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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio,

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Speaker 1: Welcome back to Coast to Coast AM Richard Sarah sitting

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Speaker 1: in for George Nori and investigative historian, avocational archeologist and

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Speaker 1: author Jason Jarrell is with me Ages of the Giants,

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Speaker 1: a Cultural History of the tall Ones in Prehistoric America,

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Speaker 1: which he co authored with Sarah Farmer. Now, where did

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Speaker 1: giants fit in with Native American cosmology? Did the giants?

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Speaker 1: Did they arrive in North America before Native Americans? Or

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Speaker 1: did they coexist? Tell me about that. Well, to begin with,

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Speaker 1: they were a recurring element in the general prehistoric population

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Speaker 1: of North America that goes back to the original Fountain

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Speaker 1: groups who entered the continent from Eurasia at least twenty

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Speaker 1: thousand years ago. They were not guaranteed any type of

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Speaker 1: status or leadership position by virtue of their unique physicality.

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Speaker 1: This is testified by the fact that while they're found

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Speaker 1: in group burials just carelessly dumped into a pit in

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Speaker 1: some of the ancient tombs, in other tombs they are

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Speaker 1: found with exotic goods, which suggests that some of them

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Speaker 1: had leadership positions, but in fact they were actually a

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Speaker 1: part of the base population, and they actually continued up

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Speaker 1: to historic times when they were documented among the existing

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Speaker 1: Native American tribes. And you do a lot of work

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Speaker 1: investigating mounds up and down the Ohio Valley. Were these

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Speaker 1: burial mounds used to entomb these giants or were they

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Speaker 1: used for non giants as well? Members of the non

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Speaker 1: giant population. Well, most of the population was made up

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Speaker 1: of people without the unique physicality. The burial mounds which

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Speaker 1: form the primary focus of my research are of the

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Speaker 1: Adena and Hopewell mound building cultures in the Ohio Valley. Together,

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Speaker 1: these cultures date between five hundred BC and roughly five

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Speaker 1: hundred a d. And the burial mounds of these two cultures,

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Speaker 1: these earthwork building cultures in the Ohio Valley have been

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Speaker 1: found to contain more unusually large skeletons than the tombs

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Speaker 1: of any other ancient culture from anywhere else in the

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Speaker 1: history of the world. Now, the burial mounds themselves were

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Speaker 1: built to contain the remains of local community members and

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Speaker 1: in some instances, individuals from multiple regional communities, and they

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Speaker 1: were built for the entire population. The reason that tall

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Speaker 1: ones and the large skeletons are so famously known from

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Speaker 1: these mounds is because the cultures themselves are so famous

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Speaker 1: and exotic. But one of the things we found in

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Speaker 1: researching ages of the Giants was that these remains are

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Speaker 1: actually found in all of the cultures going back to

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Speaker 1: the Archaic period here in the Eastern Woodlands and the

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Speaker 1: Great Lakes region of the United States, and people with

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Speaker 1: this unique physicality were born into the historic period. In fact,

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Speaker 1: many of the old press articles that described large skeletons

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Speaker 1: from burial mounds that have been promoted as ancient giants

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Speaker 1: are actually burials that were made in mounds that were

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Speaker 1: very recent, some of them after European contact, because the

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Speaker 1: remains are found with Spanish trade goods in some instances.

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Speaker 1: So essentially they're part of the population that constructed the

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Speaker 1: exotic mound builder cultures. But they are also a part

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Speaker 1: of all of the other ancient cultures from this part

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Speaker 1: of the country. They are in the ancestry of the Algonkian,

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Speaker 1: the Sioux, the Cherokee, the Iroquois, the Caido, Pawnee, the Creeks,

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Speaker 1: and other indigenous peoples from the eastern United States. Now

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Speaker 1: we're not talking about you know, twelve foot giants or

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Speaker 1: anything extraordinary like that. We're talking about what on the

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Speaker 1: order of seven foot seven and a half feet. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's a really excellent point, and that's why I refer

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Speaker 1: to them myself as the tall ones. It's not only

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Speaker 1: a much more appropriate descriptive term, but it is also

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Speaker 1: the term which was used for them by the tribal

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Speaker 1: elders consulted by the great Native American scholar Yndaloria, who

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Speaker 1: published about this in his book Read Earth White Lies

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety seven. The actual reports of archaeologists that

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Speaker 1: acknowledge the large remains, going back to the excavations of

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Speaker 1: the Smithsonian in the eighteen eighties, are describing people who

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Speaker 1: range between seven and eight feet in height, with very

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Speaker 1: powerful musculatures evidenced by the attachments which are detectable and

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Speaker 1: observable on the bones, very sick skulls, who practiced artificial

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Speaker 1: cranial deformation. Their facial skeleton was also very pronounced and powerful.

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Speaker 1: They had large brow ridges. But it's been well known

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Speaker 1: since the mid twentieth century that these people did not

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Speaker 1: have any type of disease that caused these traits. They

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Speaker 1: were studied by numerous physical anthropologists from Ohio and Illinois

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Speaker 1: in other places these bones. So there was a genetic

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Speaker 1: component to this. It just happens to be a very

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Speaker 1: widespread genetic component. So why the controversy, Why, for example,

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Speaker 1: do we not see the remains of these tall ones

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Speaker 1: in the Smithsonian or other museums, as some researchers claim,

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Speaker 1: has it been suppressed? Well, first of all, you're not

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Speaker 1: seeing remains because the burial law and the laws regarding

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Speaker 1: the respect for Native American human remains at this point

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Speaker 1: strongly discourages the display of any remains from prehistoric tombs

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Speaker 1: that are in the ancestry of Native Americans. But in

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Speaker 1: terms of the policy of denial, the reason why this

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Speaker 1: subject became blacklisted in the first place really has nothing

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Speaker 1: to do with modern archaeology whatsoever. It goes back to

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Speaker 1: the beginning of the twentieth century, when eugenicists and scientific

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Speaker 1: racialists took over the hierarchy of the Department of Anthropology

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Speaker 1: at the Smithsonian and a man named Alis Herdlichka initiated

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Speaker 1: a policy of denial by which the Smithsonian would refuse

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Speaker 1: to acknowledge the large skeletons in their own reports and

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Speaker 1: The reason for this was that at that time, the

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Speaker 1: American eugenic society had targeted Native Americans in the United

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Speaker 1: States for complete extermination, and they believed that the existence

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Speaker 1: of these anthropologically superior people in Native American ancestry would

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Speaker 1: contradict their own racist dogmas. So, in other words, the

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Speaker 1: tall ones had physical characteristics which were just based on

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Speaker 1: their size superior in that way, that's what you're referring to.

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Speaker 1: Their physicality didn't fit the narrative, didn't fit the narrative

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Speaker 1: of European superiority. Yes, what people need to understand is

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Speaker 1: that the eugenics movement worldwide in the late eighteen hundreds

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Speaker 1: and early nineteen hundreds based a person's genetic quality solely

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Speaker 1: on the types of bones their ancestors left behind. If

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Speaker 1: you go and research the writings of all the major eugenicists,

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Speaker 1: including American eugenicists such as Madison Grant or the English

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Speaker 1: eugenicist Houston Stewart Chamberlain who inspired Hitler, you'll find that

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Speaker 1: all of them referred back to the massive stature of

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Speaker 1: their own ancestors as evidence of their area in supremacy.

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Speaker 1: So here in Native America we had a competing gene

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Speaker 1: pool of very large individuals recorded in the Smithsonian Zone reports,

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Speaker 1: and it was very well known up to the point

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Speaker 1: that the policy of denial was instituted. Well, that explains

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Speaker 1: the suppression let's say a hundred years ago, sixty years ago,

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Speaker 1: maybe even fifty years ago. But why is the existence

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Speaker 1: of these tall ones still being suppressed in twenty nineteen. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think there are a number of reasons for it.

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Speaker 1: First of all, it's important. It's important that we reflect

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Speaker 1: on the field of research as a whole. This information

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Speaker 1: was largely forgotten until just several decades ago, and immediately

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Speaker 1: there were all sorts of sensational ideas and topics attached

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Speaker 1: to it by people who started investigating it in sort

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Speaker 1: of rediscovering it. And this probably caused the knee jerk

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Speaker 1: reaction among mainstream archeologists and anthropologists, and in some ways

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Speaker 1: I can understand why. But in terms of simply acknowledging

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Speaker 1: that they exist, I believe that that is actually going

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Speaker 1: to happen, and I don't believe it's going to be

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Speaker 1: very long before it does. They're simply too many of

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Speaker 1: the large skeletons on record we know of at least

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Speaker 1: three places where they're still being stored, none of which

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Speaker 1: is the Massonian. So if there are any enterprising anthropologists

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Speaker 1: out there that would like to double check this mystery,

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Speaker 1: I can actually help you to do it by pointing

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Speaker 1: you in the right direction. How would they get a

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Speaker 1: hold of you? Jason? You can reach me on Facebook

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Speaker 1: Jason Jarrell, or you can come to Paradigm Collision dot com,

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Speaker 1: which is our website and contact me through that. And again,

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Speaker 1: Jarrell is j A R R E L L. Jason Jarrell.

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Speaker 1: You can find him on Facebook or the website Paradigm

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Speaker 1: Collision dot com. We're going to break at bottom of

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Speaker 1: the hour here. We'll take some calls after the break.

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Speaker 1: Before that, though, I'd like to circle back into some

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Speaker 1: Native American legends and myths, and we have to talk

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Speaker 1: about the skinwalkers. Where do these shape shifters fit into

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Speaker 1: Native American cosmology? Well, in terms of shape shifters, I

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Speaker 1: would really like for people to understand that shape shifting,

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Speaker 1: at least in this part of the country, in the Northeast,

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Speaker 1: as a Native American belief, it's attached literally to everything.

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Speaker 1: The cosmos was fluid and continuous. It's apparent by reading

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Speaker 1: the Native American oral traditions as they were documented by

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Speaker 1: the ethnographers in the eighteen hundreds, that shape shifting was

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Speaker 1: a power attributed to any being with spiritual abilities, including

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Speaker 1: human beings. If we go back to the earliest cultures,

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Speaker 1: we see that the three realms of the Native American

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Speaker 1: cosmos are connected by a sacred tree or a great

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Speaker 1: mountain referred to as an Axis Monday. The shamans in

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Speaker 1: this layered cosmos, going back at least three thousand years.

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Speaker 1: The role of the shaman is to travel to the

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Speaker 1: worlds above and below, usually aided by altered states of consciousness,

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Speaker 1: and in order to do so, they would wear the

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Speaker 1: regalia or the bones of certain types of animals, because

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Speaker 1: it was believed that by doing so they could adopt

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Speaker 1: certain aspects or traits of the animals which could facilitate

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Speaker 1: their journey between worlds. It's for this reason that we

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Speaker 1: see many ancient Adena moundbuilder burials with parts of wolves, panthers, birds,

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Speaker 1: and bears buried with them. During the era of the

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Speaker 1: Hopewell Moundbuilders, the bear became even more important, and they've

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Speaker 1: found of figurine at the Newark Earthworks depicting a priest

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Speaker 1: or shaman wearing the skin of a bear holding a

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Speaker 1: severed human head. So the concept of shape shifting became

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Speaker 1: bound up with every form of Native American perspective of

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Speaker 1: the supernatural. Even people who were considered witches and wizards

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Speaker 1: in the historic period were believed to have the power

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Speaker 1: to shape shift. Is the idea of a cursed part

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Speaker 1: of Native American cosmology. In other words, could a cursed

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Speaker 1: person be destined to sort of walk the earth as

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Speaker 1: a shape shifter? Well, there are people who become cursed

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Speaker 1: in the cosmology. For example, the Algonkian lore of the

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Speaker 1: Windigo is a perfect example. There are several different Algonkian

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Speaker 1: traditions that describe the origin of the Windigo as a

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Speaker 1: person who began to practice cannibalism and was gradually transformed

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Speaker 1: into the wind Togo. Interestingly enough, there are traditions of

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Speaker 1: black magicians who dealt with the Great Horned Serpent being

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Speaker 1: transformed into a windigo as punishment for practicing bad medicine.

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Speaker 1: The Great Serpent itself granted the ability to shape shifters.

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Speaker 1: They're also his followers are also known to have assumed

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Speaker 1: human form beings from the underworld. And married human women

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Speaker 1: in order to reproduce with them and create more of

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Speaker 1: their own kind. Historically, the tales of the Great Serpent

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Speaker 1: from the Great Lakes tell us that individuals had their

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Speaker 1: infants stolen by the great serpents, and people were kidnapped

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Speaker 1: and taken under water. In some instances, black magicians were

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Speaker 1: required to sacrifice their children or entire families to the

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Speaker 1: underworld serpents in exchange for powerful magic and medicine. So

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Speaker 1: the lure on the subject is very extensive. Tell me

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Speaker 1: more about the wind Togo. What do they look like?

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Speaker 1: Supposedly well that it actually varies from one tradition to

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Speaker 1: the next. You know, each tribe had its own storytellers

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Speaker 1: the wind Togo. That interests me though the most, is

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Speaker 1: that there are some forms of the wind to go

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Speaker 1: in the northeast that's depicted as a large, white, hairy being.

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Speaker 1: When we see something a spirit being or a manitou

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Speaker 1: in Native American cosmology depicted as white, that usually points

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Speaker 1: to the far north. There's a general belief that in

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Speaker 1: the far northern part of the world, north of the

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Speaker 1: Great Lakes, north of America, there's a mythical place where

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Speaker 1: powerful giants and Manitou still live, and when a spirit

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Speaker 1: being or manitou is depicted in white, even if it's

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Speaker 1: engraved in shell that's white, that it represents some of

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Speaker 1: those beings that still live in the far North. Listen

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Speaker 1: to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at one

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Speaker 1: a m. Eastern and go to Coast to Coast am

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Speaker 1: dot com for more