hips. And he jumps down in the back of the truck. And our crew boss says, Oh, he's messing with our lunches. So I dropped my saw and my gas can. I'm the fastest runner there. Everybody knows it. And I just take off at a sprint. It's about a quarter mile. And I'm running back there. And I get back to the back of the truck. I don't see anybody jump out of the truck. He could have jumped out the far side. So I get back to the back of the truck. And no one's back there. Nothing's out of place. And I walk around the truck. I look underneath the truck. I look in the surrounding area. I don't see anybody. I look for footprints around. And all I see are our boots, our fire boots for tracks. And I see everybody is kind of half jogging, half walking back my direction. So I'm just waiting there at the truck. And they stop, and they're pointing, and they're pointing and yelling. I can't hear what they're yelling. And I think they're yelling, he's behind you, he's behind you. So I turn around. There's no one behind me. I'm looking all around the truck again. There's no one there. And they come running up. They're saying, why didn't you grab him? I said, what do you mean? He was on top of the truck right next to you. I said, what? He stood there. You looked right at him. And I said, oh, shit. That's exactly. I said, oh, shit. They said, what? I said, I know what this is. I reached in my pocket and I grabbed some coins out of my pocket. Silver coin, not real silver, but quarters and stuff. And I had a lighter, a little Bic lighter in my pocket. And I went over to the edge of the woods. There's a little stump there. And I left the coins and the lighter on top of that. And they said, what are you doing? I said, I'm leaving an offering. An offering for who? I said, stick Indians. I said, they like matches they like i don't have any matches i said but got a lighter they gotta like lighters and they like shiny things so i left them some coins and a lighter and everybody laughed at me he said ha that's funny that's bullshit and one of the firefighters said no she said no i was uh she said i when i was growing up i i dated a native guy and went to his family and they told stories about stick indians around here she said i believe you And everybody else looked at her like she was insane. Well, what did they think happened? I don't know. They thought some... You know what I mean? Well, you know... If they saw it on top of the truck and they were watching it as they came... So a couple of weeks after that, there was a rainbow gathering scheduled up for the woods. So they thought it was just some hippie kid that was up on top of the truck. I think it was a baby squatch. Baby squatch. Could have been. But... So we... It wasn't quite lunchtime yet. We go... We cut for about... About an hour and a half, two hours. We come back to have lunch. And the lighter and the coins are gone. And when we open our lunch boxes, pieces of our lunch were missing. But it wasn't random pieces. People that packed Twinkies and Ho-Hos or donuts or something sweet. I had Pop-Tarts in mine. All the sweet stuff was missing from our lunches. And the crew boss... When he opens up his lunchbox, not only does it have his lunch in it, it has all the sweet stuff in it. Like, he stole it. We looked and said, you fucker, you stole our desserts. He says, I didn't. I didn't touch it. I didn't touch anything. And we were laughing. I said, oh. I said, it's probably the stick Indian. He was playing a joke on us. He didn't want to eat any of this, you know. Any of the junk. Any of this junk food. He just wanted to play a joke on us. Yeah. I said, I'm sure that's what it was. He was a... Are they malicious at all, or is it more of just... I'm kind of convinced there's some that can't even see us. Kind of like there's people that can't see stick Indians. Yeah. There's stick Indians that can't see us. So how would you categorize? Like if we're talking about all of our different yokai and all of our different uncanny creatures we talk about on this podcast, are they like typically smaller than us? They're just like a little human being, exactly proportioned as we are. They're just smaller than us. Got it. This particular one was about up to my hip. Uh-huh. And I... He looked like just a small boy, but yeah, that was from a distance. Right. And I'm guessing, you know, what I've heard is that up close, if you're looking directly at them, you can't see them. You can only see them out of the, your peripheral vision. So like, you know, when you're at home and you see something in the corner that you see movement and when you look, there's nothing there. Yeah. That's all the time. That's something from that perspective. other world, the in-between world. Right. But not necessarily a stick Indian, because I've seen lots of things. I mean, it could have been a rat, I guess. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for sharing with us, Mitch. Saoirse? What happened to Mitch?

SPEAKER_04: 24:01

By the old stones, I'll not have him making those gestures around me. I put him in a timeout. Are you certain you lads haven't had your brains replaced with a handful of river pebbles? Tween his comments about milking anything, and the side-eye he just gave me, he's lucky I didn't turn him into a gelding.

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Can you please bring him back? I need to wrap up the episode.

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Look, he was aiming at misbehaving. You lads need to learn. Your tales and intentions can be heard by more than you can imagine.

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Okay, well, I guess that's the end of the episode then. Tune in next time to find out what strange and wonderful beverages we've been sampling. Find out if Mitch is going to be out of time out.

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Up to him to remember which side of the hedge he belongs on before he becomes a lesson for others.

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And, naturally, for more tales that'll tickle your uncanny bone. Saoirse, could you tell the kind people thanks from all of us? Oh,

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and could you do it as Grandpa Spuds?

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Thank you.

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Thanks for listening. Join us next time for more uncanny chats and coffee and tea. You can find out more about us, read show notes, and get your uncanny merch at www.uncannycoffeepodcast.com. Until next time, remember, never whistle at night.

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Don't piss off your poker friend.

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And above all else, remember, we are not all monsters. Dr. Kitsune and Odd Bob's Uncanny Coffee Hour is produced by Mitch Kiyotakitsune and Bob Mason. And copyright protected under all laws foreign, domestic, and supernatural by the Unseelie Court. What do you think? That's good.

SPEAKER_04: 26:10

For facts sake.