The movie âMagellanâwas just released in the USA on January 9, 2025. Itâs had great reviews, but does not include Ferdinand Magellanâs face-to-face meeting with giants on the coast of Patagonia.
That unique episode, however, was recorded for history by Antonio Pigafetta who served as Magellanâs assistant and chronicler of the voyage. Pigafetta was a respected Venetian scholar and an explorer in his own right. Below are two pages from his chronicle of Magellanâs round-the-world voyage which lasted from 1519 to 1522.
Antonio Pigafetta wrote this about the first giant they saw:
âBut one day we saw a giant who was on the shore, quite naked, and who danced, leaped, and sang, and while he sang, he threw sand and dust on his head. Our captain (Magellan) sent one of his men toward him, charging him to leap and sing like the other in order to reassure him and to show him friendship. Which he did.
âImmediately, the man of the ship, dancing, led this giant to a small island where the captain awaited him. And when he was before us, he began to marvel and to be afraid, and he raised one finger upward, believing that we came from heaven. And he was so tall that the tallest of us only came up to his waist.
Explorersweb posted this additional information from Pigafettaâs chronicle:
âThey named the giant Paul. âPaulâ allowed the foreigners to meet his people, a tribe that wore animal skins. His face was large and painted red all over except that around the eyes were yellow circles,â Pigafetta wrote of Paul. Pigafetta claimed that their reflections in mirrors scared the giants.Â
âMagellan wanted to exhibit this extraordinary race of people and decided to take two men back to Spain. He lured them onto his ship with shiny metallic objects. But both men died on the journey back to Europe.â
The first mention of these people came from the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan and his crew, who claimed to have seen them while exploring the coastline of South America en route to the Maluku Islands in their circumnavigation of the world in the 1520s.[2] Antonio Pigafetta, one of the expeditionâs few survivors and the chronicler of Magellanâs expedition, wrote in his account about their encounter with natives twice a normal personâs height:
One day we suddenly saw a naked man of giant stature on the shore of the port, dancing, singing, and throwing dust on his head. The captain-general [i.e., Magellan] sent one of our men to the giant so that he might perform the same actions as a sign of peace. Having done that, the man led the giant to an islet where the captain-general was waiting. When the giant was in the captain-generalâs and our presence he marveled greatly, and made signs with one finger raised upward, believing that we had come from the sky. He was so tall that we reached only to his waist, and he was well proportioned
