Patagonian race of giants?

[Marcus Marulus]

Patagonian race of giants - is it a complete hoax or is there a kernel of truth in the accounts of that race which allegedly existed in the southern part of Argentina prior to the Spanish conquest of that land?

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Marulus

Patagonian race of giants - is it a complete hoax or is there a kernel of truth in the accounts of that race which allegedly existed in the southern part of Aregntina prior to the Spanish conquest of that land?

At school, they used to teach us that the Patagonian indians used to enveloppe their feets in winter with profusion of animal skins, so many skins that their foot prints in the snow looked up to three to five times bigger than that of a normal human being.
That is why when spanish explorers saw for the first time their foot prints they called the inhabitants of the region "Patagones "(which is suposed to mean in the castillian old form "big footed ones)

Beside that I never heard any other accounts or legends about giant dweellers in the southern half of Chili and Argentina.

Yet, Patagonian indians (Puelches, Tehuelches, Pampas belongid for most to the Pampid sub-type ) has always been known for being tall folks and even very tall :
Here text excerpt from the SNPA glossary:

PAMPID(Patagonid)Indianid subtype; Tall to very tall, broadly-built and robust, meso-brachycephals of the Patagonian grasslands, the pampas and the Gran Chaco. Pampids are characterized by a supraorbital bulge, a large, rectangular face with notable facial flatness and narrow eyelid slits with marked "Indian folds". The nose is straight and narrow to medium broad. The hair is smooth, the skin medium to light brown with an olive tone.

There however accounts of a creature that indians used to call "Succarath" and that some think it is an species of Pleistocene Giant ground sloths that survided may be till the second half of the XIXth century

[Marcus Marulus]

The Patagonian Giants

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Marulus

The Patagonian Giants

Interesting.
Seems that the accounts of Patagonian giants were partly inspired by the Tehuelches indians who were tall people.

Patagonia is also known since the XIXth century for its rich fossil sites; tertiary and pleistocene mammals unhearthed by the Ameghino brothers in the XIXth and dinosaurs unherthed during the XXth and XXIth century by Bonaparte and other (Novas , other)

May be early explorers encountered some of this bones or aboriginal inhabitants has reported the existence of such bones to explorers which may be contributed to the myth...