Turtle Island and the Tradition of GiantsTurtle Island and the Tradition of Giants

This book explores Indigenous oral traditions, myths, and early historical accounts to examine the idea of an ancient North American civilization and a people often described in legend as "giants" or the "Tall Ones." Ross Hamilton draws on Native stories, missionary writings, and Indigenous scholarship to reconstruct a vision of Turtle Island's deep past, suggesting that complex societies may have existed long before European contact. Alongside these narratives, the book looks at how Indigenous knowledge has been interpreted--or sometimes dismissed--by mainstream institutions and archaeology. It brings together myth, cultural memory, and historical speculation to question how history is recorded and who gets to tell it.