I NEVER believed in GIANTS, until I researched & found THIS: 12th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-1891 (published in 1894) (Cyrus Thomas investigations of Etowah) The History of Marion County, Ohio (complied from past accounts, published in 1883) Mastodonic remains are occasionally unearthed, and, from time to time, discoveries of the remains of Indian settlements are indicated by the appearance of gigantic skeletons, with the high cheek bones, powerful jaws and massive frames peculiar of the red man, who left these as the only record with which to form a clew to the history of past ages. The History of Brown County, Ohio (complied from past accounts, published in 1883) Group of Mounds in Brown County, Ohio. She said also that three skeletons were found at the mouth of the Paw Paw Creek many years later, while Nim (Nimrod) Satterfield was justice of the peace. Jim Dean and some men were digging for a bridge foundation and found these bones at the lower end of the old buffalo wallow. She thought it was Dr. Kidwell, of Fairmont, who examined them and said they were very old, perhaps thousands of years old. She said that when the skeletons were exposed to the weather for a few days, their bones turned black and began to crumble, that Squire Satterfield had them buried in the Joliffe graveyard (Rivesville). All these skeletons, she said, were measured, and found to be about eight feet long. Now and Long Ago-A History of the Marion County Area by Glen Lough (1969) (This citation on West Virginia courtesy Dave Cain.) Another of many examples, this one, collected by James Mooney (1861-1921), tells of the visit of very tall people from the west: James Wafford, of the western Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in 1806, says that his grandmother, who must have been born about the middle of the last century, told him that she had heard from the old people that long before her time a party of giants had once come to visit the Cherokee. They were nearly twice as tall as common men, and had their eyes set slanting in their heads, so that the Cherokee called them Tsunil´ kalu´, the Slant-eyed people, because they looked like the giant hunter Tsul´ kalu´. They said that these giants lived far away in the direction in which the sun goes down. The Cherokee received them as friends, and they stayed some time, and then returned to their home in the west... Dancing Figures Found on a Copper Plate in Union County, Illinois. This kind of recorded tradition did not start with Mooney, rather beginning early in American history. During the Colonial and post-Colonial era, the information seekers were keen on gathering as much knowledge of the forgotten past as feasible through native sources. Some of it was woven into romantic tales including verse, but the main of it went into records, which, like the accumulation of earth and debris over ancient village sites, became buried in the musty stacks of old libraries—considered to have no real substance in the emerging field of the white mans science. Of the very early history of the region which now embraces Lake County but little can be written. The Mound Builders had occupied it and passed away, leaving no written language and but little even as tradition... These mounds were quite numerous... Excavations...have revealed the crumbling bones of a mighty race. Samuel Miller, who has resided in the county since 1835, is authority for the statement that one skeleton which he assisted in unearthing was a trifle more than eight feet in length, the skull being correspondingly large, while many other skeletons measured at least seven feet... Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Lake County Edited by Newton Bateman, LL.D. and Paul Selby, A.M. (1902) From the outset of North American archaeology, no federally sponsored concern has researched and collected evidence specifically emphasizing the existence of unusually tall Native Americans in prehistoric, and even in historic times. There are reasons for this oversight, though in hindsight it has placed limits on our overview of prehistory. Because there were only occasional people of large stature born among the light-skinned, European races, numbers of giants were far from anticipated in America. Scientists in Europe, in case-by-case studies, declared their giants to have been victims of pituitary disorder. Another reason was that when the private citizenry in the U.S. unearthed the bones of very tall and strongly constructed people, and when these disinterments were recorded, rarely was any comparison made with sites of similar contents. It was still a sort of wilderness in many rural areas right until the middle 1800s. In this, each discovery was sort of unique—only to end up in the stacks of old township libraries to be complied later as curiosities ”if they survived at all. The following account originated around the year 1800: There were mounds situated in the eastern part of the village of Conneaut and an extensive burying-ground near the Presbyterian church, which appear to have had no connection with the burying-places of the Indians. Among the human bones found in the mounds were some belonging to men of gigantic structure. Some of the skulls were of sufficient capacity to admit the head of an ordinary man, and jaw bones that might have been fitted on over the face with equal facility; the other bones were proportionately large. The burying-ground referred to contained about four acres, and with the exception of a slight angle in conformity with the natural contour of the ground was in the form of an oblong square. It appeared to have been accurately surveyed into lots running from north to south, and exhibited all the order and propriety of arrangement deemed necessary to constitute Christian burial... Historical Collections of Ohio in Two Volumes by Henry Howe, LL.D. (1888) Although not regarded by the government as reliable, the oral traditions of the native people in the eastern U.S. aver of the existence of possibly two races of giants, one supplanting the other by violent means. Here we have the first inkling of some very remote prehistory preserved, through the tradition of the Chippewa, Sandusky, and Tawa tribes, (members of the Algonquin language group), the existence of giant, bearded men. In this connection I would say that Mr. Jonathan Brooks, now living in town, stated to me, that his father, Benjamin Brooks, who lived with the Indians fourteen years, and was well-acquainted with their language and traditions, told him and others that it was a tradition of the Indians that the first tribe occupying this whole country, was a black-bearded race, very large in size, and subsequently a red bearded race or tribe came and killed or drove off all the black beards, as they called them. The Firelands Pioneer (1858) Offsetting the carefully recorded diaries of the rural folk, there were popular writers who creatively developed the more contemporary histories and folk legends, leaving to cursory treatment the deeper accounts of North American antiquities. These authors, while having captured the essence of the public perception of the noble native tradition, were not reconciled to the antique body of legend. The pens of James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) relate virtually nothing of the tall ones. Native Americans, as we know, were discouraged from writing, although some, such as David Cusick, circumvented the bias using Christian names. Fortunately, early missionary concerns gathered oral tradition from the tribal elders concerning men of giant stature. But even the most informative or entertaining accounts could not instill enough respect for the native people to put an end to the further destruction of the sacred sites. The attitude of the white race in general toward the red race was an abomination, totally lacking in mercy and compassion. Many of the Native American skulls were compared with European skulls, but selectively so as to depict the current native populace as being of inferior intelligence. Almost without resistance, the black seeds of racial bias were forming in the uncorrupted soil of prehistoric interpretation. Take for example the words of an important government official and popular writer, Henry Schoolcraft (1793-1864): The Indian has a low, bushy brow, beneath which a dull, sleepy, half-closed eye seems to mark the ferocious passions that are dormant within. The acute angles of the eyes seldom present the obliquity so common in the Malays and the Mongolians. The color of the eye is almost uniformly a tint between black and grey; but even in young persons it seldom has the brightness, or expresses the vivacity, so common in the more civilized races. Bureau of Indian Affairs (1852) Schoolcraft, who himself married a half-Indian woman, was apparently predisposed to labeling the native people in general as inferior. This kind of ridiculous prejudice underscored the tone for the unbridled continuation of the earthwork debacle. The result of this is accurately reflected in how archaeology was organized more than one hundred years ago, and may be summed up in the policy of Joseph Henry, first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Says Henry in 1846: The collection of data should precede theorizing... Unfortunately, the collection of data seemed to have no end, and any subsequent theorizing was (and is) in a state of transience. The Smithsonian, playing a sort of leading role in the massive undertaking attempting to cast light on the inscrutable prehistory of the United States, inadvertently collected far too many relics to ever analyze in a comprehensive sense. Estimates of the number of moundworks in Ohio alone at the end of the Colonial period topped ten thousand. Today, less than one-twentieth of these exist, and, moreover, they exist in a reconstructed form. No quarter of special status was given to any earthwork, no matter how sacred or strategic to tribal lands. It was a holocaust of an unprecedented nature, for it undermined the very morale of the native people who understood the peace of their ancestors to be ruined. Differing only in the professionalism somewhat absent from the previous seventy years of ghoulish quests, Henrys mandate dictated emphasis on the creation of an inclusive system of excavation, recording, and description. Any analysis that followed had to be based upon this criterion. But competent analysis of anomalies rarely (if ever) came from the Smithsonian and other institutions formally engaged in the practice of exhumation. Given this understanding, it is no wonder that the Smithsonian is believed by knowledgeable people to be actively stymieing research that would produce a more enlightened view of American prehistory. There is, however, some compensation for this oversight in that the Smithsonian, like the Peabody, and the Carnegie shortly thereafter, faithfully upheld Henrys mandate to detail, as was feasible, their mound explorations. However, the present-day inaccessibility of the bones and objects these people removed for future study is a reflection and symptom of the proposed oversight. One thing that pleased us in this research effort was the fact that there were many skeletons of gigantic frame discovered and reported by the Smithsonian, boosting the validity and value of the old township diaries, as well as the native legends. Some of these are presented below. Reports of Smithsonians Power and Thomas Powell and Thomas Grave a, a stone sepulcher, 2½ feet wide, 8 feet long, and 2 feet deep, was formed by placing steatite slabs on edge at the sides and ends, and others across the top. The bottom consisted simply of earth hardened by fire. It contained the remains of a single skeleton, lying on its back, with the head east. The frame was heavy and about seven feet long. The head rested on a thin copper plate ornamented with impressed figures... 12th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution 1890-1891 (published in 1894) (Cyrus Thomas investigations of Etowah)
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 15:29:27 +0000
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