Euphemus and the Satyrs (Amerindians?)

Ancient Navigators Series

Continuing with my series on ancient transatlantic voyagers, today's post looks into the story recorded by Pausanias, (143-176 AD), a Greek Geographer and traveler; in his book, Description of Greece.

He mentions a journey by Euphemus of Caria (Caria was a Greek city on the coast of Anatolia, now part of Turkey) who navigated into the Atlantic. Again, like with Sertorius, it is the wind that drives the ships into the Atlantic. It was an accident, not a planned voyage.

Pausanias' text is quoted below (Source, online):

"1.23.5 ... Wishing to know better than most people who the Satyrs are I have inquired from many about this very point. Euphemus the Carian said that on a voyage to Italy he was driven out of his course by winds and was carried into the outer sea, beyond the course of seamen [This Outer Sea is the Atlantic Ocean]. He affirmed that there were many uninhabited islands, while in others lived wild men. The sailors did not wish to put in at the latter,
1.23.6 because, having put in before, they had some experience of the inhabitants, but on this occasion they had no choice in the matter. The islands were called Satyrides by the sailors, and the inhabitants were red haired, and had upon their flanks tails not much smaller than those of horses. As soon as they caught sight of their visitors, they ran down to the ship without uttering a cry and assaulted the women in the ship. At last the sailors in fear cast a foreign woman onto the island. So the Satyrs outraged this woman not only in the usual place but her whole body similarly."

Greek vases c.450 BC with satyrs chasing women

The tailed mentioned in the story, remind me of the "tailed men of Patagonia" and Father Beauvoir's explanation that the natives wore furs of animals whose tails waving as they ran, gave the impression of them having tails. The "red hair" is an interesting fact. Probably these "satyrs" daubed their hair with red ochre making them appear red haired.

The way the satyrs stormed Euphemus' vessel is similar to the descriptions given by those who navigated the Strait of Magellan when they came across the natives. Some examples can be found online. For example (here (see p. 14), an incident took place in 1875 : "Only a short time ago a tribe of Fish Indians, without the least provocation, attacked, when on shore, the master and crew of an American sealing schooner. Fortunately the master was armed with a breach loader with which he fought his way through crowds of natives to the beach, losing, however, two of his men", and (on p. 18), a boarding in 1880 with several sailors killed by the natives.

Captain FitzRoy also tells about the Fuegians mood and behavior in the 1820s-30s: "they appear to be friendly when meeting strangers, but that their subsequent conduct depends entirely upon their relative numbers. They ought never to be trusted, however, as they have hasty tempers, and are extremely revengeful." (Online, see p. 188). He also tells of how they stoned Low's ship, the Adeona, when ordered to leave it (p. 196).

Amerindians or Guanches?

Could these satyrs have been a tribe of Native Americans? The only inhabited land west of Europe was America.

But, as the text mentions islands, there were many unhinhabited islands (Cabo Verde, Bermuda, Azores, Madeira, and some of the Canary Islands, but there were people living on the Canary Islands.

They had a native population originated in Northern Africa, the Guanches, later absorbed by the Spanish influx in the 1400s. I have found an old reference aobut the Guanche mummies with "red hair", but a recent paper published in Nature that analyzed the DNA from Guanches between 200 and 1500 AD suggest a North African genetic root for the Guanches and a colonization date of AD 200. The latter date means that when Euphemus sailed c.1300 BC the islands were uninhabited.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall © 

Red headed Amerindians and the G haplogroup in America (an e-mail)

This morning I read an e-mail one of the readers of this Blog, which was very interesting indeed (Thank you for writing, Craig). My reply (edited) is below, I just wanted to share it with you because it has some good links which expand on previously published posts.

Red Headed Xiaohe mummy, China

The mail asked about photographs of the red-headed Amerindians who carried D4h3 hg. (my posts were here).

My reply

... Regarding red-haired natives, they do not abound, perhaps they were much more frequent in the past as their mummified remains attest.

If you are interested in what they looke like when photography was discovered, please check out the following sites on Alakaluf or Kaweskar, Yamana or Yaghans, Chumash, Pericue or Pericu:

http://www.limbos.org/sur/alak.htm and Kaweskar, Yamana, Chumash.

No photos exist of the Chilean Chono, who became extinct in the 1700s.

When you google red-haired native Americans you come across al sorts of weird stuff: UFOs, Atlanteans, white race supremacists, but if you remove the junk there are some nice gems to be found like the definitively red-haired Xiahoe Beauty mummy from China, pictured above, ca. 4,000 years old found in the Tarim Basin in Northwest China.

Then there are the Chinchorro people of Chile, not mentioned in my post, also boat-people like the Chumash, Kaweskar, Yamana, Chono and Peircue. Their mummies seem to be red headed. Like I mentioned in my post, these Chinchorro also used red pigment to stain their mummies and wrapped them in rushes (just like the Lovelock cave natives did).

We discussed the possible Transatlantic peopling route into America, and I commented that:

The transatlantic crossing from Africa is indeed a very feasible option (I have posted about Phoenicians, Greek and Carthagininans crossing the Ocean) and may have also been an Atlantic entry route for H. erectus into South America, so it is also possible.

I believe that mtDNA and Y chromosome analysis will reveal interesting and complex peopling patterns once the native people are sampled in depth and ancient remains are also sequenced. It willl yield some surprises. I am currenty wondering if some of the G and R Y-chromosome haplogroups found among natives is due to admixture with Europeans post-1492 discovery or... is archaic and entered America long before its discovery...

G haplogroup in America

This ends my reply to Craig, and yes, I found some G NRY hg. mentioned in a paper on the Kolla natives in Northern Argentina. The authors attribute it to admixture with Italian migrants post 1900s.

G haplogroup is definitively an Old World lineage and is found at low frequencies across a large part of Eurasia. It is also found among Spaniards (who colonized South America) and Italians (50% of Argentines have Italian ancestry), so a recent European admixture cannot be discarded.

Nevertheless, these Kolla carry a duplicate at STR DYS19, which is uncommon and found at very low frequencies in certain haplotypes within C and G Y chromosome haplogroups. C is interesting since it is a founding lineage in America but very rare and G is the European one mentioned above.

This makes me wonder.... Why do both these hgs. have the duplication and the others don't?
Could the Kolla have been wrongly typed as G and actually be C?
What are the odds of an Italian with the rare G DYS19 STR duplication reaching Northern Argentina and spreading his genes so widely that they later appear in a small sampling of Amerindian genes?
How could a genuine Native American haplotype shared with Europeans (i.e. R or G) be identified as autochthonous instead of being classified as European admixtuer(as currently is)?

I will look into this and post on it later.

Below is a map with G hg. distribution:

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2014 by Austin Whittall © 

More on Elongated skulls in America...

On red or fair haired elongated skulled people in Peru. Artificial and naturally ocurring skull deformation...

WWe know that cranial deformation is widespread across the globe, [9] and that American natives did it at the time of Spanish discovery and conquest.

The map below from Juan R. Munizaga (1987) Deformación craneana intencional en América, clearly shows that it was widespread and very ancient practice: [8]

Munizaga, author of the map, points out in his work [8] a very unusual hypothesis that:

"in only two of the cases can we be reasonably be sure of an extra-American origin: a) The annular, oblique tabular and erect tabular types found among the people of the Northwest coast of North America [...] which entered our continent very few centuries ago [...] and b) the brifronto-vertico-occipital deformation. This type, is very rare and exclusively found in Southeastern USA [...] is depicted in ceramic figures of a Taoist monastery in China dating from the early Christian Era [...] accepting an extra-American origin, we propose a general hypothesis that this custom was introduced by travellers from the Far East..." [8].

Nevertheless, I want to point out a comment published in 1855 by Rivero regarding deformed crania as a mutation and not due to artificial causes: [1]

Oblong skulls were due to a mutation

"there is more: the same configuration is found among unborn children and we have become convinced of this truth after seeing the fetus found in the womb of a pregnant woman's mummy, which we found in a cave in Huichay, two leagues from Tarma and which is now in our collection. Professonr d'Outrepont, one of the leading celebrities in the science of obstertrics has assured us that this fetus is seven months old. It belongs, according to the very pronounced configuration of its skull, to the tribe of the Huancas. In plate VII of the Atlas is this interesting and decissive proof against those favoring mechanical action as the only and exclusive cause of the phrenologic shape of the peruvian race... [1]"

The image below depicts the fetus mentioned by Rivero above:

Plate VII. Rivero (1855). Seven month fetus with elongated skull. From [1]

Although one case is not enough to support a mutation that produces elongated skulls, and we could also assume that the fetus described by Rivero had suffered some intra-uterine disease that caused that oddly shaped skull.

Nordenskjöld reported that a baby was born in Bolivia with an unnaturally long head, but the midwife was not worried, they could shape it at will and make it rounder ("In Ascencion wurde ein Kind mit unnatürlich langem Kopfe geboren" = "In Ascencion a child was long with unnatural Head born".[5]

The above shows two things: (1) oblong skulls ocurr naturally and (2) Amerindians were good at re-shaping skulls.

Nevertheless, Rivero's opinon was repeated later by : " A. L. Kroeber (1944), reporting on pre-Inca crania from further north on the same coast, stated that the majority of undeformed Early Chimu skulls were long. Thus, these earliest pyramid builders of Peru were not identical with their historic successors, all of whom are round-headed... " [2]

Since I am not a specialist I can hardly judge how Kroeber detected that ancient Early Chimu skulls were "long". But if his research was sound, it could point out to some genetic trait.

If it has a genetic cause, perhaps DNA sequencing could shed some light on the matter (and I mean "real" sequencing, and not the kind I posted about yesterday).

The Paracas mummies had elongated skulls (in my opinion, artificially elongated skulls), and possessed oddly colored hair:

Light colored Amerindian hair

Mildred Trotter examined the hair from the Paracas Mummies, and described it as: "... the sample in each case was interspersed with very light yellow hairs which may be assumed to have been white. In general, the color was a rusty brown and gave the appearance of having faded..." [3]

She also noted that the hair of two of the mummies "was quite definitely wavy" and was straight in the others. Waviness is related to the hair's shape of its cross-section. Amerindian and Asian hair tends to have a circular cross-section (straight hair) while Caucasian hair is more oval (tending to be wavy). Trotter reported that "The cross-section form shows so much divergence between the different mummies that they cover all divisions of hair form" [3], that is Amerindian - Asian - European.

The area of the cross-section of Paracas mummies was 30% less than the average value for Amerindians. (European cross-section surface is smaller than Native American surface area): "The size of the hair was much smaller than has been found for other Indians..." [3]

Realizing that this may place the Paracas people outside of the Amerindians, she added that post-mortem dehydration could account for changes in cross-sectional shape as well as its surface area. The brown or reddish colored hair could also be the consequence of a dark black hair having faded over time. The fair hair was due to a darkening white hair.

Trotter's explanations are very reasonable and is the most likely cause for odd colored hair among the Paracas people.

However, reddish wavy hair is not unknown among the Mataco natives from Argentina's Chaco region (northeastern Argentina), see Pelleschi below: [7]

"The hair is straight, but in some -very few- individuals I have noticed it slightly wavy, almost curly, I can not say if due to art or nature [...] The hair is jet black among the adults, white among the elders [...] reddish often among the boys until the age of 10 or 12 years: a curious thing, which brings to my memory Salles theory, according to which primitive men must have had red hair. So here we would have a case of atavism..."[7]

We can forgive Pelleschi for his Victorian mentality (after all, he wrote that in 1897).

I am always interested in red-haired people outside of Europe because it may indicate a link to Neanderthal genes, and if in America, it may hint at an early migration of Neanderthals into America followed by admixture there with Homo sapiens, once they reached that continent.

A closing word on Deformed skulls

Cieza de León, a Spanish conquistador and chronicler noted that along the coast of Ecuador (in the 1540s), the newborn baby's head was pressed between two boards (tablas) so that by the time he reached the age of four or five his head was either long or broad. They did this because it made them healthier and better able to work. [4]

Curiously, another reason is given for the practice of cranial deformation: Dr. Alvarado cites Juan Manuel Balcazar and his book about "The History of Medicine in Bolvia" where he states that according to Pachacutec: "The Inca [emperor] Manco Kapac decreed that the head of newborn babies be tied so that they grow up with mental handicaps because indians with large round heads were very enterprising and specially very disobedient". He wanted them to have long sloping heads to make them obedient and submissive.[6]

Many Paracas skulls have holes neatly cut into them, these trepanations are be explained by Dr. Alvarado:

Skull deformation caused plenty of problems according to Dr. Alvarado. It led to intra-craneal hypertension which can be noted due to the presence of the so called digital impressions seen on some of the deformed skulls. This custom led to mental alterations, reduced IQ, epileptic fits, head aches, etc. And (this is very interesting) may have been the reason that some of the skulls were trepanated, that is, opened, as a kind of cure (perhaps to let the "demons" of illness out). Though some alien-mongers suggest hi-tech medicine was required for these skull opening operatins, they were done under primitive conditions with obsidian tools, and the surprising fact is that up to 60% of the patients survived the operation. [6]

Based on all of the above, it is quite weird to suggest that the Paracas people had a mtDNA unlike any other human one, displaying mutations not found in any animal (see yesterday's post please). The Paracas mummies were normal humans with artificially deformed skulls. The light color of their mummies hair may be due to some genetic trait or, simply the aging of ancient hair which bleached it. There was probably some genetic mutation that caused occasional oblong heads among Amerindians as reported by Rivero, Kroeber and Nordenskjöld, but its prevalence among the native Americans is unknown.

Sources

[1] Mariano Eduardo de Rivero, (1855) Antigüedades Peruanas. pp 32
[2] Thor Heyerdahl and Geoffrey Ashe, (1971). Isolationist Or Diffusionist?: The Bearded Gods Speak Pall Mall press.
[3] Mildred Trotter, (1943). Hair from Paracas Indian Mummies. Am. J. Phyg. Anthrop., n.s., 1 (1) : 69-76.
[4] Cieza de León, P., Ballesteros, M., [Ed.], (2000). La crónica del Perú (1553). Madrid:Dastin S. pp. 177
[5] Nordenskjöld, E., (1910). Indianer und Weisse in Nordostbolivien p. 153
[6] Dr. Ramiro Alvarado. Trepanaciones y Deformaciones Craneales en Tiwanaku, Sociedad Boliviana de Cirugía
[7] Pelleschi, Juan, (1897). Los Indios Matacos y su Lengua. Part I. Ch. II. pp 175

Further Reading

[8] Juan R. Munizaga (1987). Deformación craneana intencional en América. Revista Chilena de Antropología No 6. 1987, 113-147.

[9] Dingwall, Eric, (1931). Artificial Cranial Deformation London.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2014 by Austin Whittall © 

Trauko and Red Headed Neanderthals

 

Red Haired Neanderthal. Trauko?. Photo by Thomas Kohler [2]

The Mapuche natives of northwestern Patagonia, that lived in the central part of the province of Neuquén, near what is now the city of San Martín de los Andes, believed in several gigantic beings.

One of them (which I mention in my book) was known as the Trauko -do not mistake with Chiloé’s Trauco dwarf which is a completely different creature with a similar sounding name.
Trauko dwelled along the banks of Collón Curá River -a name which means "stone mask" in Mapuche language- in Neuquén (40°00’ S, 70°49’ W).

The name probably reflects the presence of fossils in the area (there are plenty of dino bones in Neuquén province, close to the surface).

Native myths describe Trauko as a real hideous monster: a “terrible giant, man eater”. He was described as hairy and having “a very long beard and his hair, that seemed like rush stalks were fire red color”.[1]

Trauko was not invulnerable and the dogs of a young Indian woman killed it.
The interesting part of this story is the "fire red color" of his hair. Trauko was a primitive hominid with red hair!

It rang a bell as I recalled the "red headed" Neanderthals (see my post on Blemyes)... could Trauko be an ancient memory about Neanderthals among the Mapuche?

Sources

[1] Koessler-Ilg, B., (2000). Cuentan los Araucanos: Mitos, leyendas y tradiciones. B. Aires: Del Nuevo Extremo. . pp. 71.
[2] Photo, "Neandertaler", by Thomas Kohler, Some rights reserved Creative Commons License.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2012 by Austin Whittall © 

Blemye on Piri Reis map

 

Pir Reis 1513 map showing a Blemye (inside blue circle; enlarged on the right side). Copyright © 2012 by Austin Whittall

My previous post mentioned Blemyes as reported by English explorer, nobleman, adventurer and sailor, Sir Walter Raleigh in 1596, along the Northeastern coasts of South America, in Guyana.

These creatures lacked a head, and had their hair sprout from their shoulders and their face set in their chests. They are obviously mythical beings and had been mentioned previously by Pliny the elder and several medieval sources. So it is quite likely that Sir Walter included them in his accounts to add a touch of spice to Guyana. Nevertheless, they do appear in South America, in another unexpected source: Admiral Piri Reis map.

Note: Othello, by William Shakespeare, written c. 1603 in Act 1, Scene 3, Page 7, has Othello say: "The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads. Grew beneath their shoulders. These things to hear. Would Desdemona seriously incline." (Bold mine). Perhaps Shakespeare was inspired by Sir Walter's book.

Piri Reis Map

This map was drawn c. 1513 by a Turkish Admiral named Piri Reis and I have already posted on other strange creatures depicted in it (unicorns, monkeys and dog-faced men).

This map shows a Blemye and as can be seen in the image above, it is located in the right place, in Northern South America, between two large rivers, one to the north, the other to the south, which must surely be the Orinoco and Amazon rivers respectively. Exactly where Raleigh would place it 83 years later, in Guyana.

The red-haired creature sports a beard and holds something in his right hand. There is an Arabic caption above his head... but I have not found out yet what it says. (Will do some research on that caption).

Interestingly Neanderthals seem to have had red hair [1] (but they also had other colors according to a recent controversial article that suggested that in the sample studied, all three Neandertals had brown eyes and a dark complexion, and two had brown hair while one was red-haired.[2]

So, could the Blemye shown on Piri Reis' map be a Neanderthal?

It was here, in Guyana that odd humanoids have been reported (the Didi and other ape-men). Coincidence or deliberate actions? (after all, those who reported sightings in the 1800s knew about Piri Reis and Raleigh's account, so they could have used them as a source of inspiration).

Lets see if we can find more information on these odd "Neanderthals" in Guyana along the Orinoco River.

Sources

[1] Harvard University (2007, October 25). Ancient DNA Reveals That Some Neanderthals Were Redheads. ScienceDaily. Retrieved March 27, 2012
[2] Cerqueira, C. C. S., Paixão-Côrtes, V. R., Zambra, F. M. B., Salzano, F. M., Hünemeier, T. and Bortolini, M.-C. (2012), Predicting homo pigmentation phenotype through genomic data: From neanderthal to James Watson. Am. J. Hum. Biol.. doi: 10.1002/ajhb.22263

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2011 by Austin Whittall ©