"E"

Ecuador's Giants

At first the Spaniards thought that the natives of Guayaquil, Ecuador were fabricating a tale concerning a tribe of giants who once invaded their land and terrified them for some years. But they spoke so convincingly about such a time that, in 1543, Juan de Olmos, lieutenant governor at Puerto Viejo, finally ordered excavations be made in the valley at the place where the natives claimed these giants were destroyed by fire from heaven.

In his account of these archaeological diggings, Zarate reports that Olmos' party "found such large ribs and other bones that, if the skulls had not appeared at the same time, it would not have been credible they were of human persons. . . . Teeth then found were sent to different parts of Peru; they were three fingers broad and four in length." They also found marks from thunderbolts in the rocks there, giving further credibility to the story the natives told.

Pedro Cieza de Leon, whose report on the Guayaquil giants was published in 1553, says that the "natives tell, from what they heard through their forefathers, who heard and had it from far back, that there came by sea in rafts of reeds after the manner of large boats, some men who were so tall that from the knee down they were as big as the full length of an ordinary fair-sized man, and the limbs were in proportion to their bodies, so misshapen that it was monstrous to look at their heads, as large as they were, and with the hair that came down to the shoulders. The eyes they give to understand were of the size of small plates. They affirm that they had no beards and that some were clad in skins of animals, while others came as nature made them, and there were no women along."

After their landing near Punta Santa Elena, according to Cieza, the giants constructed themselves a village - but in a place that lacked a sufficient water supply. When this became evident, they simply dug themselves deep wells, using their great strength to break through the rock formation.

Having thus established themselves, continues Cieza, "these tall men or giants . . . ate and wasted all the food they could find in the land, for each one of them consumed more than fifty of the natives of the country, and as the supply was not sufficient for them, they killed much fish in the sea by means of their nets and contrivances which, it stands to reason, they must have had. The natives abhorred them, for they killed their women in making use of them and the men they killed for other reasons. The Indians did not feel strong enough to kill these new people that had come to take their country and domain, although great meetings were held to confer about it; but they dared not attack them. After a few years, the giants being still in the country, and having no women, and those of the Indians not suiting their great size, or because it may have been by advice and inducement of the demon, they resorted to the unnatural vice of sodomy, which they committed openly in public, with no fear of God and little shame of themselves."

Cieza then writes that, according to the account handed down by the natives, an angel in a mass of fire descended from heaven and killed the giants. Some scholars theorize that this unusual destruction the natives witnessed was caused by the fall of "some meteorite of unusual size and brilliancy," or that it could possibly have been one of "those electrical phenomena, such as ball lightening."

Besides the enormous human bones and the thunderbolt marks, the "wells mentioned above, which were attributed to the 'giants,' are [also] found in this locality," says T. A. Joyce. "They are deep circular excavations cut into the solid rock or lined with rough stones. One of the former class is 42 feet deep, exclusive of the earth...

...which has been washed into it; many of them are now filled up, but the water reappears as soon as they are cleared."

In his Cronica del Peru, Cieza de Leon also informs us that in Peru, Ecuador's southern neighbor, "they make great mention of certain Giants, which have been in those parts, whose bones are yet seen at Manta and Puerto Viejo, of a huge greatness, and by their proportion they should be thrice as big as the Indians."