Giants?
Giants appear in the mythology and folklore of many peoples and ethnic groups around the world. They differ in their character, origin and function from one place and another, but in many cases they have one thing in common: they mostly exist in some kind of conflict with the "established" gods of the society that created them.
There are three good examples of ancient giants concerned with the creation of the world, or of Earth: the Babylonian Tiamat, the Norse Ymir, and the Chinese Pangu.
Tiamat was the embodiment of the archaic sea, which produced all life on Earth; her name parallels the Hebrew word 'tehom', for the abyss. She was considered the mother of all, and her name is translated from the Sumerian is 'ti' = life, and 'ama' = mother. She is mostly portrayed as a monster, but it will be shown that monsters have an affinity to giants. On the other hand, in the article about her in Wikipedia (s. link) she is desribed as having the same features as a human-like shape.
In her myth, Tiamat had given birth to the gods who had human-like form and who regarded the abyss as chaos, wanting to make a new order in the world. A war developed between these ancient, primeval, monstrous creatures who represented the forces of Nature, and the new humanized gods. In this war Mardukh, one of these new gods and a descendant of Tiamat, killed her, dissected her body, and from her various organs created the Earth.
The giants of Norse mythology were primeval beings existing before the gods and overcome by them. Giants in folklore were huge mythical mortal humanlike formed beings who inhabited the world in early times. The term derives (through Latin) from the Giants (Gigantes) of Greek mythology, who were monstrous, savage creatures often depicted with men’s bodies terminating in serpentine legs. According to the Greek poet Hesiod, they were sons of Ge (“Earth”) and Uranus (“Heaven”).
Hrimpursar are frost giants, Eldjotnar are fire giants, and Bergrisar are mountain giants. The chief city of Jotunheim and the abode of the giants were ruled by the giant Utgard-Loki; the stronghold Gastropnir is the home of the giantess Menglad; and Thrymheim ("house of uproar"), is the mountain stronghold of the giant Thiazi, who was a son of the giant Olvaldi and the father of the giantess Skadi, wife of Njord, god of winds, sea and fire. Skadi is one of the most famous giants, and is called the 'snow-shoe goddess'; she was the embodiment of winter.
Most of these early deities in Greek mythology were giant in stature; some of them were called by the name Titans, which is translated today as "giants". Looking at their names and those of their closest ancestors, it is easy to see their affinity to Nature: Gaia (Earth) was the most ancient Mother, who gave birth to the basic Natural forces: the great water deities Tethys and Ocean, who produced all the main rivers known at the time; the heavenly deities Theia (Goddess) and Hyperion (the Highest) who produced Helius (Sun), Selene (Moon) and Eos (Dawn); Eos with Astraeus (Starry), who produced the main winds; and Urania, representing the high mountains.
The story of the Chinese giant named Pangu is not much different. The myth says that this early chaos coalesced into a cosmic egg, within which the perfectly opposed principles of Yin and Yang became balanced. From this egg emerged Pangu, who is usually depicted as a primitive, hairy giant clad in furs, with horns on his head. In this case, though, it was Pangu himself who created the world: he separated Yin from Yang with a swing of his giant axe, thus creating the Earth and the Sky. To keep them separated, Pangu stood between them and pushed up the Sky. In some versions Pangu is aided in this task by the four most prominent beasts: the Turtle, the Oilin, the Phoenix and the Dragon King.
Pangu ruled for 18,000 years and then he was laid to rest. His breath became the wind; his voice thunder; his left eye the sun and his right eye the moon; his body became mountains and his blood formed rivers; his muscles the fertile lands; his facial hair stars and the Milky Way; his fur became bushes and forests; his bones valuable minerals; his sweat fell as rain; and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became the fish and animals throughout the land. In this description Pangu shows himself again as parallel to Tiamat and Ymir.
In his Hebrew book of Jewish Mythology, Hagai Dagan tells the story: In the beginning there was the abyss, water everywhere and darkness, populated by ancient giants called Eimim, Refa'im, Zoozim; such description corresponds both to the Norse story of creation to the Greek Cosmogony. When God appeared, he began fighting against these creatures in order to become a single ruler over the world, in the way Odin destroyed Ymir. Some of the ancient giants – Eimim, Zamzumim, Nefillim and Anakim – who remained after that war, lived in the land of Canaan and its neighboring countries, while others made their dwelling in She'ol, the Underworld, as much as the Titans did. According to that story, when the Israelites came up from Egypt to settle in Canaan , Joshua eliminated the last of the ancient giants in the name of the High God.
The Hebrew traditional word for giant is Anak, meaning "very big", a name that appears among other ancient peoples; some scholars connect that Hebrew word with the Babylonian tribe of Anunnaki who, according to the Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, were the children of the Mother Goddess Tiamat who "were scattered over the earth and through the underworld." (p. 50). Tiamat, as has been mentioned above, corresponds to the Tehom water goddess mentioned in the Old Testament Genesis story; even today "mey tehom" is water drawn from wells under the earth. The interesting twist in that myth is that the Babylonian Anunnaki, unlike the Hebrew Anakim, later fought on the side of the new gods against the old ones, rather than the other way.
The Bible is filled with stories of Middle Eastern giants, including the Nephilim tribe that spawned the Amorites, Emim and Anakim, who the Sumerians called the Annunaki.
The Book of Giants is an apocryphal Jewish book which expands the primeval creation to end ... When the Watchers and giants had at last heard heaven's response, many chose, in their transcendent pride and ... They would have caused a brief revolt, and in the process, two hundred of them escaped to the Earth.
The apparent gigantism of the Nephilim is argued to stem from their supernatural origin, though some have countered that it is theologically problematic to suggest that angels or demons, as purely spiritual beings, could physically reproduce with humans.
Genesis 6:4, which states:
"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown." Israelite spies in Canaan saw giants (Numbers 13:32–33), and such beings once, in legend, roamed Cornwall in Britain (see Corineus). "So they brought to the Israelites an unfavorable report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” ~Numbers 13:32–33
In Norse mythology, the difference in character is clearer cut between Nature's giants and the humanized gods. The story of the giantess Skadi mentioned above shows how easily war can begin in the North. It is told that when her father, the giant Thiazi, was slain by the gods, Skadi wanted to take revenge. The gods thought it wiser to make peace with her and offered her a marriage with one of the gods; at the same time she was humiliated by the gods, deceitfully forced to choose the old god Njord. This marriage was not a happy one, as Skadi wanted to live in her father's palace, Thrymheim in the mountains, and Njord wanted to live in Noatun, his palace by the sea. So they agreed to spend the first nine days in the mountains and the following nine days by the sea. This arrangement did not work out very well, and they separated. Eventually, Skadi left Njord for the god Ull, who was in charge of winter, death, skiing, the chase, overall combat, archery, hunting and trapping, and snowshoes – plainly, a combination of natural forces and human activities, as hinted at by the very marriage of a giantess with one of the gods. In this way, some kind of peace was established between the ancient giants and the new gods.
In London the giant figures of Gog (q.v.) and Magog are said to represent two Cornish giants made captive by Brutus, the legendary founder of Britain. The 40-foot (12-metre) effigy of Druon Antigonus at Antwerp and the 22-foot (7-metre) figure of Gayant at Douai, Fr., preserve similar traditions.
the Hindu teach of Daityas, who were the offspring of the deities Diti and Kasyapa. These are giant evil spirits who were known to oppose the sacrifices offered to the gods. During the first age of the cosmos, the Daityas, led by the dragon-serpent Vritra, were so powerful that they defeated the gods in their battle against them. The gods, who were then scattered throughout the universe, knew that the only way to regain control was to kill Vritra. They sought out Brahma's advice, and he told them that in order to conquer Vritra, they would have to obtain a demon-slaying weapon from the sage Rishi. The sage dedicated his body to their cause, and out of his bones the gods built a weapon with which they slew the dragon-serpent and defeated the Daityas army.
Dragon-serpent is a classic figure representing Nature, usually connected with the Earth and the winds, as well as the torrential rain of the monsoon. Dragon Kings, rulers of the four seas of the world, were associated with the Chinese Creation giant, Pangu.
The Celto-Germanic Triple Mothers, the Matronae or Deae Matris, were also called Mother Earth, Sun and Moon Woman. They were the ancient creator Goddesses of the past, of Old Europe, who had survived. The Romans called them Sorceresses of the early days. They were the same Triple Goddess as the Norns of Scandinavia, and they belonged to the Vanir people, a people of Old Europe who entered Scandinavia ca. 4000 BCE, bringing with them the Disir, their great female ancestral deities. These were the ancient collective mothers of the tribe who had taught the people time-reckoning, lunar wisdom, agriculture, prophesy and magical oracular powers at the beginning of time.
The Vanirs is described as the matriarchal (initially opposing the patriarchal Aesir) abode of ancient powers lead by the giantess Freya, of whom Encyclopedia Mythica says (s. link): In Norse mythology, Freya is a goddess of love and fertility, and the most beautiful and propitious of the goddesses. She is the patron goddess of crops and birth, the symbol of sensuality and was called upon in matters of love. She loves music, spring and flowers, and is particularly fond of the elves (fairies). Freya is one of the foremost goddesses of the Vanir.
The Vanir was at war with the Aesir until they arrived at some compromise of joining together; but in the end, as in most places around the world, the masculine world overcame the feminine one, as the situation is still today. It can be seen, then, that the War of the Giants takes place between the giants, representing the ancients forces of Nature under the rule of a Mother Goddess, and the gods in heaven under the rule of a Father God, representing the human wish to overcome Nature. The purpose of this war it to take over the control of the world. The earlier humans, having lived close to the earth, worshipped the forces of Nature, which were seen as controlling their world and their lives, and themselves as an integral part of that natural world. These forces were first and foremost the earth and its fertility; the sky with its sun, moon and stars; waters of all kinds flowing in rivers and stretching in lakes and seas; the air with its winds and precipitations, and the underworld where all dead life goes and from where it is revived.
Several Native American tribes have passed down legends of a race of white giants who were wiped out. We’ll take a look at a few such legends, including those among the Choctaw and the Comanches of the United States down to the Manta of Peru.
The Paiutes have an oral tradition that told of red-haired, white, cannibals about 10 feet tall who lived in or near what is now known as Lovelock Cave in Nevada. The story was written down in 1882 by Sarah Winnemucca Hopkins, daughter of a Paiute Indian chief in her book Life Among the Piutes: Their Wrongs and Claims . These “giants” were described as being vicious, unfriendly and cannibalistic. In this story, the Paiutes speak of a great battle that took place which led to their extermination at site known today as Lovelock Cave. During the early part of the 20th century archaeologists found Approximately 10,000 archaeological specimens were uncovered including tools, bones, baskets, and weapons. The artifacts inside this cave leading to a lengthy excavation of the site and leading to some speculation that the Paiute legend was real. Radiocarbon dating done on follow up visits found vegetable material dating back to 2030 B.C. Many archaeologists believe that the Lovelock Culture was replaced by Northern Paiutes.
“Si-Te-Cah” or Saiduka literally translates as “tule-eaters” in the Northern Paiute language. The tule is a fibrous water plant, which according to legend, the giants wove into rafts to escape attacks by the Paiute. They used the rafts to navigate across what remained then of Lake Lahontan, an ancient lake that once covered most of northern Nevada during the last ice age. As the Paiute tale goes, after years of warfare, all the tribes in the area joined together to rid themselves of the Si-Te-Cah. One day, as the tribes chased down the last remaining red-haired giants, they took refuge in a cave. The Paiutes demanded their enemy come out of the cave and fight, but the giants refused. The coalition of tribes proceeded to shoot arrows at them while starting a large fire at the mouth of the cave. The smoke drove out a few who died in a hail of arrows while the rest were all either burned alive or asphyxiated. Over time, the entrance to the cave would collapse leaving it accessible only to bats and cut off from human contact.
Many have concluded that this was an exaggeration or distortion of their legends made after the Paiutes were mostly killed or dispersed in 1833 by an expedition by explorer Joseph Walker but KM feels the legends are true.
“The tradition of the Choctaws told of a race of giants that once inhabited the now State of Tennessee, and with whom their ancestors fought when they arrived in Mississippi in their migration from the west. … Their tradition states the Nahullo (race of giants) was of wonderful stature.” which was recorded and published by Horatio Bardwell Cushman in his 1899 book “History of the Choctaw." The Nahullo were said to be cannibals whom the Choctaw killed whenever the opportunity arose.
Chief Rolling Thunder of the Comanches, a tribe from the Great Plains, gave the following account of an ancient race of white giants in 1857: “Innumerable moons ago, a race of white men, 10 feet high, and far more rich and powerful than any white people now living, here inhabited a large range of country, extending from the rising to the setting sun. Their fortifications crowned the summits of the mountains, protecting their populous cities situated in the intervening valleys. The chief explained that when this race forgot justice and mercy and became too proud, the Great Spirit wiped it out and all that was left of their society were the mounds still visible on the tablelands.
The Starnake people of Navajo legend, described “A regal race of white giants endowed with mining technology who dominated the West, enslaved lesser tribes, and had strongholds all through the Americas. They were either extinguished or ‘went back to the heavens.'”
An extinct, genetically distinct subspecies of Homo sapiens was discovered just a decade ago in a Denisova Cave in Siberia. Called the Denisovans, they lived from 50,000 to 300,000 years ago and “are known to be very, very tall,” says Hugh Newman, co-author with Jim Vieira of “Giants On Record: America’s Hidden History, Secrets in the Mounds and the Smithsonian Files." . And their descendants could have wandered as far west as North America. a tribe of humans that goes back at least 200,000 years called Homoheidelbergensis. These were known to routinely be over 7 feet tall, and this was reported by Prof. Lee Berger. Also, there was a gentleman called Prof. Francis Thackeray, who had a fossilized bone that was found in South Africa (from) someone who was twice the height of a human being. Homo Heidelbergensis are the early ancestors of the Denisovans, who have emerged more recently from the Altai mountains or Denisova Cave in Siberia.
Most of the accounts in North America have to do with the mound culture (in which North American communities over a 5,000-year period built earthen mounds for ceremonial and elite residential purposes), based around the Ohio Valley, down the Mississippi (River) and splitting into different parts of the country. Whether they’re the Adenas, who are the earliest (from 500 B.C.E to 100 A.D. in southern Ohio), or the Hopewell (known as the Mound Builders, from 200-500 B.C.) or the Fort Ancient (who built the Alligator and Serpent mounds in Southern Ohio, 1000-1750 A.D.), we have mound culture sites going back to 4,000 B.C. And we have very early evidence of giants in the Southwest that have nothing to do with mounds.
Many of the giants were believed to lie buried under mountains and to indicate their presence by volcanic fires and earthquakes.
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