CHAPTER 10

ANCIENT GIANTS OF EAST ASIA

What you seek is seeking you.

RUMI

CHINA’S CORRIDOR OF GIANTS

Three undeniable facts about Chinese civilization are: its secluded culture, its enormous landmass, and its vast number of people. The three have a profound effect on the collective knowledge referred to as Chinese history. China is a closed society. A sign of their internal caste system was “The Forbidden City” (now tourist city)—the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties circa 1420, where only royalty and their guests were allowed, much like today’s Buckingham Palace. Hence, the name “Forbidden” given to this vast housing complex built to accommodate emperors and their extended families. Interaction, even within a defined area, was determined by status and wealth. Limited exchange within groups, limited information, and only a small number of the population held the most power. Under communist rule today, China remains no different than it was back then, a closed and strict society.

In ancient times China’s view of the world was from this isolationist perspective, which held that the Chinese empire was the center of global civilization and the emperor the leader of the civilized world, while all others were considered lesser vassals or barbarian invaders. But during the reign of Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141–87 BCE) China began to establish relations among other Asian territories through the envoy Xhang Qian. Qian was given a mission to seek an alliance with the Yuezhi people, an ancient Indo-European tribe of Central Asia, against the Xiongnu, a coalition of nomadic people that included the Huns, and who populated the eastern Asian steppe from the third century BCE to the first century CE. While on the diplomatic mission, Qian was taken prisoner by Huns upon reaching the Hexi Corridor (or Gansu Corridor), an ancient and historical area that extended from northwest central Asia toward the southeast. He was held for ten years before he was able to escape across the Gobi Desert and the Pamirs and arrive at his destination, where the alliance was refused on the grounds it was useless. The distance was too great to be effective.

On the long return home Qian was again captured by Huns and again detained, this time for a year. Through his imprisonment Qian was exposed to the geography and the culture of nearby tribes. He made a second, more extended journey to the western regions and sent further envoys to Daway, Hotan, Da Yuezhi, Anxi (now Iran), Juandu (India), and other countries. While the goal of the original mission of alliance didn’t materialize, Zhang Qian created a network of interconnection with peoples of distant lands that further developed the Hexi Corridor, which eventually became the northern part of the Silk Road. It is in this corridor that the ancient myths and legends of giants and dragons, dinosaurs, and prehistoric bones are to be found.

This distant society of enormous size, separated from the Westernized world geographically and through several languages, has passed down its ancient folklore and myths where truthful historical and cultural information can be found. Among several creation myths it’s interesting that the legend of Pangu1 is familiar to all Chinese people. In this Chinese creation myth, a giant is the source and protagonist. It is an ancient tale. For need of a firm date, historians have credited its origin to author Zu Zheng of the third century CE because he was the first to write it down. The myth, similar to the Bible story of creation, begins with nothing, void, amid which Pangu is born out of a big black egg. He is said to have slept for eighteen thousand years, during which the ying and yang were formed. When he awoke he held the two apart. As he did so he became bigger, stretching the distance between heaven and earth by ten feet per day as he grew. After another eighteen thousand years Pangu died and his body became different parts of the universe, his eyes became the sun and moon, his corpse created Earth, and the parasites that infected his body became humans. It’s ironic that human behavior on its living host planet is of a parasitic nature.¹

Fig. 10.1. Pangu (1897)

In Asian scriptures, legends, and myths, there is plenty of material that gives clues to an era of fifteen-foot-tall giants that once walked those lands. One of the earliest accounts to reach the West came about during the Jesuit missions of the fifteenth century. Needless to say, these missions met with resistance and failure since the Jesuits sought to indoctrinate China in the same way they had colonized and dominated other lands. Size was not an issue for the Jesuits. They’d already encountered huge lands and managed to infiltrate their culture and twist the customs to suit Catholicism just the same. However, the Chinese were different. They were more civilized than Europe. Melchior Nunnez Barreto was one of these Jesuits. He traveled extensively into the Canton Province of China in 1555 and lived among the Chinese. It wasn’t until he was in India that he wrote letters that specifically described the guardians of the gate of Peking as giants. Historically, Chinese emperors at times had giants who served in their personal guard or as archers. Other missionaries such as George Hakeman reported the same thing, and Samuel Purchas in 1625 described seeing a Chinese warrior giant.² To this day, people from that area are taller than most average humans; take for instance Chang Woo Gow, a giant man who was over eight feet tall and who became famous for traveling to England and visiting the royal family in 1860 (see fig. 10.2).

Fig. 10.2. Chang the Chinese giant (Harpers Weekly, 1865)

One of the most fascinating discoveries made early last century was that of a giant mummy enclosed in a large, square coffin that was exhibited at the Aisho exposition in Japan in 1915.³ The mummy was obtained by a Japanese explorer while visiting a Buddhist temple in the province of Kiangsi, and it’s believed to be that of a famous monk who lived in China at the beginning of the Christian era. The mummy is eight feet high, and while this may not sound like much, it was an odd enough size that was impressive for an exhibition.

Today anthropologists have proved that giants really did exist in remote Chinese history. The remains uncovered in areas of southern China and Java give evidence of men whose average height was more than eleven feet tall. In 2003 archaeologist Liao Zhaoyu discovered “long, boat-shaped wooden coffins” in the Xinjiang Uygur province of southern China. Liao was the director of the institute of the Culture of the Western Region at Tarim University in Alar. After the discovery he spoke excitedly with the state news reporter because he believed he had found the remains of the giants talked about in Chinese legends. He called the tomb “Kungang,” which is the ancient name of Alar, and the locals named the sand dunes “The Valley of the Giants.” Liao described to the reporter:

[T]he skeleton of the tallest mummy discovered so far is about 2.3 meters, (2.3 m = 7ft 6³⁵/₆₄ in) and the coffin is about 2.8 meters long (2.8 m = 9ft 2¹⁵/₆₄ in), but medical experts say the man may have been even taller when he was alive: up to 3 inches (7ft 9³⁵/₆₄ in). In addition to features similar to those of ancient Europeans, such as blond hair and high cheekbones, many of the mummies or skeletons have large frames, more than 2 meters tall.⁴

Granted, these mummies aren’t the fifteen-feet-tall guards talked about by the early missionaries, but the Kungang mummies are an indication of people with clearly unusually high stature for the average person of that era. These giants also had golden-colored hair, an unusual trait for the Chinese.

The region is so ancient that even dinosaurs once roamed the Mongolian desert! On September 30, 2016, Professor Shinobu Ishigaki of Okayama University of Science discovered in the Gobi Desert one of the biggest dinosaur footprints that has ever been unearthed.⁵ The dinosaur footprint was found in a geologic layer formed between seventy to ninety million years ago, according to researchers. While this is a dinosaur and not a giant, it is an example of how today, perhaps thanks to technology, there is an ongoing cooperation among cultures in order to bring these and other forthcoming fascinating revelations to light.

GIANT TRACES IN MALAYSIA AND THE PHILIPPINES

In Batu, Maung, in the state of Penang, Malaysia, there is a Chinese temple named Sam Poh Footprint Temple.⁶ The local Chinese fishermen here pay respects to the temple every day before going to sea. The temple was built in 1993, but what’s intriguing about it is that there’s a footprint mark stamped on solid rock that is more than one hundred years old. The size of the footprint is thirty-three inches, and the local people believe the footprint belongs to Sang Gedembai, a giant said to have been strong and feared by the locals. According to one version, a villager who was chopping wood caused a piece to fly into the giant’s eye. The giant ran away terrified, leaving footprints that are still visible today. They call the footprint “Tapak Gedembai” and say this is one of four footprints left by Sang Gedembai. The others are in Pulau island, Aman island, and Bayan Lepans; all are relatively close to the temple in Batu, Maung.

The tribal people of the hinterlands of the Philippines, Agusan, Bohol, and Bukidnon have found ancient skulls with only one eyeball socket, similar to the cyclops, the one-eyed giants popular in Greek mythology. The skulls were found in limestone caves in Mount Palaupau in Bohol, in Sumilao, Bukidnon, and in parts of Agusan. News of the discovery of these giant skulls prompted the National Museum to launch an excavation in Bohol and they also found one such cyclops skull. Archaeologist Rey Santiago, acknowledging the overall age of the bones, said, “Intensive study on the skull showed it belonged to an ancient settler.” However, Santiago said his theory of the one-eye socket was that it could have been caused by a limestone chemical reaction, creating a new eyeball socket: “Human bones and limestone have similar (composition).”⁷ The question with this theory is, why is the eye socket part of the skeleton, and specifically why near the eyes? Why not the cranium?

Not surprisingly, even after the scientific explanation by the archaeologists of the National Museum, the locals continue to maintain that in ancient times there were two races of giants. One was the Kapre, who were thought to be evil, and the other the one-eyed giants who were considered heroes. Ancient folklore claims giants once lived in the plains of Central and Northern Mindanao, and according to a popular legend in Bukidnon, Agyo was one of those giants. The legend talks about Agyo fighting against the Spanish conquistadors. The tribe worships the figure of Agyo and say they are keeping the bones in a sacred cave.

JAPAN’S GIANT ARTIFACTS

The longest ancient Japanese sword ever unearthed has been rescued from a sixth-century underground tomb on Japan’s southernmost island of Kyushu in the Miyazaki Prefecture.⁸ The sword in its remaining state is approximately 142 centimeters, but according to researchers, once it is fully restored its estimated length would reach well over 150 centimeters [five feet] long. It matches other Japanese giant artifacts, which used to be displayed at the Tokyo National Museum before being buried deep somewhere in the museum’s basement.

Artist and Japanese historian Brian Snoddy writes about these giant artifacts after seeing them for the first time in 2002:

Although I had visited before, I was now shocked at what I saw, and was dumbfounded that I had not noticed these things before. I saw several objects that were so large in proportion to Japanese people at that time, they can only be described as “giant artifacts.” The first objects to receive my attention were some spear points. They were included in a display of 12 objects altogether. Four of the objects were KA blades. A KA is a type of pole axe, where the spear-like blade was attached to the side of a shaft, and used in a chopping and hooking fashion. There were 2 spear points so large that it made me do a double take. They were both double the size of the next largest object in the display, and measured about 3 feet in length. . . . All of these objects are about 3 times the size of regular sword fittings. Most swords of this time were single-edged, straight swords that carried a cutting-blade length of 2 to 3 feet. However these “giant” sword parts could have easily supported a cutting blade length of 6 to 8 feet. Figure number 5 of the illustration, in my opinion, shows one of the most impressive pieces of the “giant artifacts” in the museum. It is an iron shield about 5 feet tall. Made of several riveted iron plates, it is a magnificent piece of craftsmanship. In the display, this shield is seated between 2 suits of armor. The armors are so small in comparison, the shield looks like a large door. The weight would be anyone’s guess, but I suspect at least 30 pounds. How a 5 foot person could carry this thing around during hand-to-hand combat is beyond me . . . I also could not imagine anyone under 8 feet high wearing these things either. As of 2009, my last visit to Japan, all the remaining objects were still there. However, I have not heard nor read anything from any museum worker or any Japanese historian who can or has explained the giant nature of these artifacts. They are simply ignored.⁹

On a misty fall morning in the Chinese village of Pingyan, a group of travelers came across a giant footprint measuring 57 centimeters [almost two feet] long, 20 centimeters wide, and 3 centimeters deep.¹⁰ More of these giant footprints can be found thousands of miles away in the ancient lands of mystical India, a country with an astonishing history and fabulous tales of ancient giants.