Trimenen the Giants of Coin (Patagonia).

Oliver van Noort (1558-1627) was a Dutchman, navigator and merchant who sailed around the globe (the first Dutchman to do so) during an expedition which set out from Texel, The Netherlands in 1598 with the intention of looting Portuguese and Spanish settlements in America, and trade with spices in the Far East.

A company was organized, the Magelhaensche Compagnie with Peter Van Beveren, Huyg Gerritz and John Benninck as its main shareholders, and it fitted four ships the "Hendrick Frederick", the "Mauritius", the "Endracht" and "Esperance", with 248 men on board.

They reached the Strait of Magellan, and massacred a group of Fuegian natives on Penguin Island, killing all the men and sparing the women and children -though they kidnapped four of the children. One of them gave them the following account:

"From one of these boys, after he had learnt the Dutch language, they had the following intelligence. The larger of the two islands was named Castemme by the natives, and the tribe inhabiting it Enoo. The smaller island was called Talche. Both were frequented by great numbers of penguins, the flesh of which served the natives as food, and their skins for cloathing. Their only habitations were caves. The neighbouring continent abounded in ostriches, which they also used as food. The natives of these dreary regions were distinguished into tribes, each having their respective residences. The Kemenetes dwelt in Kaesay; the Kennekin in Karamay; the Karaiks in Morina: All these are of the ordinary size, but broad-breasted, and painted all over; the men tying up their pudenda in a string, and the women covering their parts of shame with the skins of a penguin; the men wearing their hair long, while that of the women was kept very short; and both sexes going naked, except cloaks made of penguin skins, reaching only to the waist. There was also a fourth tribe, called Tirimenen, dwelling in Coin, who were of a gigantic stature, being ten or twelve feet high, and continually at war with the other tribes."

Read the Source of this text (Kerr Robert. (1824). General History and Collection of Voyages… Edinburgh. Vol. X Chap. IV. Voyage of Oliver Van Noort Round the World in 1598-1601.). Another online source with the original book.

In the original Dutch language version (see it online here), the names for the natives are written the same as in the English translation except the following: Karayke, Morine, and Trimenen.

The massacre and kidnapping is a display of ruthlessness typical of Europeans of those days (I exclude Narbrough from this category, he was more compassionate. When he saw the natives at Port Desire in 1669 he wrote "they would not have come near our People, if they had not fallen accidentally in the Hills and Valleys with them. I have thought that they have heard of the cruel dealings of the Spaniards, and dare not trust us." (Source)

Dutch killing Fuegians, by T. de Bry. Source

By the time they left the Strait of Magellan, scurvy, bad weather, and the clashes with the Portuguese and the natives had decimated the crew. The second in command, Jacob Claasz, was court martialled for attempted desertion and abandoned on the mainland near Port Famine. His fate is unknown.

Only two ships made it into the Pacific Ocean, the "Mauritius" and the "Endracht", 101 men had died, and only 147 had made it to there alive. They raided some spots along the Pacific coast and then they visited the Spice Islands. Only 45 made it back to Holland, the outcome of the commercial venture was a break-even. It led to a greater geographic knowledge and set the basis for the Dutch East India Company that would occupy the East Indies and establish the Dutch colonial empire there.

All the abducted children died at sea, and shortly after, in 1600, Sebald de Weert on his way back to The Netherlands stopped on that island and found a woman, who had survived the massacre.

The Natives

This is the original Dutch text by van Noort.

Below are two maps, one by van Noort (top) from 1602, with the Pinguyns Eÿlanden, and a modern one (bottom) with the only three islands in that part of the Strait, from north to south Isabella, Marta, and Magdalena. If the people the Dutch killed were on one of these islands, they were boat people, not foot indians like the Selk'nam.

van Noort map of Patagonia and Current map. A Whittall

van Noort identified four native groups and their territories (names from English and Dutch versions):

• The Enoo on the Island of Casteme next to the Talche Island
• The Kemenetes in Kaesay
• The Kennekin in Karamay
• The Karaiks (or Karayke) in Morina (or Morine)
• The Tirimenen (or Trimenen) in Coin

The first four groups were normal sized people, which by the description given, seem to be canoe people. The fourth group were the giants, at war with the others.

The Selk'nam called the Yagan people "Uowen" which does not appaer in this list, so this also proves that the boy kidnapped by van Noort was not a Selk'nam.

I have found two scholarly articles on this subject, one is a thesis (Alejandra Vidal, (2015) Proto-Chon: Fonología, morfología y léxico, who discusess her findings about the words mentioned by van Noort, most of which she writes "belong to some language of the Chon family" (see p. 71 1.6.1. La lengua de los enoo (fines del siglo XVI)).

Vidal interprets the Enoo terms as equivalent to the following Chon language terms:

• Kenneka. Selk'nam "nèné-qà" ‘belonging to the West’, "k-nèné-qr" ‘person from the West’
• Koin. Place name. Selk'nam "kʔójin" ~ "kwʔójin" ‘cordillera’ (Andes)
• Castemme (Santa Magdalena Island). Tehuelche "kašte:m" ‘land within’
• Talcke (smaller Santa Marta Island). Tehuelche "t’alk’e-" ‘be small’

This is a jumble of Selk'nam and Tehuelche terms. Which group would use such a language?

David Williams wrote an interesting paper attempting to identify: "Which ethnic group did the mysterious Enoo tribe (Strait of Magellan, 1599) belong to? / ¿A que grupo etnico pertenecio la misteriosa tribu enoo (Estrecho de Magallanes, 1599)?" Revista de Antropologia Iberoamericana, vol. 10, no. 1, Jan. 2015, pp. 99+. Gale OneFile: Informe Académico, Online

Williams suggests the enoo people were Yamaná people (Yaghans) canoe people who were inside the territory of the Alakaluf canoe people. This is far from the Beagle Channel and southeastern Islands of Fuegia, where the Yamaná people lived. What were they doing in the Strait of Magellan hundreds of kilometers north of their territory?.

I agree with Williams that the particle "aike" found in the name of the name of the Karaik or Karaike is a Tehuelche word which means "campground", "place where you live". So maybe it was the spot where the "Kar" people lived (?) what is Kar?

Over a century ago, John Cooper (Analytical and critical bibliography of the tribes of Tierra del Fuego and adjacent territory. (1917). Washington Govt. printing office.) wrote about the words reported by van Noort and stated that "Neither the tribal names or other words have been confirmed by later investigators; they are all probably erroneous, with the possible exception of Coin (= Chon?). Cf. however, Furlong, 7, p. 185: the western Onas are called Kenenica Chon."

Below is an image from Furlong's book (Furlong, Charles Wellington, (1917), Tribal Distribution and Settlements of the Fuegians, Comprising Nomenclature, Etymology, Philology, and Populations) and the entry regarding Kenenica people:

Source

Furlong and the Kenenica. Source

Furlong (1874–1967) was an American author, artist and explorer who traveled extensively and visited Tierra del Fuego in 1907-1908. He wrote several books about the area and its people. He says that the Southern Onas (Selk'nam) called the "Western" Onas "Kenenica Chon", where Chon, is the Tehuelche word for "people"** so "Kenenica" is "Western". This is in agreement with Vidal's interpretation.

But, why would the people in Penguin Island use a Southern Selk'nam term?

** See Alexander Chamberlain (On the Puelchean and Tsonekan (Tehuelchean), the Atacameñan (Atacaman) and Chonoan, and the Charruan Linguistic Stocks of South America, American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1911), pp. 458-471. Online) who confirms that "... Tsoneka (Tsoneca), or Tsonek, Chonek, etc., the term by which they call themselves, said to signify "men," "people.""

This identifies two words: "Coin" = "Chon" (people) and "Kenenica" = "West". We will never know for certain who any of these people were, including the Trimenen giants.

Mateo Martinic (Los canoeros de la Patagonia meridional, Journal de la société des américanistes, 1989, 75 pp. 35-61. Source) identifies the "Karaike" with the Alakaluf canoe people and the "Enoo (Enooke, Enuke)" with the "Laguediche, Aveguediche, Poykes, Poyukes Indians of the Strait and adjoining waters".

Martinic does not identify these natives, but Alcides D'Orbigny, who visited Patagonia, did so in the 1830s when he listed the names given by mariners who visited the area or those who interacted with the Patagonians: "Beauchene-Gouin only mentions two [tribes] the Laguediches in the east and the Aveguediches, in the west of the Strait. Boungainville calls them Pecheraís because he heard them pronounce that word many times. Molina calls them Caucau, Falconer [Falkner] who never saw them gives them the name of Key Yus or Keyos to those who are on the west of the Strait of Magellan and the name of Yucama Cunny to those in the east" (Source. p. 231)

I have not been able to find any coincidences between the words mentioned by van Noort and those listed in this Spanish-Alakaluf / Alakaluf-Spanish dictionary.

Thomas Falkner didn't visit Patagonia, but he had excellent sources. He wrote in his Description of Patagonia (1774) about the southernmost Tehuelche groups, along the Strait of Magellan:

"The last of the Tehuel nations are the Yacana-cunnees, which signifies foot-people; for they always travel on foot, having no horfes in their country. To the north, they border on the Sehuau-cunnees [these are named for some black hares!: "Sehuau signifies, in the Tehuel dialect, a species of black rabbit, about the size of a field-rat; and as their country abounds in these animals, their name may be derived from thence; cunnee signifying people."] to the west, on the Kej-yus or Key-yuhues, from whom they are divided by a ridge ot mountains : to the east, they are bounded by the ocean; and to the south, by the islands of Tierra del Fuego or the South Sea. These Indians live near the sea, on both sides of the straits, and oftentimes make war with one another. They make use of light floats, like those of Chiloe in order to pass the straits. They are sometimes attacked by the Huilliches, and the other Tehuelhets, who carry them away for slaves, as they have nothing to lose but their liberty and their lives. They live chiefly on fish; which they catch, either by diving, or striking them with their darts. They are very nimble of foot, and catch guanacoes and ostriches with their bowls (sic) [bows?]."

These "floats" or coracles were used by the Aonikenk people, who seem to be these Yacana-cunnees (probably the name given to them by the Northern Tehuelches, as foot Indians). The Selk'nam to the south may also have used floats to trade across the Strait of Magellan, so it is possible that the natives on Penguin Island were Aonikenk or Selk'nam. The "western people" would have been the Key-yus, possibly the Kemenetes in Kaesay. Mountains separated them from the Aonikenk.

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

Homo erectus and humans (part 1)

 
Homo erectus in America: this is the theme I will be posting about in my next entries. I believe that our distant and ancient relative may be a reasonable, plausible, logical explanation for several Patagonian cryptids: the giant bellicose Tirenmen and Patagonian Giants and probably the "hairy men" found in the deepest forests such as the ape men at Taitao, Chile.

With this in mind, I began reading about fossils, remains and genetic clues that may prove (or disprove) that H. erectus reached America.

H. erectus genes survive in modern humans

In 2005, Daniel Garrigan and a group of colleagues of the University of Arizona have studied a very specific region of the X chromosome* known as RRM2P4, and found that if has a great variability between humans from different parts of the world. [1]

* The X chromosome is one of the two sex chromosomes in humans (the other is the Y chromosome). Men have an X and a Y (XY), while women carry two X (XX).

To do this they sampled about 570 people, in a group that included Africans, Europeans (Dutch, Italians), Melanesians, Chinese, Japanese, and Central Asians. Their findings are surprising:

The presence of this basal lineage exclusively in Asia results in higher nucleotide diversity among non-Africans than among Africans. A global survey of a single-nucleotide polymorphism that is diagnostic for the basal, Asian lineage in 570 individuals shows that it occurs at frequencies up to 53% in south China, whereas only one of 177 surveyed Africans carries this archaic lineage. [1]

Clearly RRM2P4 is “not African”.

The cause of this difference is an ancient genetic split, and after statistical analysis, Garrigan et al concluded that all these different forms of RRM2P4 share a common “ancestor” dating back to about two million years ago.

This is roughly when our ancestor Homo erectus moved out of Africa and migrated to Asia. Additionally, the oldest form of this RRM2P4 is not African, but Asian, where it is still found.

According to Cox, H. erectus may have still been alive in Asia some 30,000 years ago, and thus could have had plenty of time to meet, intermingle (i.e. mate) with modern humans H. sapiens, and share their genes with us.

In the words of Garrigan’s team:

It is possible that the divergent, […] may be the result of recent admixture between two divergent populations; that is, the expanding anatomically modern human population and Homo erectus. [1]

No erectus, just humans

However, those that disagree, say that this is no proof of mating with H. erectus, actually the same differences between the RRM2P4 between humans could have appeared without any external intervention and that these people who have them are “outliers”, the “tips” of a normal distribution (remember statistics? Gauss’ bell?, well, there is a small but likely chance that people have unusual genes not shared by others).

Another option is that those having the “Asian” kind of RRM2P4 originated in Africa, and those that migrated to Asia survived, passing on their genes to their descendants while those left behind in Africa died out.


Both of these options were also recognized by Garrigan et al: “It is possible that the divergent, basal lineage was carried out of Africa and subsequently lost in Africa and/or increased in frequency in Asia by genetic drift.”[1].


More evidence for an Eurasian "melting pot"

A group led by Etienne Patin has looked into the The human N-acetyltransferase genes, of which two varieties exist: NAT1 and NAT2 and found evidence to support the RRM2P4 findings:

An alternative and most likely scenario to explain our data is a demographic event such as ancient population structure. A number of studies have recently reported gene genealogies that present not only unexpectedly old coalescent times (∼2 MYA) but also long basal branches [...]
Our observations at NAT1, together with these studies, further support the view that some diversity in the genome of modern humans may have persisted from a structured ancestral population [...]
In addition, NAT1*11A appears to be absent in sub-Saharan Africa, [...]
Therefore, the observation that the NAT1 gene tree is rooted in Eurasia questions the geographic location of such a structured ancestral population (Takahata et al. 2001). The origins of NAT1*11A could thus be placed either in sub-Saharan Africa, from where it must have subsequently disappeared, or in Eurasia. Should the latter be the case, the NAT1 gene tree is at odds with the commonly accepted replacement hypothesis (Lewin 1987) and is more parsimoniously explained by the occurrence of partial hybridization between modern humans expanding from Africa and preexisting hominids in Eurasia. [2]

In plain English, the gene is not found in sub-Saharan Africa so if it originated in Africa, it died out there. It is found in Asia, it is old (approx. 2 million years old - roughly the "age" of H. erectus). It is likely that modern humans received it due to "hybridization" (i.e. mating) with "preexisting hominids in Eurasia" (i.e. H. erectus).

The question is open.

I have been trying to find data on RRM2P4 in Amerindians and particularly in Patagonian natives, but have not found anything. If H. erectus had moved into America his genes would also be found there, if and when he had time to mate with humans before we exterminated them.
Lets take a look at the Patagonian's genome and see what it tells us.


Sources

[1] Daniel Garrigan, Zahra Mobasher, Tesa Severson, Jason A. Wilder and Michael F. Hammer, (2005). Evidence for Archaic Asian Ancestry on the Human X Chromosome. Molecular Biology and Evolution, Vol. 22, Issue 2, pp. 189-192. Feb. 2005.
[2] Etienne Patin et al, (2006). Deciphering the Ancient and Complex Evolutionary History of Human Arylamine N-Acetyltransferase Genes. Am J Hum Genet. 2006 March; 78(3): 423–436.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall © 

The Tiremenen giants

 

Tiremenen Indians in Southern Patagonia. Detail of Map. From [1]

The map above [1] by de Moussy, dated 1865, shows on Brunswick Peninsula, just south of Punta Arenas (Chile), a caption stating "Ins. Tiremenen" or Tiremenen Indians.

What is so special about them? Well, they were said to be giants.

These were first described by Dutch Admiral Oliver van Noort in 1599 as “savages of a gigantic stature”[2] who told him that not all Patagonian natives were gigantic, but only one nation out of the five that lived there, the Tiremenen. This apparently happened at the Strait of Magellan.

These Tiremenen were “gigantic people […] who were continually making war upon the other nations”.[3] (I mentioned them in my post on the Patagon Giants).

I had not been able to find any other references to regarding this name until now, and in the mid 1860s. The interesting thing is that the Aonikenk Tehuelche referred to a mysterious people living in that area, but they used another name, not Tiremenen, but Awurwur, I will write about them in my next post.

Sources.

[1] Carte de la Patagonie et des archipels de la Terre de Feu, des Malouines et des cotes occidentales jusqu'au Golfe de Reloncavi. By Dr. V. Martin de Moussy 1865. Engraved by L. Kautz, r. Bonaparte 82 - Paris. Paris, Imp. Lemercier, r. de Seine 57. (Paris Librairie de Firmin Didot Freres, Fils et Cie., 1873).
Online Map Here.
[2] FitzRoy, R., (1839). Appendix v.ii. pp. 102.
[3] Hawkesworth, J., (1773). Account of the Voyages... the Southern Hemisphere. London: Cadell. v.i.: 12+

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia

2010 International Year of Biodiversity Copyright 2009-2010 by Austin Whittall ©