The Savannah morning news., 1904-06-12
PATAG0NlAN GIANTS.
EARLY Navigator ROmanced Shame
fully About Them.

Who has not heard marvellous tales
of the giants of Patagonia and of the
dwarfs who live just across The narrow
channel on the islands Of TERRA del
Fueso? So much nonsense has been
written and told about these people
ever since the first white man found
them On the year 1920 that to this
day the world possesses t'w actual
facts concerning them. You remember
how Don Pigfetta. the champion liar
of Magellans expedition, describes the
Patagonians as of that biggen9sse
that our MEME of meane stature could
reach up to their Waystes.' and all
the early explorers felt bound TO see
and describe as amazing things as their
predecessors had done. while few or
them went even farther in their laun-
able efforts to keep up European IN
tereSt in the new world.
Regarding the stature of these giants,
there is an amusing discrep lncy IN Tue
statements OF celebrated travellers. an
ctent and modern. Sir sr@ncls Dfdht,
who came here in 1878, testlled Ihdl
the Patagonians were mot taller uhth
vnapv Enulishmen " Sch 0uten, the
German explorer, declared tlem 10 pe
diving skeletons, ten or eleven rect
long" D'Orbigny the French sclertls',
wrote I'm 1899 that he never found any
exceeding five feet eleven inches.
Fitzroy and Darwin computed thelr
average hight to be six feet, ana Gun
ningham, who made them a careIul
study not many years ago says that
he found one chief who measured SIX
feet eleven inches and saw few OF less
stature than five feet ten inches.
Capt. Mayne Reid. whose delightful
book called odd People" stands next
10 Robinson Crusoe" in the estima-
ton of millions of boys, wrote these
words about the Patagonians They
have been measured! TwelVe-foot
giants can no longer be found. TheV
never existed, except IN the tertlh
imaginations of the old navigators,
whose embodied testimony, neverthe-
less, it is difficult to disbelieve. Other
and more reliable witnesses have done
away with the Titans. but still we are
unable to reduce the stature of the
Patagonians to that of ordinary men.
If 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, if
not positive giants. it is safe to con-
slider the Patagonians as among the
tallest of human beings, perhaps the
very talest that exist or ever existed
upon the face of the earth One of
the most vivid scenes in memory's pic
ture gallery-one that still stands out
distinct and clear amid a multitude
of misty shapes and half-obliterated
facts of far greater importance-is that
of missionary lecture on a long-ago
Sunday afternoon, when the speaker
said: THE poor giants
of Patagonia, though nearly twice as
tall as anybody in this church, if not
an his f,-xr- MI 70
twelve feet high-have neither minds
nor hearts In proportion to their bodies.
They are among the most fierce and de-
graded people on earth; they are can
nibals, who feast on the bodies of their
enemies and on shipwrecked sailors
and other foreigners who happen 20
fall into their hands. At other times
they subsist on raw fish.
But when the streams are frozen. as
they are during a 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 them
selves from starvation, sacrifice their
beloved dogs TO the cooking pot. The
people of TERRA del Fuego are even
more ugly. there being dwarfs, not
more than three or four feet tall. with
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 for
give the reverend gentleman his ig-
norance, for l don't believe he DELHI |
erately slandered the heather. He |
merely gave us the commonly accepted |
opinion In Europe and America, CLEAN |
ed undoubtedly from some standard !
encyclopedia of universal knowledge,
but at any rate our youthful magma |
lions were so excited and generous |
pity aroused that every tin bank be- |
longing to every child In the Sunday |
school was ruthlessly broken and all |
our boarded pennies dispatched to the |
poor Patagonians through the pockets |
Of the missionary.
As you may imagine, that which IN |
terests us most just now in Punta |
Arenas are the Patagonian Indians. |
parties of whom straggle in almost !
every day at this season of the year |
10 exchange their guanaco funs and |
ostrich feathers for provisions and the |
worthless trinkets that delight their |
souls. The giants" seem TO be all dead |
md the race far gone in its decadence. |
L is the old story, pitafully true wher-
ever the red man has adopted the |
White on peaceable terms as his near
1eighbor, that whisky and disease soon
make sad havoc among the former. The |
,nce sturdy Patagonian, like his cous-
2 IN North America seems to have
acquired all the vices of civilization
While emitting ITS virtues, his highest |
ambition being to get enough to eat. |
rink and smoke with the least posi- |
Die labor. He hangs around the |
'anches to pick up what Is thrown to |
himself and the dogs in the line OF /
GOD and depends upon stealing and |
begging for whisky and tobacco.
1t should be remembered, however.
hat there are several distinct nations |
4 Patagonians, not including the Arau- |
'anians on the north nor the Fuea- |
,oans on the south, and that each ma
ion has distinguishing charact eristics
ne Indians that we sse slouching about |
1unta Arenas and the country between |
iere and Santa Cruz are the southern |