The Patagones were a legendary tribe of native giants that Ferdinand Magellan and his crew claimed to have seen while exploring South America in the 1520s. Pigafetta , the reporter who accompanied Magellan, wrote in his diary about natives twice a normal man's height.

"with wide open eyes the crew is watching how this giant is emptying an entire bucket of water with a single gulp and subsequently stuffing in his mouth a full basket of rusk as it was just a nutmeg ..."

Magellan especially noticed their large feet. They called them "PATAGÃO", which means "Bigfoot". Their land was named Patagonia, or "Land of the Bigfeet" in one version of the story. The name stuck.

In 1579, Sir Francis Drake's ship chaplain, Francis Fletcher, wrote about meeting very tall Patagonians.

In the 1590s, Anthonie Knivet claimed he had seen dead bodies 12 feet long, in Patagonia.

In 1766, a rumor leaked out that the crew of the Dolphin, Commodore John Byron's vessel, had seen a tribe of nine-foot tall natives in South America. The official report said the Patagonians were only 6' 6" tall. This tribe may have been the Tehuelches . Later writers consider the Patagonian giants to be a hoax.

• The Patagonian Giants