account of a visit from some warriors of a taller tribe from the
plains, where it is customary to pluck out the eyebrows and to wear
the hair in two long side pendants, wrapped round with otter skin
and reaching to the knees, thus giving a peculiar expression to the
eyes and an appearance of tallness which is sometimes deceptive. The
Osage warriors have, however, long been noted for their height.
With the exception of Tsul`kalû' there seem to be no giants in the
mythology of the Cherokee, although all their woods and waters are
peopled by invisible fairy tribes. This appears to be characteristic
of Indian mythologies generally, the giants being comparatively few in
number while the "little people" are legion. The Iroquois have a story
of an invasion by a race of stony-skinned cannibal giants from the
west (Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 266). Giant races occur also
in the mythologies of the Navaho (Matthews, Navaho Legends), Choctaw
(Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend), and other tribes. According to
the old Spanish chroniclers, Ayllon in 1520 met on the coast of South
Carolina a tribe of Indians whose chiefs were of gigantic size, owing,
as he was told, to a special course of dieting and massage to which
they were subjected in infancy.