The following information is taken from a book by Stephen Quayle titled, Genesis 6… GIANTS… Master Builders of Prehistoric and Ancient Civilizations. This particular reference is about the Patagonian Giants.
Magellan Caravelle
Antonio Francesco Pigafetta, chronicler of Magellan’s circumnavigation of the world, described the best known of these encounters. In his history of the voyage, he reported that early in 1520, only six months after they had put out to sea, the Portuguese captain ran into some hard luck off the southern straits of South America. While Magellan searched there in vain for a pass that would give his six ships access to the Pacific Ocean, a harsh winter storm broke upon them.
Some crew members, deeply discouraged by the storm’s severity, pleaded with the stubborn Captain General to give up and return to Spain. As they watched their food and other supplies dwindle to dangerous levels, their dissatisfactions grew. Tempers flared. Outright mutiny became a possibility. Hoping to pacify his men by giving them some relief from the icy winds that howled over the dull-gray, storm-tossed seas, Magellan sailed into the bay of San Julian and dropped anchor.
But the captains of two ships, believing their plight now hopeless, mutinied anyway. They quickly captured a third ship, intending to force a return to Spain. In a bold counterattack, Magellan and those who remained loyal to him put down the rebellion, killing a ring leader. Forty members of the crew were tried and found guilty of mutiny; a second ring leader was executed.
Recognizing that inaction was a breeding ground for further discontent, Magellan put his men to hard work overhauling the ships. On what appeared to be an uninhabited desolate coast, the sailors felled trees and cut lumber; they fashioned beams and planks, repaired keels, renewed sails, and restored the ballast. Every day they were kept busy carpentering, hammering, drilling, caulking, scrubbing, painting. In the shallows, some deployed nets to catch fish, which they salted and casked away. Others put ashore to hunt for game.
All this time they saw no signs of life on shore, except for the deer-like guanaco and the flightless ostrich-like rhea. Sometimes they got a fleeting glimpse of these as they flitted through the trees beyond the shore. Then one day, while the crews toiled aboard their ships, they suddenly saw on the beach a creature the likes of which they had never before seen. Pigafetta wrote this account,
We had been two whole months in this harbor without sighting anyone when one day (quite without warning) we saw on the shore a huge giant, who was naked, and who danced, leaped and sang, all the while throwing sand and dust on his head. Our Captain ordered one of the crew to walk towards him, telling this man also to dance, leap and sing as a sign of friendship.
This he did, and led the giant to a place by the shore where the Captain was waiting. And when the giant saw us, he marveled and was afraid, and pointed to the sky, believing we came from heaven. He was so tall that even the largest of us came only to midway between his waist and his shoulder; yet withall he was well proportioned. He had a large face, painted round with red; his eyes were ringed with yellow and in the middle of his cheeks were painted two hearts. He had hardly any hair on his head, what little he had being painted white....
The Captain ordered him to be given food and drink; then showed him other things, among them a steel mirror. When the giant saw himself in this he was greatly terrified, leaping backwards so that he knocked four of our men to the ground. After this the Captain gave him bells, a mirror, a comb and a chaplet of paternosters, and had him escorted back to the place where he had first been seen.
Indians from the Magellan`s Straight - 1701
When the giant’s companion on shore saw him being returned safely, he ran to where some others were hid. These now came out, bearing gifts. On the beach they undressed themselves. When Magellan’s men arrived, they too began to dance and sing, as the first giant had done, pointing their fingers toward the sky. Pigafetta noted
Our men made signs to the giants that they should approach the ships. The men came first carrying nothing but their bows; then came the women, laden like asses with a great multitude of goods and chattels.
Magellan and his crew marveled at the great stature of these Tehuelche Indians. They also wondered at their ability to eat at one sitting enough biscuits to feed twenty Spaniards and drink down a bucket of water. But the size of their feet, made to seem even more enormous by their straw-stuffed llama-hide buskins (apparently designed to ward off the cold) really astonished them. So Magellan called these giants Patagonians (after patagón, “big feet”) and named the land in which they lived Patagonia.
One day soon after this, Pigafetta wrote,
...another giant was seen, taller and better proportioned than the others, bow and arrows in his hand, who approached our men, touched his head, turned and raised his hand to the sky. And our men did likewise. The Captain ordered him to be brought in the small boat to the little island in the port.......
Tehuelche Indians
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