palerobber wrote:Runtu,
footnote 11 of that FAIR article also directly cites Acosta (in addition to Torquemada) and the good Father does in fact use the word "lettices" in his
description (see p. 449-454 excepted below).
reading Acosta, we find that what FAIR breathlessly paints as "monstrous ogre-like giants" are just a pre-agrarian tribe (of humans) called the
Chichimecas, and Acosta further explains that
there are still tribes like this living in New Spain. so these are not "legendary giants" but rather an actual displaced people whom the victors created some tall tales about (though Acosta appears to take it all at face value, saying that even today we find "dead mens bones of an incredible bignes" -- he would have made a good Mopologist).
Chap. ii. — Of the ancient Inhabitants of New Spaine, and how the Navatlacas came thither.
The antient and first Inhabitants of those provinces, which wee call New Spaine, were men very barbarous and savage, which lived onely by hunting, for this reason they were called Chichimecas. They did neither sowe nor till the ground, neither lived they together ; for all their exercise was to hunt, wherein they were very expert. They lived in the roughest partes of the mountaines beastlike, without any pollicie, and they went all naked. They hunted wilde beasts, hares, connies, weezles, mowles, wilde cattes, and birdes, yea uncleane beasts, as snakes, lizards, locusts, and wormes, whereon they fed, with some hearbs and rootes. They slept in the mountaines, in caves and in bushes, and the wives likewise went a hunting with their husbandes, leaving their yoong children in a little panier of reeds, tied to the boughs of a tree, which desired not to suck untill they were returned from hunting. They had no superiors, nor did acknowledge or worship any gods, neyther hadde any manner of ceremonies or religion. [...]
When all these Nations [Suchimilcos, Chalcas, Tepanecas, Culhua, Tlatluicas, Tlascaltecas] peopled these countries, the Chichimecas being the antient inhabitants, made no resistance, but fledde, and as people amazed [amassed] they hid themselves in the most obscure of the rockes. But those that inhabited on th' other side of the mountaine where the Tlascaltecas had planted themselves, did not suffer them in quiet, as the rest of the Chichimecas had done, but they put themselves in defence to preserve their country, and being giants, as the Histories report, they sought to expell the last comers, but they were vanquished by the policy of the Tlascaltecas, who counterfeiting a peace with them, they invited them to a great banquet, and when they were busiest in their drunkennes, there were some laide in ambush, who secretly stole away their weapons, which were great clubbes, targets, swords of wood, and other such armes. Then did they sodainely set upon them, and the Chichimecas seeking to defend themselves, they did want their armes, so as they fled to the mountaines and forrests adioyning [adjoining], where they pulled downe trees as if they had beene stalkes of lettices. But, in the end, the Tlascaltecas being armed, and marching in order, they defeated all the giants, not leaving one alive. We must not holde this of the giants to be strange or a fable; for, at this day, we finde dead mens bones of an incredible bignes.so, yeah... elephants... good lord.
Thanks for that. So it seems they were using an English translation, where I was reading the original Spanish, which reads as follows (Torquemada is quoting Acosta):
echando mano a sus ramas, asi las desgajaban como otros deshojaran solas las hojas
It literally means "grabbing the tree branches [with their hands (mano)], thus they tore them off as others might strip off only the leaves[/quote]
So, it's not pulling down trees but breaking off branches. In other words, these giants were big and strong, but not enough to pull down trees. It makes me wonder if the English translator was intentionally exaggerating.
The other thing to note is that, despite what Brown and Roper tell us, Torquemada doesn't say these were elephant-like ogres, but rather he links them to the passages in Genesis that say there were giants in the land after (according to some interpretations) some angels had sex with human women.
