Huge humanoid creatures, which often have additional superhuman or supernatural abilities, appear in all mythologies of the world. Are these stories just a product of human imagination? Or maybe our ancestors had something more in mind? Is it possible to separate mythology from reality?
The term hanefelim ("ha" is a demonstrative pronoun in Hebrew) appears for the first time in the official Pentateuch in the Book of Genesis. (cf. Hebrew-Polish Pentateuch, 2003: Rdz 6, 1-4) Then, in the Book of Numbers and Deuteronomy. However, the surprisingly detailed history of the so-called The Watchers and the Nefilim are found in the apocryphal book of Enoch.
I decided to use the name quoted in the Bible because in our culture this record has been considered a source of historical knowledge for centuries. Many contemporary supporters of alternative history also refer to it. However, I would like to consider more broadly what the source of these legends and myths could be. I want to invite readers on a journey through old notes and mysterious discoveries, during which everyone will be able to make their own decision: to believe or not to believe. If we do not learn about the giants, we have a chance to better understand our ancestors and the cultural archetypes they have passed on to us.
Before the birth of modern archeology and anthropology, the belief in giants was common. In the folk version, most often it was simply believed that they lived somewhere in the mountains or in another dimension. They appeared in this form in folklore.
More learned representatives of society considered them to be creatures who lived in the distant past. One of the pieces of evidence for the existence of giants was supposed to be megalithic structures, made of huge stones. Besides, the Bible and every self-respecting religious tradition spoke of them. For premodern men, these were sources of historical knowledge. Unlike us, however, they were unable to verify them with archaeological material. Hence, the story of the conquest of the kingdom of Judah or the rise of the Maccabees was as credible to them as the references to the flood, giants, and fallen angels.
However, in the 21st century, can we believe the stories written in old books and passed on in myths and legends?
Since we are talking primarily about our perspective, it is worth starting with the mythology that influenced European culture. In addition to the biblical giants who infiltrated our culture through Christianity, many European peoples had their own stories of great humanoids. Here you can include the Greek titans, such as Atlas who supports the world. He is met by the Greek heroes Hercules and Perseus. The latter shows Atlas the head of Medusa, as a result of which the titan turns into the Atlas Mountains.
Many stories about huge beings, such as Atlas or the Scandinavian Ymir, are typical myths related to the origins of the world. Some god or hero defeats a giant, and as a result of this action, some part of the world is created. However, there are also figures that are slightly closer to man in height and nature. These creatures can be described as separate people living in the vicinity of people. They are also often associated with the myth of the "wild man from the forest". Asia has its Yeti, America's Bigfoot, in Europe their counterpart is the Basque Bajasaduk - an old man from the forest. On the other hand, typical Basque giants are jentilak (singular jentil). Described by the Basques as humanoids, larger than humans, living in the mountains. According to Basque legends, however, they were supposed to teach the people of agriculture and metallurgy. Their work (similarly to the Cyclops in Greece) was to be megalithic structures.
The inhabitants of Asia, Africa, both Americas, etc. have their versions of the giants. Perhaps the most famous character from Asia is Yeti. One of the "wild" giants. It is possible that legends about him refer to meetings of Homo sapiens with older forms of hominids.
In Hindu mythology, we meet another version of the giant from which various creatures, including humans, were created. It is Purusha. Like Ymir in Scandinavian mythology, he became a victim of the gods who created something new out of his body. In the Hindu tradition, this figure is rarely taken literally. We should be more interested in the concept of the giants living in the Satyayuga era (golden age). It is difficult to say who borrowed this idea from whom, but it is very similar to the concepts of successive eras in Greek and Roman mythology. The golden age, according to the Greeks and Romans, was the age of long-lived, healthy, honest people, who did not need any rights, etc. One of their features in the Hindu version was that they could grow up to enormous heights.
There is no shortage of giants in the tales of New Zealand Maori. To name only the legendary leader who lived in the first half of the 19th century, named Kihara. He was supposed to be twice as tall as an ordinary man. Similar stories relate to the warriors and chiefs of other tribes in New Zealand.
Either way, great humanoid figures, and supernaturally grown people appear in stories from Greece to Scandinavia and from Alaska to Oceania. Each culture has its giants, sometimes in one mythology, there is room for different varieties of them.
In the early 2000s, alleged photographs from excavations showing giant skeletons began to seep into the press. The whole thing turned out to be a fraud and the accuracy of these photos was denied many times. It must be added that the giants of the dimensions given in these sources could not exist in terrestrial conditions.
We know that there is great variation in size within one biological order or even a family of organisms. The baby monkey Uistiti and the giant mountain gorilla are primates, and the ruffian mouse is a mammal as is the blue whale. However, they are distinguished by their shape. Looking at the largest contemporary and extinct animals in the world, we see a massive structure, the land is four-legged, the sea has reduced limbs in favor of a massive, aquadynamic body. All of this is due to the laws of physics. The greater the mass of a body, the stronger it is affected by gravity (and also by gravity). Therefore, you can imagine a humanoid 2 even 2.5 meters high. However, it could not look and move like a larger version of a human being several or several dozen meters tall. Does this mean that all the stories about the giants were made up or should be treated as a metaphor? Not necessarily. It is possible that the mythology about giants was sometimes like the tales of anglers. "Taaka Fish" grows from story to story until listeners wonder if a friend was fishing for crucian carp in a nearby lake or sharks in the Pacific.
People differ in height. Depending on diet and inherited genetics, entire populations can be quite small or very tall. The meeting of such two communities may result in tales of giants on the one hand and lilliputians on the other.
We could also bury our distant past. According to research on homo sapiens inhabiting Europe during the Paleolithic period, our ancestors were on average taller, had larger brains and stronger jaws than modern Europeans. No wonder - they had to survive in the harsh conditions of the Ice Age. Characteristically, the skeletons become smaller and finer the closer to the Neolithic age. If the representatives of the "old" community of tall people came across a "new" community of lower and weaker people, then we have one of the possible sources of stories about giants.
Anthropology is full of as yet unsolved mysteries. Could there be giants? It depends on how we approach it. If we call an exceptionally tall and strong species of hominid giants, then yes. Another source of legends on this subject may be the phenomenon of a disturbance in the secretion of growth hormone by the pituitary gland. As a result, gigantism appears, and a person suffering from it may be significantly taller than even members of one's own family. Great warriors such as Kihaora or the biblical Goliath are therefore biologically possible. Their growth in the stories may be a little exaggerated, but there is no reason not to believe in the existence of such individuals. However, if anyone imagines that photos of huge skeletons circulating on the internet are evidence of the existence of the Nefilim, then I must disappoint him. A 20-meter bipedal humanoid with an anatomical structure like that of a human is physically impossible. Nevertheless, every story, even a seemingly fantastic legend, is worth looking at.
Bibliography:
- Hebrew-Polish Old Testament. Pentateuch, Interlinear translation with grammatical codes, transliteration, and stem intakes, Vocatio 2003
- Fran Dorey, How have we since our species first appeared at: https://australian.museum/learn/science/human-evolution/how-have-we-changed-since-our-species-first-appeared/, accessed on 09.12.2021
- Andrzej Szrejter, Germanic Mythology, Warsaw 1997
- Encyclopedia of Mythology and Folklore, edited by Joseph Sherman, New York 2011
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