326 FOSSIL MEN. 



It seems a general fact that primitive men have 

 traditions of giants and dwarfs of the olden time. 

 Our own ancestors believed in lotuns, huge and ter- 

 rible, and in elves and fairies ; and we still have in 

 our sacred writings the Nephilim of antediluvian times, 

 .and in our literature the Titans of classical mythology. 

 So the old Micmacs of Nova Scotia and their relatives 

 of the Algonquin race had Kukwes, or gig antes men 

 in form but immense in stature, gifted with magical 

 power, cannibals, and associated in their minds with 

 the power of the frost and ice veritable lotuns or 

 Titans, and with stories connected with them in every 

 way comparable with those in our own folk-lore. They 

 had also little people, or fairies, with the same attri- 

 butes with those of our nursery tales ; and Kitpoos, or 

 Gepuchican, was their Puck, or Gobelin, of whom the 

 most strange and romantic stories are told. He is 

 ,a giant-killer, and represents the victory of intellect 

 and cunning over brute force without intelligence, as 

 embodied in the giants, I have before me many 

 genuine Indian tales relating to these beings, but it 

 would be tedious to reproduce them here. The main 

 questions are as to the origin of such stories and the 

 reason of their general diffusion. The only satisfactory 

 explanation is, that they are based in some way on 

 historical facts. Nilsson has conclusively shown that 

 the giants and skrelings of the northern sagas repre- 

 sent respectively the Scandinavian and Finnish races, 

 as contesting in early times the possession of Scan- 

 dinavia, though the names may refer to still older facts 



