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This is a part of what we work on preserving traditional knowledge. We know for a fact that giants and what the American Indians call water babies or mere people (not scaled, but more like seals and dolphins where they are streamlined for swimming) did exist. There are many pictures of them clearly depicting them. Some have attributes that reflect the same things seen in European or Middle Easter or even Asian artwork from much later periods (American depictions from before 18,000 years ago, non-American similar artwork from after 3000 BCE.)
Since the girl with mermaidism recently had her legs separated in Peru, and that trait is common in the world, and the look of the alternative form is the same as many drawings, rockart and classical artwork depicting mermaids, it is not a far stretch of the imagination to research these other depictions. While I do not think the people or creatures are necessarily the animal that they are depicted represented by, hard to say what made the development of such figures. Easy to see how people would assume the contact between people and animals was the reason. Not necessarily in a formation that appears to mimic another pre-existing creature.
The Paiutes of Pyramid Lake in Nevada, USA, captured and burned a group of cannibalistic redheaded giants within the past 500 years. That the traditional knowledge or TK has such clear information as the fact the giants were red-headed, wore blankets, wove baskets designed with a big plant material spike hook inside the bottom to catch and tenderize the Paiute children tossed in there for a late lunch by the giants is pretty accurate and is universal amongst the Paiuti. There are rockart pictures of little guys running from big blanket wearing giants from extremely remote times and in areas now totally desert and not the lush lakes of the Pleistocene all over the North American Southwest.
It is certainly true for some of the American clans that the descendents, even the mixed blood ones after the invasion, look very similar to the animals. Who knows? So many groups of invaders and religious indoctrinators have messed up indigenous or local traditional knowledge over the past 500 years. The ease with which we tell and revitalize historic fact has certainly taken a slump due to the post-Victorian post-secondary printed works saying there is nothing valid in the information. That was without the research or the ethnological forewithall to do any such research. It is not surprising to see people who grew up in such educational systems saying there are no such animals as though that is the fact. It is not. For one thing, in a similar case, I do know that the horse is genetically related to white rhinos rather than hippos. Hippos are related to cows. So if horses and rhinos are cousins, unicorns are not that far off the believability scale. We shall see.
Cordially,
Deb Huglin
Chief Archaeologist, Mississippian Culture Organization
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