Patagones

Patagones (Portuguese: patagão; Spanish: patagón) was an exonym for an unknown peoples that were reportedly encountered by the expedition of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, as later related in the travelogue of Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian crewman, who wrote of an encounter with a giant, painted Patagón man "so tall that [they] reached only to his waist," and related further encounters in the days that followed with other members of his tribe, likewise described as being giants. Some later expeditions passing the region in the late 1500s, including the voyages of Francis Drake and William Adams, also produced accounts of encounters with very tall peoples.

The name Patagones was further lent to the whole territory now called Patagonia, encompassing the southern region of South America, including parts of the Andes Mountains and the desert areas to the east, today part of Argentina and Chile.

Claims

 * Willis George Emerson in his 1908 novel The Smoky God suggests that the Patagones were "probably the only aborigines from the center of the earth who came out through the aperture usually designated as the South Pole, and they are called the giant race."