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the Pukel-men (apparently a branch of hobbits)
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This is not apparent to me at all. From LotR and Unfinished Tales it seemed to me that they are akin to the indigenous prehistoric folk from any given place in western (and maybe not only western) Europe.
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I was always under the impression that the Pukel-men were Druedain - and that the Druedain were most certainly not Hobbits. The powers of the Pukel-men/Druedain are shown also in "The Faithful Stone". Here we have something that's quite obviously magical (and not merely in the way that Hobbits have "magic") and that also seems to be entirely good and natural. So to answer Davem's question, I would guess that the the abilities of the Pukel-men were innate. This is similar, I think, to Beorn's skin-changing - but then the Druedain provide an example that no one is likely to write off by excluding it from the Legendarium.