MYSTERY of the PERUVIAN GIANTS
By
MARX KAYE
IN THE December, 1946, issue of Amazing Stories Magazine appeared an interesting article by the Reverend Chief Sequoyah, entitled, "America's Mysterious Race of Indian Giants." The article described a race of giant Indians who lived on the Pacific Coast and were often contacted by the Puget Sound Indians and other tribes.
Somewhere else I have read, in several sources, that one method of ocean navigation among earlier peoples was to drift on great rafts with the major currents until another continent was reached.
Admittedly, there seems to be no relationship between the first and second paragraphs, above, but most of the present article is devoted to certain evidences of the possibility that the two subjects are connected with the giants of Peru. I say most of the article, because in the latter part I am forced to bring in a rather astonishing anti-climax.
Antiquarians who have had occasion to study Peruvian antiquities will no doubt be familiar with the story of the Incan who was sent to Spain by the Spanish conquistadores in the 16th century and there became learned enough to be accepted as a considerable scholar and writer in the Spanish tongue. His name was Inca Garcilasso de la Vega, and his chief claim to fame is his formidable five volume work on Incan history entitled, "Comentarios Reales de los Incas. Owing to its extensive descriptions of idolatry and some criticism of the methods used by the conquistadores in subjugating the Incan Empire, the Catholic Church and the Spanish crown were moved to suppress the work by destroying every copy that could be found of the first edition, somewhere before 1600. It was only in 1943 that Garcilasso's monumental work was republished, by Emece editores, SA., Beunos Aires, and thus made generally available again, although antiquarians before that time had access to some of the original copies. The work has not been as widely read as some of the better known sources, such as Sarmiento and Ondegardo, and for this reason I am assuming that few people have had brought to their attention Garcilasso's Chapter IX, Book Nine, Volume II, entitled: De los gigantes que huvo en aquella region, y la meurte dellos (Of the Giants which were in that region [Manta] and their death).
The tribe of people from whom this legend comes is interesting, in itself. They lived on the northern coastland of Peru in a region which was in early times called Manta. It is said that they worshipped a huge emerald which was supposed to be the size of an ostrich egg. Many gifts of value were brought to this emerald "goddess," which often consisted of other emeralds of considerable value. As a consequence, when the Spaniards arrived at this place they discovered an amazing accumulation of emeralds, but not the emerald which rumor had led them to seek. That was hidden and has not been found to this day. But even more interesting than giant emeralds was the story these people had to tell their Incan and, later, their Spanish conquerors concerning an invasion, many centuries before, by a single group of giant men who came from the sea, not all of which has gone unsubstantiated, as will be shown.
The giants came on large rafts or barges composed of rushes. They were said to be so large that their knees were as high as an average man (meaning that they could have been over twenty feet tall). Their limbs and heads were proportionately large, and their hair grew long, falling to their shoulders. Their eyes were like small plates. They were beardless. Some wore animal skins and some were naked. All of them were males. When they landed, they established a village of gigantic houses, and Garcilasso says, in the middle of the 16th century, ". . . even in these times there is recollection of the location of these houses that they had." As might be expected of most of Peru's desert coastland, no water was found, so they were forced to dig some rather spectacular wells, a prodigious work through solid rock which was carried to great depths and lined with more rock and so constructed as to last for many centuries—a feat which even the Incans might never have been able to accomplish. The water tapped by these wells was said to be very cold, and it was healthful to drink.
The giants could not find the game that they were accustomed to hunt for food (and knowing the region to which the legend probably refers I can well appreciate their desperation), so they became marauders and cannibals. They ate everything they could find or capture, including the natives, themselves. The legend says that one giant ate fifty normal men, but it does not mention whether this considerable gastronomical feat was achieved in a day or a year. (Turkeys are knee high to me, but I doubt if I could eat fifty of them!). Not satisfied with this fare, they also devoted much energy to fishing, with giant nets and "apparatus they were said to have."
They were a great cause of abhorrence to the natives because they would steal the women for purposes which were apparently always fatal; and they killed the men with even less compunction. The natives were not sufficiently numerous in that region to dare accost the giants, although they had many a conference concerning the possibilities of eliminating them.
The giants were said to have become degenerates in a few years' time, due to the absence
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