I know exactly what you mean... I grew up on stories about Menehune (the Hawaiian version of little people) and Taotao Mona (the Chamorro (i.e. Guamanian) version).

Although Taotao Mona are generally thought to be spectrally tall... they function the same way in mythology as little people everywhere else. They were really the ones I was aware of as a child (living on Guam, that's not terribly surprising) and I remember watching very carefully for trees they might inhabit and not disturbing them (Taotao Mona ate ants, so if a tree didn't have any ants, that generally meant it was inhabited). They were known for giving rather wicked bites, so we didn't take any chances!