The Dwarfs of Kileman

It is said that there were two kinds of people living in the Marshall Islands years ago; the land people and the underground people, called dwarfs.  The dwarfs are small, skillful, and intelligent people compared to the land people. The land people are the ones who always misunderstand the dwarfs and chase them deeper into the ground. Today they are rarely seen. 

Years ago on Arno, there uses to be a group of dwarfs who lived in Kileman Arno. Their home was  under a big rock in the shallow lagoon at the northern side of the Kileman. Every day when the tide was low, they would walk to the other islet where the people live. They would go and wait until the fishermen came back from fishing, so they could steal their canoes and go fishing. They knew many good fishing grounds, and every time they went they caught a lot of fish. When they went home they would take only some of the fish they caught with them and leave the rest in the canoes. Every morning when the fisherman came and took their canoes to go fishing they saw a lot of fish in their canoes. They often wondered who was doing that. One day they made a plan to find out who the people were who took their canoes for fishing. It was getting dark and the dwarfs had just come and were taking the canoes when they fisherman jumped out from behind the coconut trees where they were hiding and captured them. Some were caught and some ran way.

There were no dwarfs left on Kileman, but today Kileman is different from the other small islets in Arno. And it’s where many men from Arno go fishing. If you visit Kileman you’ll see the big rock where the dwarfs used to live. Not many Marshalleses, not even the people living in Arno, know about this story. Many people think this is a true story about the island of Arno. I have heard it many times from my grandfather when he tells stories to his grandchildren.