Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-12-05
PATAG0NIAN GIANTS.
how the Early Navigators Romanoed
About Them.
ILLUSIONS DIsPELLED.
Real Facts About These Indians and Those on
Terra Del Fuego-They Have Become the
Victims of Whisky and Civilization. Like the
Red Mon Of This Country.
rom The Stars Travelling Commissioners.

l IuSIA AhHNAep fAIA0ONIAs
| "HO HAS NOT HEARD MARVELLOUS
w tales OF the giants of Patagonia and Of
the dwarfs that live just across tho marrow
channel on the islands Of Terra del Fuego? Sc
much nonsense has boon written and told about
these people ever since the first white mer
found them Tin the year 1920 that to this day
the world possesses few actual facts concerning
them. You remember how Don Pigafetta, thu
champion liar Of Magellan's expedition, de
scribed the Patagoniaus as "Of that biggenesss
| that our MEME of means stature could reach
up to their waystes. and all the early explorer
that followed felt bound to see and describe Al
amazing things 40 their predecessors had done
while few Of them went even further in tbeil
laudable efforts to keep up European interes
in the new world.
| Regarding the stature Of these giants there il
an amusing discrepancy In the statements Of
celebrated travellers, ancient and modern. S,l
Frances Drake, who came here in 1878, testi
fed that the Patagonians were mot taller than
| many Englishmen." Schouten, the German OK.
plorsr. declared them to be "!iving skeletons,
4 ten or eleven feet long" DOrbigny. the
French scientist, wrote in 1929 that he never
found any exceeding five feet eleven inches. VI
Fitzroy and Darwin computed their average
| height to be six feet, and Cunningham. who
made them careful study only about twenty
years ago, says he found one chief who meas
ured six feet eleven inches, and saw few Of
less statue than five feet ten inches. Capt
Mayne Reid. whose delightful book called "Odd
People" stands next to Robinson Crusoc" in
| the estimation Of millions of boys, wrote these
words about the Patagonians: ''They have been
measured Twelve-foot giants can no longer
be found. They never existed except in the
fertile imaginations of the old navigators, whose
| embodied testimony, nevertheless, it is diff
cult TO disbeiieye. Other and more reliable
witnesses have done away with the Titans, but
| still we are unable to reduce the stature OF the
Patagonlans 20 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 a like few
rising nearly to eight These measurements
are definite and certain, therefore, il not pos
tive giants it Is safe to consider the Patagon-
ians az among the tallest Of human beings, per-
haps the very tallest that exist or ever existed
upon the face Of the earth"
MIssIoNARY's STORY.
One OF the most vivid scenes in memory's
picture gallerv-one that still stands out dis
tinct and clear amid Q multitude of misty
shapes and half obliterated facts of far greater
importance-is that Of missionary lecture on
long-ago Sunday afternoon. when the speaker
impressively said 1.-The poor giants Of Pata-
gonia, though nearly twice rs tall as anybody
In this church II not in this country-say from
nine to twelve feet high-have neither minds
nor hearts in proportion to their bodies They
are among the most fierce and degraded people
on earth-they are cannibals, who feast on the
bodies OF their enemies and on shipwrscked
sailors and other foreigners who happen to fall
into their hands At other times they subsist
on raw fish. But when the streams are frozen,
as they are during 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
tlem6elyeA Hfn Acc thoir
beloved dogs to the cooking pot The people
OF Terra del Fucgo 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 file their front
teeth sharp like those Of a dog, and devour
their food raw, and though they live in
climate SO cold that water freezes every night
In the year they build no houses and wear no
clothes whatever"
May heaven forgive the reverend gentleman
his ignorance for don't believe he deliber-
ately slandered the heather. He merely gave
US the commonly accepted opinion in Europe
and America, Cleaned undoubtedly from some
standard encyclopedia of universal knowl-
edge" But at any rate our youthful imagina-
tons wero so excited and gener Gus pity ar
that every tin bank belonging to every child in
the Sunday school was ruthlessly broken and
all our boarded pennies dispatched TO the poor
PatagonianJ through the pocket of the mis-
sionary.
Only the other day read an exceedingly in
teresting three-column article Out alas for
the truth Of it) which has been going the
rounds OF the United States press,
aud which deals in glib absurdities a. un-
blushingly as did the ancient mariners. The
popular journalist who perpetrated it mixes
up the Araucanians Of Chile, the Patasonians
aud the "Firelanders' in the most astonishing
manner and paints the poor things q great deal
darker than they deserve. For example, he
says Of the Fuegoans that from time to
time the corpses OF wrecked sailors afford them
much relished feasts. withou. the trouble OF
cooking" He describes their houses as holes
under the ground covered with brush, bark
and wild cabbage leaves" and adds: I'm the
center OF each dwelling, which is entered by an
inclined tunnel, a fire is kept perpetually burn
ing. the smoke finding its way through hole
in the roof. The embers are never allowed to
become extingushed, because the people know
no way Of making IRE, and if it was lost they
could not reproduce it. 1t is supposed that
they brought it originally centuries ago, from
some volcano in the CordiIerras, and, as a
summing up OF Fuegoan character, this imag-
inative writer remarks: ''As soon a. the young
IRE weaned they are permitted to take care Of
themselves and, at once taking to the chase
(think of it-a baby lately wcaned), which is
the sole pursuit Of their elders, they get liy-
aco and for ostrich eggs"
SOME ACTUAL FACTS.
-" ssA@s Sec0 sASAk ANiuS uuSt Oe extremely
meager, for an ostrich never yet set foot upon
any island of the Terra del Fuego archipelago,
nor were vicunas, the animals OF the Peruvian
Andes, ever found In this section. In some
parts Of Patagonia the guanaco abounds and q
species OF deer called the CANA; but even thess
have not crossed over to .'the land OF fire." In
point Of fact the Fuegoans are not hunters In
any sense. They live almost exclusively upon
marine food = mussels. oysters. polyps,
''urchins" (echinus), sea weeds, marine ami.
mails, such 40 seals, and an occasional small
whale, which they can kill with primitive bone
spears, and . few varieties Of fish, which thew
shoot with bone arrows or catch in nets, eked
out by Wild berries during their season and q
fungus-like growth about the size and color Of
orange that forms upon the beech trees. /
have conversed with many people who reside
near them and who have visited these Islands
in recent years. wcn As with missionariea
who live among them and whose testimony can
certainly be relied upon; and all these ssree
that the Fuegoans are neither smaller in stature
nor more ignorant and deg raded than Indians
usually are, and that they never were cauuibals
and never hved In '.holes in the ground ent erei
by an inclined tunnel"
1t has always been their custom to build
brush-wood hres by which to keep themselyes
warm during the long cold nights, and il was
the number OF these little fires spriucing nm
suddenly Mt TWILIGHT all ovap xha t.I.,i. IN "a