Iroquois Historian Writes of an Ancient Giant Race Born from the "Great Spirit"
David
Cusick, David Cusick was born around 1780, probably on the Oneida reservation in upstate New York. David Cusick’s Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations (1828). This is an early (if not the first) account of Native American history and myth, written and published in English by an Indian. Cusick wrote that among the legends of the
ancient people of the stock, there was a powerful tribe called
Ronnongwetowanca. They were giants, and had a "considerable
habitation." When the Great Spirit made the people, some of them
became giants. After a time, and having endured the outrages of these
giants, it is said that the people banded together, and through the
final force of about 800 warriors, successfully annihilated the
abhorrent Ronnongwetowanca. After that, it was said that there were
no giants anywhere. This was supposed to have happened around 2,500
winters before Columbus discovered America, around 1000 BC.
