The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-12-09
GIANTS
The Funny Dwarfs of TERRA del
FuegO.
NOT MORE THANTHREEFEETTAL
How the Early Navigators Romaneed Abous
Ihem-A Personal Acquaintance with
the People Dispsls Many Illusions.


HERALD. Who has not heard marvellous
tales of the giants of Patagonia, and of the
dwarfs that lived Just across the narrow
channel on the islands of TERRA del Fuegof
So much nonsense has been written and
told about these people, ever since the first
white men found them-in the year 1920
that to this day the world possesses few
actual facts concerning them. You remem-
Der how Don Pigafetts, the champion liar
OF Magellan's expedition, described the
Patagonlans as ''of that biggenesse that
our MEME of meane stature could only
reach up to their waystes;" and all the
early explorers that followed felt bound TO
see and describe as amazing things as their
predecessors had done, while few of them
went even farther in their laudabIe efforts
to keep up European interest in the New
World. Regarding
THE STATURE OF THESE GIANTS,
there is an amusing discrepancy in the
statements of celebrated travellers, ancient
and modern. Sir Frances Drake, who
came here In 1873, testified that the Pata.
gonians were mot taller than many Eng
lishmen." Schouten, the German explorer,
declared them TO be 'living skeletons, ten
or eleven feet long" D'Orbigny, the
French scientist, wrote, in 1929, that he
never found any exceeding five feet eleven
inches.n Fitzroy and Darwin computed
their average height to be six feet: and
Cunningham, who made them a careful
study only about twenty years ago, says he
found one chief who measured six feet
| eleven inches, and saw few OF less stature
than five feet ten inches. Captain Mayne
Reid, whose delightful book called odd
People, stands next to "Robinson Crusoe''
in the estimation of millions of boys, wrots
these words about the Patagonians: ''They
have been measured.
| TwELYE-FooT GIANTS
can no longer be found. They never ex-
listed, except in the fertile imaglnations of
the old navlgators-whose embodied testf-
mony, nevertheless, it is difficult to disbe-
lieve. Other and more reliable witnesses
have done away with the Titans; but still
we are unable to reduce the stature of the
Pstagonians to that OF ordinary men. II
not actual giants, they are very tall, many
of them standing seven feet in their boots
OF guanaco leather, few less than six feet
and like few rising nearly TO eight feet.
These measurements are definite and GER
tain; therefore, if not positive giants, it is
sale 10 consider the PatBgOnians as among
the tallest Of human beings-perhaps the
very tallest that exist, or ever existed.
upon the face Of the earth"
One of the most vivid scenes in memory's
picture gallery-one that still stands out
distinct and clear amid
MULTITUDE OF MISTY SHAPES
|
limportance-is that of missionary lecture,
on a long-ago Sunday afternoon, when the
speaker impressively said:
''The poor giants Of Patagonia, though
nearly twice as tall as anybody in this
church, If not in this country-say from
nine to twelve feet high-have neither
minds nor hearts in proportion to thsir
bodies. They are among the most fierce
and degraded people on earth-thsy are
cannibals, who feast on the bodies OF their
enemies and on ship-wrecked sailors and
other foreigners who happen 10 fall into
their hands. At other times they subsis6
on raw fish. But when the streams are
frozen, as they are during the greater part
of the year, and no fish are to be had, they
eat all the old women of the tribe; next
they devour their horses if need be; and
lastly, but only to save themselves from
starvation, sacrifice their beloved dogs to
the cooking pot. The people of TERRA del
Fuego are even more ugly, being dwarfs,
NOT MORE THAN THREE OR -FOUR FEET
TALL,
with enormously swollen bodies, large
! heads, short and crooked limbs. They hls
their front teeth sharp like those Of dog,
and devour their food raw; and though
they live in a climate so cold that water
freezes every night in the year, they build
no houses and wear no clothes whatever"
/ -,
, man his ignorance-for l don't believe he
deliberately slandered the heather. He
merely gave Us the commonly accepted
opinion in Europe and America,
cleaned, undoubtedly, from some
j standard Encyclopedia Of Universal
1 Knowledge" But, at any rate,
9 our Youthful imaginations were so
5 excited and generous pity aroused, that
every tin bank belonging to every child in
the Sunday school was ruthlessly broken
and all their boarded pennies dispatched to
: the poor PatagoniaDs through the pockets
: of the missionary. Only the other day l
: read an exceedingly interesting three
column article-but alas for the truth of ii
which has been going the rounds Of the
United States press, beginning with that
5 reliable organ, the Boston Transcript, and
= which deals in
I GLIB ABsURDITIEs
as unblushingly as did the ancient marin.
ers, The popular journalist who pSrpetra
ted it mixes up the Araucanians Of Chill
:, the Pstagonians and the "Fire-landers'' II
: the most astonishing manner and paints the
!. | poor things great deal darker than they
deserve. For example, he says OF thS
F'uegosns that:
.sFrom time to time the corpses OF
, wrecked sailors afford them much relsheC
, feasts without the trouble Of cooking"
V He describes their houses as holes under
Il the ground, covered with brush, bark anC
wild cabbage leaves and adds: 'In TIT
centre of each dwelling, which Is entered
= ioy an inclined tunnel, fire is kept perpet
: ually burning, the smoke finding its WA
through 8 hole in the roof. The ember
are never allowed to become exHnguished
q because the people know no way OF making
. a fire. and if 1t was lost they could not re
- produce it. 1t is supposed that the.
brought it originally, centuries ago, fron
some volcano
IN THE CoRDILLERAs."
!, And as a summing up of Fuegoan charac
n. fer. this imaginative writer remarks "a
IN soon as the Young are weaned they are pei
b, mitted TO take care of themselves, and q
once taken to the ehase-think Of 1t, a bah
lately weaned-which is the sole pursuit Q
their elders; they get a living by huntin
" for the young vicuna and guanaco, and 10
ge ostrich eggs"
an In that case their "living' must be 81
nd tremely meagre, for an ostrich never "
ly set foot upon any island Of the TERRA d,
IT Fuego archipelago, nor were yicunas, ii
animals of the Peruvian Andes, ever foun
in this section. In some parts of Patagoni
the guanaco abounds and q species of dee
~ called the CANA; but even these have NJ
y crossed over to ''the land Of fire." In poir
- Of fact, the Fuegoans are not hunters l