P !■
rji
In tlie evening my son landed, when the same Indian came
down to meet him, appeared delighted to see him, and presented
him with a bunch of feathers, of the same size as those
which he had distributed in the morning. At this, our second
visit, there were about fifty Patagonian men assembled, not
one of whom looked more than fifty-five years of age. They
were generally between five feet ten and six feet tn height :
one man only exceeded six feet—whose dimensions, measured
by Captain Stokes, were as follows ;—
ft. in.
6 I f
Round the ch e s t..................... 4
Do. lo in s ......................... 3 4|
I had before remarked the disproportionate largeness of
head, and length of body of these people, as compared with tlie
diminutive size of their extremities; and, on this visit, my
opinion was further confirmed, for such appeared to be the
general character of the whole tribe; and to this, perhaps, may
be attributed the mistakes of some former navigators. Magalhaens,
or rather Pigafetta, was the first who described tiie
inhabitants of the southern extremity of America as giants.
He met some at Port San Julian, of whom one is described
to be “ so tall, that our heads scarcely came up to his waist,
and his voice was like that of a bull.” Herrera,* however'
gives a less extravagant account of them : he says, “ the least
of the men was larger and taller than the stoutest man of
Castile;” and Maxim. Transylvanus says they were “ in height
ten palms or spans; or seven feet six inches.”
In Loyasa’s voyage (1526), Herrera mentions an interview
with the natives, who came in two canoes, “ the sides of which
were formed of the ribs of whales.” The people in them were
of large size “ some called them giants; but there is so little
conformity between the accounts given concerning them, tliat
I shall be silent on the subject.”-)-
As Loyasa’s voyage was undertaken immediately after the
return of Magalhaens’ expedition, it is probable that, from the
* Burney, i. p. 33. + Ibid, p. 136.
impressions received from Pigafetta’s narrative, many thought
the Indians whom they met must be giants, whilst others, not
finding them so large as they expected, spoke more cautiously
on the subject ; but the people seen by them must have been
Fuegians, and not those whom we n'ow recognise by the name
of Patagonians.
Sir Francis Drake’s fleet put into Port San Julian, where
they found natives ‘ of large stature;’ and the author of the
‘ World Encompassed,’ in which the above voyage is detailed,
speaking of their size and height, supposes the name given
them to have been Pentagones, to denote a stature of “ five
cubits, viz. seven feet and a half,” and remarks that it described
the full height, if not somewhat more, of the tallest of them.*
They spoke of the Indians whom they met within the Strait
as small in stature.-f
The next navigator who passed through the Strait was
Sarmiento; whose narrative says httie in proof of the very
superior size of the Patagonians. He merely calls them “ Gente
Grande,”): and “ los Gigantes;” but this might have originated
from the account of Magalhaens’ voyage. He particularises
but one Indian, whom they made prisoner, and only says “ his
limbs are of large s i z e (“ Es crecido de miembros.”) This
man was a native of the land near Cape Monmouth, and,
therefore, a Fuegian. Sarmiento was afterwards in the neighbourhood
of Gregory Bay, and had an encounter with the
Indians, in which he and others were wounded; but he does
not speak of them as being unusually tall.
After the establishment, called ‘ Jesus,’ was formed by
Sarmiento, in the very spot where ‘ giants ’ had been seen, no
people of large stature are mentioned, in the account of the
colony; but Tomé Hernandez, when examined before the
Vici^Royof Peru, stated, “ that the Indians of the plains, who
are giants, communicate with the natives of Tierra del Fuego,
who are like them.§
Anthony Knyvet’s account || of Cavendish’s second voyage
• Burney, i. 318. f Ibid, i. ,324.
§ Sarmiento’s Appendix, xxi.x. |
V O L . I . j j
1 Sarmiento, p. 244.
Purchas, iv. ch. 6 and 7-