Edmond Temple
Travels in Various Parts of Peru
1830
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NOTE |
Edmond Temple, a knight of the Spanish Order of Charles III, traveled to Peru in 1825 in search of riches and spent two years not finding them. While traveling, he learned of the discovery of a “giant’s” skeleton near Tarija in Bolivia, and efforts by the corporation to which Temple belonged to sell the bones for profit. The following account is a rare instance of a firsthand account of an early investigation that proved a “giant” skeleton was an Ice Age mammal, and the refusal of true believers to accept the truth in the face of evidence. It appeared in two separate chapters of Travels in Various Parts of Peru, representing entries from the diary of our author for April and June, 1827.
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CHAPTER X
April 28. [1827] …The province of Tarija, I have already had occasion to mention, and hope soon to be able to speak of it from personal observation; for the present, I shall only remark, that it is particularly celebrated for bones and even whole skeletons of prodigious size, which have been found from time to time in ravines, and in the sides of banks and precipices. Throughout America, to this day, they are known and talked of as “huesos de los gigantes antiguos de Tarija,” (bones of the ancient giants of Tarija.) I have frequently heard the gravest discussions upon them, and those who are a little incredulous as to the existence of a former race of giants endeavour to account for the growth or increase of the bones, by reason of the properties of the soil; but on no occasion did I ever hear it mentioned that they belonged to any beast, or at all doubted, that they were any other than human bones; nay, I have even heard the well-known, the learned, and scientific Doctor Redhead, talk dubiously of “the shoulder-blade,” “the knee-joint,” “the tooth &c,” of a skeleton of one of the giants of Tarija. [1]
I had for some time past been in correspondence with my friend Colonel O’Conor, on this and other subjects, and as his letters had the effect of dispersing ennui,—that painful sensation of a dull and frigid existence, the suffering of which, like a weight of lead upon the brain, I have latterly been compelled to bear—I shall here introduce those letters, in the hope that they will likewise avert ennui from the reader; though after the excellent entertainment I so lately gave him at the conclusion of the last chapter, I cannot suppose he is so soon sleeping the siesta.
I had for some time past been in correspondence with my friend Colonel O’Conor, on this and other subjects, and as his letters had the effect of dispersing ennui,—that painful sensation of a dull and frigid existence, the suffering of which, like a weight of lead upon the brain, I have latterly been compelled to bear—I shall here introduce those letters, in the hope that they will likewise avert ennui from the reader; though after the excellent entertainment I so lately gave him at the conclusion of the last chapter, I cannot suppose he is so soon sleeping the siesta.
“MY DEAR FRIEND,
“Soon after the receipt of your last letter, I rode twelve leagues from Tarija to inspect a skeleton, of which I had received information. I found it lying on the edge of a ravine of white stony earth, the head carried away by the torrent which the rains annually occasion. I made every effort to raise it as it was, but each bone mouldered into dust on clearing away the clay. It was crippled in the attitude in which it lay, but even so it measured fourteen feet from the shoulder-blade, which was apparent, to the foot. [2]
“The cavildo (corporation) here have laid claim to another skeleton, which is not yet taken up: they say it is perfect, and that the bones are petrified. They hope to sell it to some foreign museum, and expect to get ten thousand dollars for it. A Franciscan friar has given me a jaw-tooth, which I keep on my table for you; it weighs nearly two pounds without the roots, and is two inches and a half in diameter.”
CHAPTER XII
[June] 14th. [1827] …Part of a skeleton of a ‘Tarija giant’ having been recently discovered about five leagues distant from the town, Colonel O’Conor and I set out, with an unusual share of curiosity, provided with spades and shovels, to explore the grave. Some of the masses of bone that we dug up were larger and heavier than any thing of the kind I had ever seen or had an idea of, but to what part of the body they belonged I cannot take upon me to say, for they were shapeless blocks, more like lumps of freestone than any thing to which I can compare them. Half of the head was tolerably preserved, but as four men could scarcely lift this fragment, it was impossible to carry it on mules; I therefore contented myself with part of the under jaw, in which were three perfect teeth, denoting, to our astonishment, that the monster to which they belonged was of the carnivorous species. In front of the head, but broken off from it, was part of a tusk, like that of an elephant, which measured four feet and a half in length: this discovery at once destroyed my wavering faith in the story of the “gigantes de Tarija” and while it proved beyond a doubt that the bones were not human, it left us no alternative but to ascribe them to the mastodon, or carnivorous elephant; an animal of the antediluvian world, unknown to the present, and not very long since ascertained to have existed. [3] The whole were lying in a whitish hard sandy clay, not very far from the surface. When I discovered the tusk, I wrote to a friend in Potosi to banter him on his belief in the giants; but the following extract from his reply will show that neither the tusk, nor the detailed account I gave him of my discovery, had the effect of altering that belief which is still pertinaciously maintained by many of his countrymen. “It appears that you wish to attribute to elephants the enormous bones that are found in the vicinity of Tarija; examine with much attention before you characterise them as such, because others, among whom is Doctor Redhead, have examined into the subject, and have not assigned them to any such species.” [4]
Theorists who have reasoned on the probable connexion, at one time, of the western coast of South America with the eastern coast of India, may probably consider these elephants, notwithstanding their carnivorous distinction, as some support to their argument; and when to these they add the Chiriguano Indians, whose features so closely resemble the Chinese or Japanese, existing in the neighbourhood of those elephants, the proposition may be put in so questionable a shape as to provoke discussion. It is also a subject of interest to inquire how these monstrous animals came into the vale of Tarija, surrounded as it is by a mountainous rampart, accessible, as I have been credibly informed, in only four places, and those with great difficulty, even to mules and horses. Over three of those places, the most frequented and most convenient in the whole rocky barrier, I have myself travelled, and certainly I do not think it possible that any elephant could have there passed. If, on recurring to theoretical causes for their presence, it be said that they were floated on the surface of the waters at the universal deluge, and deposited as those waters subsided, the sceptic may then ask, how comes it that their remains have been found in such abundance in the vale of Tarija, and so seldom in any other part of South America, or of the world? [5]
People will conjecture, and as every body assumes a right to do so, upon any and upon every subject, I shall avail myself of the general privilege, and state my conjecture to be, that the animals, whose skeletons are found in the mountain-girt vale of Tarija, must have been therein deposited by the subsiding of the waters of the deluge, on the surface of which they had been floated. When I came to this conclusion on the subject, I was not aware that I had the following high authority for its reasonable probability:
“In central Asia, the bones of horses and deer have been found at an elevation of 16,000 feet above the sea, in the Himalaya mountains. The occurrence of these bones at such enormous elevation, and consequently in a spot unfrequented by such animals as the horse and deer, can, I think, be explained only by supposing them to be of antediluvian origin, and that the carcases of the animals were drifted to their present place, and lodged in sand by the diluvial waters. This appears to me the most probable solution that can be suggested; and, should it prove the true one, will add a still more decisive fact to that of the bones of diluvial animals found by Humboldt on the elevated plains of South America, to show that ‘all the high hills and the mountains under the whole heavens were covered,’ at the time when the last great physical change, by an inundation of water, took place, over the surface of the whole earth.” [6]
NOTES
[1] Mention is very gravely made in the ancient history of Peru, by Garcillaso and others, of the existence of a race of giants, all males, on the borders of Atacama, and who, having excited the wrath of Heaven, were ultimately destroyed by thunder and lightning. This tale, arrayed in the dignity of history, has kept alive the belief that generally prevails as to the huesos de gigantes.
[2] The opinion, or at least the doubts, of my friend, coincide with those of Dr. Readhead, and those of the whole nation.
[3] The remains which I brought to England were immediately recognised by the late Doctor Wollaston as having belonged to the mastodon; they are very distinct from those of an animal discovered several years ago near Buenos Ayres, called, I believe, the megatherium, the enormous skeleton of which I saw in the cabinet of Madrid.
[4] “Me parece que Vd quiere atribuir a elefantes las osamentas enormes que se encuentran en las inmediaciones de Tarija; examine con mucha atencion antes de caracterisarlas por tales, mediante que algunos otros, y entre ellos el Señior Redhead, han hecho indagaciones sobre el particular, y no los han atribuido a semejante especie.”
[5] I do not know if the bones of elephants found by M. Humboldt in the valleys of Mexico, Quito, and Peru, were those of the mastodon; I believe he merely mentions them to be a novel species, and very different from the mammoth. ‘Dans les os fossiles d’eléphans, que j’ai rapportés de la vallée du Mexique, de Quito, et du Perou, M. Cuvier a reconnu une espéce nouvelle et trés differente du Mammouth, &c.”—Tab. Phisique des Reg. Eq.
[6] Buckland, Reliquiae Diluvianae, p. 223.
Theorists who have reasoned on the probable connexion, at one time, of the western coast of South America with the eastern coast of India, may probably consider these elephants, notwithstanding their carnivorous distinction, as some support to their argument; and when to these they add the Chiriguano Indians, whose features so closely resemble the Chinese or Japanese, existing in the neighbourhood of those elephants, the proposition may be put in so questionable a shape as to provoke discussion. It is also a subject of interest to inquire how these monstrous animals came into the vale of Tarija, surrounded as it is by a mountainous rampart, accessible, as I have been credibly informed, in only four places, and those with great difficulty, even to mules and horses. Over three of those places, the most frequented and most convenient in the whole rocky barrier, I have myself travelled, and certainly I do not think it possible that any elephant could have there passed. If, on recurring to theoretical causes for their presence, it be said that they were floated on the surface of the waters at the universal deluge, and deposited as those waters subsided, the sceptic may then ask, how comes it that their remains have been found in such abundance in the vale of Tarija, and so seldom in any other part of South America, or of the world? [5]
People will conjecture, and as every body assumes a right to do so, upon any and upon every subject, I shall avail myself of the general privilege, and state my conjecture to be, that the animals, whose skeletons are found in the mountain-girt vale of Tarija, must have been therein deposited by the subsiding of the waters of the deluge, on the surface of which they had been floated. When I came to this conclusion on the subject, I was not aware that I had the following high authority for its reasonable probability:
“In central Asia, the bones of horses and deer have been found at an elevation of 16,000 feet above the sea, in the Himalaya mountains. The occurrence of these bones at such enormous elevation, and consequently in a spot unfrequented by such animals as the horse and deer, can, I think, be explained only by supposing them to be of antediluvian origin, and that the carcases of the animals were drifted to their present place, and lodged in sand by the diluvial waters. This appears to me the most probable solution that can be suggested; and, should it prove the true one, will add a still more decisive fact to that of the bones of diluvial animals found by Humboldt on the elevated plains of South America, to show that ‘all the high hills and the mountains under the whole heavens were covered,’ at the time when the last great physical change, by an inundation of water, took place, over the surface of the whole earth.” [6]
NOTES
[1] Mention is very gravely made in the ancient history of Peru, by Garcillaso and others, of the existence of a race of giants, all males, on the borders of Atacama, and who, having excited the wrath of Heaven, were ultimately destroyed by thunder and lightning. This tale, arrayed in the dignity of history, has kept alive the belief that generally prevails as to the huesos de gigantes.
[2] The opinion, or at least the doubts, of my friend, coincide with those of Dr. Readhead, and those of the whole nation.
[3] The remains which I brought to England were immediately recognised by the late Doctor Wollaston as having belonged to the mastodon; they are very distinct from those of an animal discovered several years ago near Buenos Ayres, called, I believe, the megatherium, the enormous skeleton of which I saw in the cabinet of Madrid.
[4] “Me parece que Vd quiere atribuir a elefantes las osamentas enormes que se encuentran en las inmediaciones de Tarija; examine con mucha atencion antes de caracterisarlas por tales, mediante que algunos otros, y entre ellos el Señior Redhead, han hecho indagaciones sobre el particular, y no los han atribuido a semejante especie.”
[5] I do not know if the bones of elephants found by M. Humboldt in the valleys of Mexico, Quito, and Peru, were those of the mastodon; I believe he merely mentions them to be a novel species, and very different from the mammoth. ‘Dans les os fossiles d’eléphans, que j’ai rapportés de la vallée du Mexique, de Quito, et du Perou, M. Cuvier a reconnu une espéce nouvelle et trés differente du Mammouth, &c.”—Tab. Phisique des Reg. Eq.
[6] Buckland, Reliquiae Diluvianae, p. 223.
Source: Edmond Temple, Travels in Various Parts of Peru, vol. 2 (London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, 1830), chapters X and XII.
