Whispers of
the Stones: Book Two in the High Country Mystery Series and the Mysterious Pedro Mummy
When I was living in Laramie, Wyoming, I came
across tales of the Pedro Mummy.
According to old newspaper accounts, a tiny mummy was discovered in the
1930s by miners near Shirley Basin. The
mummified remains of a little man only 14 inches tall was found still sitting
cross-legged on a stone ledge in a cave.
There’s no
question that the Pedro Mummy actually existed.
It became an object of curiosity and scientific speculation until its
disappearance in the 1950s. It was not a
fake.
THE PEDRO
MUMMY
Uhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/The_San_Pedro_Mountain_Mummy.jpgnknown
(Life time: 1936) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
The curious little mummy, which was soon
nicknamed “Pedro” because he was found in the Pedro Mountains, changed hands
several times and was sold and resold.
For a time, it was displayed in a drugstore, then a used car lot, then a
cigar shop in Casper. In the care of
Ivan Goodman in the 1950s, the mummy was examined and X-rayed. It was found the mummy had a definite human
rib-cage.
At the time of the Pedro Mummy’s
discovery, it was thought to be the remains of a tiny, ancient little man in
his late sixties. Many people believed
that the discovery of the tiny mummy might be proof that the “Little People” of
Native American legends actually existed.
The “Little People” are part of the legends and folklore of the
Shoshoni, Arapahoe. and many other tribes.
In some tales the tiny men, who remain hidden in caverns and deep in the
mountains, are good-natured tricksters, in others they are more mean-spirited
and may shoot arrows at their larger counterparts. In many tales the “Little People” serve as
spiritual guides or helpers to lost travelers.
In the 1980s the original X-rays were
carefully studied and scientists indicated that the tiny remains were more
likely to be those of a malformed infant who had been left in the cave to die
instead of a full-grown man. The infant
might have suffered from anencephaly, which would account for the misshapen
head. But it didn’t explain fully developed
rib-cage or reports that the mummy had teeth.
Since the mummy can no longer be found to examine, no one really knows
who he was or how he got there.
The last owner of the mummy was New Yorker
Leonard Wadler. After that, the mummy
disappeared from history. Many articles
have appeared about the Pedro Mummy, including stories in the Casper Star
Tribune. Since its disappearance,
scientists and collectors have had interest in finding the missing mummy, even
offering rewards, so it can be examined.
All of this caught my interest and after
talking it over with my co-author and sister, Loretta, she became interested in
the story as well. We decided to write a
mystery starting with the premise: what if some antique dealer actually had the
mummy? What would happen if such an
artifact resurfaced?
Loretta with Shirley Basin signs
Loretta and Vickie in Mountains
In our third Jeff McQuede novel, Whispers
of the Stones, Sheriff McQuede investigates such an event. The details concerning the mummy in this
story are as true as we could make them from varying research sources. The rest, of course, is fiction.
To read more
about The Pedro Mummy:
As you read
accounts of the Pedro Mummy, you will find many discrepancies, because even in
newspapers and journals there are many different accounts of what
happened. When writing our story, we
used those dates and sources from what seemed the most reliable
references. Here are some places on the
Internet to read more about the Pedro Mummy and the “Little People”.
The Pedro
Mummy:
The
Little People:
