在臺灣共同居住的漢人與原住民族，在經過長時間的共同生活與交流之下，許多的文化因素因而產生了影響，成為研究臺灣原、漢關係的重要關注點。而口傳故事亦是其中的一種例證，流傳在閩客族裔中的魔神仔故事，經過田野調查與文獻的轉述，同樣的故事情境也存在於原住民族的口述故事之中；兩者之間的關係為何？是受到閩客族裔的文化影響、抑或這是存在於臺灣跨族群之間的共同故事意象？小說家以超越現實框架的想像，述寫臺灣原住民傳說中的小黑矮人，實為閩客族裔所稱的魔神仔，在現實之中流傳的山林故事，其中的口述對象是否存在跨族群間共同指稱的現象？本文將以多族群共居相融的屏東縣牡丹鄉旭海部落，以及流傳小黑矮人傳說的東源部落為田調地點，採徵相關的口述資料，並分析跨族群山林故事的流傳意涵及其關係。

The co-existence of the Han and indigenous people in Taiwan leads to the cultural interaction and mutual influence during decades, and this phenomenon can be discovered especially through their orature tradition. For example, the legend of 魔神仔 spread among the Min'nan and Hakka societies overlaps the indigenous orature. What is the relationship between these imagination of the the Han and indigenous societies? Do the Han and indigenous societies actually share certain cultural imagination? Does one influence another because of their co-existence during such long periods? Do Han and indigenous societies refer to the same cultural image when it comes to the similar imagination of their orature? Can this cultural image in fact be trans-cultural and trans-ethnic? On this ground, this study takes the multiethnic society Xuhai and Dongyuan (Maljipa) in which circulates the legend of Negrito as examples, and analyzes the meaning of the trans-ethnic mountain legend through the methodology of field work.