Sunday, March 9, 2014

Your Daily Giant 6/24/2013

Today's Daily Giant comes from the Reading Eagle, November 27, 1980. Giants on the Caribbean Island of Curacao is the topic. From the article,

"The picturesque Curacao Museum, situated in what was formerly a Dutch West Indies plantation house used as a military hospital. Built in 1853, it today contains an eclectic collection of Curacao an artifacts and art pieces...Of special interest, on the museum's lower level is an exhibit of archaeological finds, which includes a display of skulls of "Los Gigantes," a tribe of Indians who inhabited the island in ancient times and were believed to be over seven feet tall."

Now listen to the words of Amerigo Vespucci, the famous explorer who wrote about the giants he encountered when he explored Curacao. "We landed to see if we could find fresh water, and imagining that the island was not inhabited because we saw no people. Going along the shore we beheld very large footprints of men on the sand. And we judged if their other members were of corresponding size, that they must be very big men." "We discovered a trail and set ourselves to walk on it two leagues and a half inland; we met with a village of twelve houses in which we did not find anyone except five women, two old ones and three girls so lofty in stature that we gazed at them in astonishment." "While we were thus plotting, thirty-six men arrived, who entered the house where we were drinking, and they were of such lofty stature that each of them was taller when upon his knees than I was when standing erect. Men that were so well built, it was a famous sight to see them. They were of the stature of giants in their great size and in the proportion of their bodies, which corresponded with their height. When the men entered, some of our fellows were so frightened that at the moment they thought they were done for. The warriors had bows and arrows and tremendous oar blades finished off like swords."

Vespucci eventually named Curacao "The Isle of Giants" and he joined a long list of famous explorers who reported the same findings from Florida to Patagonia. The same descriptions Vespucci used where used by other chroniclers throughout the ages. Great size and proportionality corresponding with their height and well built are indications of the massiveness of giants reported live or deceased.

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