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them Tsunil' kalu', "the Slant-eyed people," because they looked like the giant hunter Tsul' kalu'. They said that these giants lived far away in the direction in which the sun goes down. The Cherokee received them as friends, and they stayed some time, and then returned to their home in the west..." This kind of recorded tradition did not start with Mooney but, rather, began early in American history. During the Colonial and post-Colonial eras, the information-seekers were keen on gathering as much knowledge of the forgotten past as feasible through native sources. Some of it was woven into romantic tales including verse, but the main part of it went into records which, like the accumulation of earth and debris over ancient village sites, became buried in the musty stacks of old libraries—considered to have no real "substance" in the emerging field of the white man's science. "Of the very early history of the region which now embraces Lake County, but little can be written. The Mound Builders had occupied it and passed away, leav- ing no written language and but little even as tradition... These mounds were quite numerous... Excavations...have revealed the crumbling bones of a mighty race. Samuel Miller, who has resided in the county since 1835, is authority for the statement that one skeleton which he assisted in unearthing was a trifle more than eight feet in length, the skull being corre- spondingly large, while many other skeletons measured Title pages of the early county and pioneer history books often included at least seven feet..." phrases like "Carefully Written and Compiled" and "Lest We Forget". Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Lake County, them Tsunil' kalu', "the Slant-eyed people," because they looked like the giant hunter Tsul' kalu'. They said that these giants lived far away in the direction in which the sun goes down. The Cherokee received them as friends, and they stayed some time, and then returned to their home in the west..." ae nyt gist? TELINOre "Of the very early history of the region which now embraces Lake County, but little can be written. The Mound Builders had occupied it and passed away, leav- ing no written language and but little even as tradition... These mounds were quite numerous... Excavations...have revealed the crumbling bones of a mighty race. Samuel Miller, who has resided in the county since 1835, is authority for the statement that one skeleton which he assisted in unearthing was a trifle more than eight feet in length, the skull being corre- spondingly large, while many other skeletons measured at least seven feet..." Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Lake County, edited by Newton Bateman, LLD, and Paul Selby, AM (1902) “Lat We Fore Tg Trt eres Sg tr se rg ee "She said also that three skeletons were found at the mouth of the Paw Paw Creek many years later, while Nim (Nimrod) From the outset of North American archaeology, no federally Satterfield was justice of the peace. Jim Dean and some men sponsored concern has researched and collected evidence specifi- were digging for a bridge foundation and found these bones cally emphasising the existence of unusually tall Native at the lower end of the old buffalo wallow. She thought it Americans in prehistoric and even in historic times. There are was Dr Kidwell, of Fairmont, who examined them and said reasons for this oversight, though in hindsight it has placed limits they were very old, perhaps thousands of years old. She said on our overview of prehistory. Because there were only occasion- that when the skeletons were exposed to the weather for a al people of large stature born among the light-skinned, European few days, their bones turned black and began to crumble, that races, numbers of giants were far from anticipated in America. Squire Satterfield had them buried in the Joliffe graveyard Scientists in Europe, in case-by-case studies, declared their giants (Rivesville). All these skeletons, she said, were measured, to have been victims of pituitary disorder. Another reason was and found to be about eight feet long." that when the private citizenry in the US unearthed the bones of Now and Long Ago: A History of the Marion County Area, very tall and strongly constructed people, and when these disinter- by Glen Lough (1969) ments were recorded, rarely was any comparison made with sites (This citation on West Virginia is courtesy of Dave Cain.) of similar contents. Another of many examples, this one, col- — ! lected by James Mooney (1861-1921), tells — of the visit of very tall people from the af Fam } west: Z = "James Wafford, of the western }—~“” i Gy Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in he) 1806, says that his grandmother, who ih a must have been born about the middle ra of the last century, told him that she a = —— = had heard from the old people that long ame a a = before her time a party of giants had S once come to visit the Cherokee. They were nearly twice as tall as common 2 men, and had their eyes set slanting in 5 23 their heads, so that the Cherokee called Group of mounds in Brown County, Ohio ™ west: "James Wafford, of the western Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in 1806, says that his grandmother, who must have been born about the middle of the last century, told him that she had heard from the old people that long before her time a party of giants had once come to visit the Cherokee. They were nearly twice as tall as common men, and had their eyes set slanting in their heads, so that the Cherokee called 50 + NEXUS JUNE — JULY 2003 www.nexusmagazine.com