A Brighter Day Begins with His Word.

John McClintock & James Strong • SECTION 1106

Section 1106

← McClintock & Strong Cyclopaedia — Volume 3

4. Another race is mentioned in Deut. ii, 10, the Einim (D"'"a'^X), who dwelt in the country of the Moab- ites. The}' are described as a people "great and many, and tall as the Anakims, which were also ac- counted giants" (Gen. xiv, 5). See Emiji.

5. The Zamzummim also (D'^ST'CT) (Deut. xxi, 20), whose home was in the land of Amnion — " That also ■was accounted a land of giants : giants dwelt therein of old time, and the Ammonites called tiiem Zanizum- mims, a people great and many, and tall as the Ana- kims ; but the Lord destroyed them before thenij and

they (the Israelites) succeeded them, and dwelt in their stead," See Zamzummim.

G. The only other passage where the term "giant" occurs (except as a rendering of yiync in Judith xvi, G ; AVisd. xiv, 7 ; Ecclus. xvi, 7 ; xlvii, 4 ; Bar. iii, 26 ; 1 Mace, iii, D) is Job xvi, 14, where the original is "ii35, elsewhere "a mighty man" i. c. champion or hero. See Gibborim.

All nations have had a dim fancy that the aborigines who preceded them, and the earliest men generallv, were of immense stature. Berosus says that the ten antediluvian kings of Chaldasa were giants, and we find in all monkish historians a similar statement about the earliest possessors of Britain (comp. Homer, Od. X, 119 ; Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xv, 9 ; Pliny, vii, IG ; Varro, ap. Aul. Gellius, iii, 10; Jerome on Matt, xxvii). The great size decreased gradually after the Deluge (2 Esdr. v, 52-55). That we are dwarfs com- pared to our ancestors was a common belief among the Latin and Greek poets (//. v, 302 sq. ; Lucret. ii, 1151 ; Virg. yEn. xii, 900 ; Juv. xv, 69). On the origin of the mistaken supposition there are curious passages in Natalis Comes (^Mytholog. vi, 21) and Maciobius (^Sa- turn, i, 20). See Nimrod. At an early period and under favorable circumstances, individuals, and even tribes, may have reached an unusual height and been of extraordinary strength. This was in great part, no doubt, owing to the simpler mode of life and more hardy habits that prevailed in early times. But many things concur to sliow that the size of the race did not differ materially from what it is at present. This is seen in the remains of human beings found in tombs, especiall}' among the mummies of Egj'pt. To the same effect is the size of ancient armor, as well as ar- chitectural dimensions, and the measures of length which have been received from antiquity. Ancient writers who are free from the influence of fable are found to give a concuiTent testimony. " Homer, when speaking of a fine man, gives him four cubits in height and one in breadth ; Yitruvius fixes the usual standard of a man at six Roman feet ; Aristotle's ad- measurement of beds was six feet" (Millingen's Curi- osities of Medical Experience, p. 14). No one has yet proved by experience the possibility of giant races, materially exceeding in size the average heiglit of man. There is no great variation in the ordinary standard. The most stunted tribes of Esquimaux are at least four feet high, and the tallest races of America (e. g. the Guaj'aquilists and jieople of Paraguay) do not exceed six feet and a half. It was long thought that the Patagonians were men of enormous stature, and the assertions of the old voyagers on the point were positive. For instance, Pigafetta {]'oi/rif/e round the World, Pinkerton, xi, 314") mentions an individual Patagonian so tall that they " hardly reached to his waist." Similar exaggerations are found in the voy- ages of Byron, "Wallace, Carteret, Cook, and Forster; but it is now a matter of certainty, from the recent vis- its to Patagonia (by Winter, captain Snow, etc.), that there is nothing at all extraordinary in their size. The general belief (until very recent times) in the exist- ence of faljulously enormous men arose from fancied giant-graves (see De la Yalle's Travels in Persia, ii, 89), and, above all, from the discovery of huge bones, which were taken for those of men, in daj's Mhen comparative anatomy was unknown. Even the an- cient Jews were thus misled (.Josephus, Ani. v, 2, 3). Augustine appeals triumphantly to this argument, and mentions a molar tooth which he had seen at Utica a hundred times larger than ordinarj' teeth {De Civ. Dei, XV, 9). No doubt it once belonged to an elephant. Vives, in his commentary on the place, mentions a tooth as big as a fist which was shown at St. Christo- pher's. In fact, this source of delusion has only very recently been dispelled (Martin's West. Islands, in Pin- kerton, ii, 691). Most bones which have been exhib-

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ited have turned out to belong to whales or elephants, as was the case with the vertebra of a supposed giant examined by Sir Hans Sloanc in Oxfordshire. On the other hand, isolated instances of monstrosity are sufficiently attested to prove that beings like Goliath and his kinsmen niaj' have existed. Columella (/?. R. iii, 8, § 2) mentions Navius I'oUio as one, and Pliny says that in tlie time of Claudius Cfesar there was an Arab named Gabbaras nearty ten feet high, and that even he was not so tall as Pusio and Secundilla in the reign of Augustus, whose bodies were preserved (vii, 10). Joseplius tells us that, among other hostages, Artabanus sent to Tiberius a certain Eleazar, a Jew, surnamed "the Giant," seven cubits in height (^Ant. xviii, 4, 5). Porus, the Indian king, was five cubits in height (Arrian, Exp. Al. v, 19). Xor are well-au- thenticated instances wanting in modern times. Del- rio says he saw in 1572 a man from Piedmont whose height exceeded nine feet (Not. ad Senec. (J-Jd. p. 39). O'lhien, whose skeleton is preserved in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, must have been eight feet high, but his unnatural height made him weakh'. On the other hand, the blacksmith Parsons, in Charles IPs reign, was seven feet two inches high, and also re- markable for his strength (Fuller's Worthies, Stafford- shire). The tallest person of whom we have a trust- worthy record did not, according to Haller, exceed nine feet. Schreber, who has collected the description of the principal-modern giants, found few above seven feet and a half, although he mentions a Swedish peas- ant of eight feet Swedish measure ; and one of the guards of the duke of Brunswick was eight feet six inches Dutch. Such well-known instances as those of Daniel Lambert and others in modern museums probabl}' come fulh' up to anj' of tht^ measures of the Bililical giants. See art. Giant in the Encyclojwdia Mttropolitana; Whiston, "On the old Giants," Auth. Records, ii, 872-9.38 ; Prichard, Researches into the Phys- ical Hidory of Jfankind, i, 358 (183G). — Kitto, s. v. ; Smith, s. V.

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