Bohpoli (the Thrower, the forest little man)

Bohpoli, whose name is rendered 'the Thrower,' is the little man of the Choctaw woods, standing only two or three feet tall and living among caves and thick timber. Ordinary people never saw him; he made himself known only by tossing sticks and stones or by sudden noises, and only prophets and herb-doctors claimed his acquaintance, saying he guided them in gathering and compounding their medicines. He is closely identified with Kowi Anukasha, 'the dweller in the woods,' in the widely told account in which he carries off a small boy to his cave, where three ancient white-haired spirits offer the child a knife, a bundle of poisonous plants, and a bundle of true healing herbs; the boy who reaches for the good medicine is marked to become a great doctor of his people. Bohpoli thus stands at the origin of Choctaw doctoring knowledge, a benign but formidable teacher hidden in the forest.

Domains

• forest and wilderness
• medicine and herbalism

Powers

• to seize boys who wander into the woods and test their character
• to throw sticks and stones while remaining invisible

Epithets

• Kowi Anukasha

Sources

• David I. Bushnell Jr., The Choctaw of Bayou Lacomb, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 48, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1909.
• John R. Swanton, Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 103, Smithsonian Institution, 1931.
• George E. Lankford, Native American Legends of the Southeast, August House, Little Rock, 1987.