Patagones
Patagones
Patagones (also Fueginos), name given by earliest European explorers in the sixteenth century to indigenous inhabitants north of the Strait of Magellan. Most likely the name referred to the Tehuelches (Aonikenks), or possibly to the Selk'nams or Yamanas. Antonio Pigafetta, the chronicler of Magellan's expedition, first coined the term because of the enormous footprint created by the Guanaco-skin boots worn by the people he observed. The name soon came to allude to the allegedly large feet and gigantism of the people in the region and was incorporated into European cosmological conceptions of the antipodes as a land of opposites. The image of the Patagones as giants persisted into the nineteenth century, when the concept was discredited by scientific measurements of contemporary Tehuelches, who, though perhaps tall, fell within normal height ranges.
See alsoIndigenous Peoples; Precontact History: Southern Cone.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Antonio Pigafetta, in Giovanni Battista Ramusio, Delle navigationi et viaggi, various editions in Venice since 1554.
Benjamin Franklin Bourne, Life Among the Giants; or the Captive in Patagonia (1853).
J. Roberto Barcenas, ed. Culturas indígenas de la Patagonia. (1990).
Kristine L. Jones