Hale County Giants among them
THE SKELETONS BELONGED TO VERY TALL PEOPLEI will be judged as being a sorehead because I was not also selected. I sincerely believe that this is not a new situation in Tuscaloosa, as most local performers in local live talent shows in times past were selected under such circumstances, with most of the best talent ignored and screened out until the shows were so poor that the general public has become more and more reluctant to purchase tickets for shows of this nature. The Follies were discontinued and other shows have been financial failures barely paying for the rent of the halls.
Because of the charity involved, I hope this show is not a failure, but I believe it will be.
P. T. BRADY 4406 Vassie Drive
ORIGIN OF MOUNDVILLE INDIANS
Editor, The News:
Recently we visited Mound State Monument at Moundville in Hale County. It wasn’t our first visit, but this time we noticed that some of the skeletons belonged to very tall people, possibly all males. One or two must have been seven feet tall. Our observations of the area and the mounds and the size of the skeletons confirmed two of my pet theories about the mound builders, and maybe three.
I have made a fairly thorough study of the Alabama Indians for several years, and my first conclusion concerning the place from whence they came was, and is, that they did not come from Alaska. But since the Mormon Baker crossed the Pacific Ocean from South America to Honolulu, I am more convinced than ever that the Indians of Alabama came by one of two routes: either they came from India by way of the many islands in the Indian and South Atlantic Oceans, upon rafts similar to the one Baker used to cross the Pacific, or they were Polynesians and came by way of the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar. I am more sure that they came by raft than that they were propelled by wind, if not, then surely by rafts. But they certainly did not come by way of the Bering Straits and Alaska. They have no physical resemblance to the Mongolians who are claimed to be the ancestors of the Eskimos. Their stature is definitely taller and larger than the Eskimos or Mongolians.
It is more probable that they came from Polynesia and were temple worshippers who built the great mounds wherever they settled. Possibly they were sun worshippers, as the South American Indians and Central American Indians all displayed by their observance of the sun and temples and handiwork more intelligence than the Mongolians ever manifested, and so did the Polynesians.
The Cherokees and Creeks were a peaceful, kind, happy, and industrious people, notwithstanding the contrary notwithstanding. I think it is probable that they were in the Western Hemisphere long before the Indians crossed the Bering Straits. It is not unreasonable to believe that the Indians had been in North America and living in the Warrior River Valley as many as six to ten thousand years before Moses wrote about Adam and Eve.
There is abundant evidence that there were giants among them, for our own Creek Indian legends tell us that the famous Creek Indian Chief Tuskaloosa was seven or eight feet tall. There were giants in the Euphrates valleys, and we know that giants were capable of swimming hundreds of miles.
The Moundville park is so interesting that I could not resist the temptation to write about it and its former residents. They built those great mounds by carrying baskets of earth, and I think it was a tremendous task. It may have taken them a year at a time of the green corn dance to complete one.
- The Tuscaloosa News – Nov 9, 1958 pg 3