Daniel Cajanus
Daniel Cajanus (* 1704 in Paltamo ; † February 27, 1749 in Haarlem ) was one of the tallest people of his time with a body length of about 234 centimeters .
origin
Daniel Cajanus was born in Paldamo, which was Swedish at the time and is now Paltamo in Finland. His father, Anders Cajanus, was a clergyman and came from a respected family. One of his ancestors was the Admiral Nils Svensson von Hevonpää, who took the name Gyllenhierta under Erik XIV . One of the admiral's grandsons, Anders Eriksson Gyllenhierta, became governor of the province of Kajana ; three of his sons named themselves Cajanus after this province. Another son of the governor, Jeremias Gyllenhierta, waived this name change. Jeremias Gyllenhierta became a magistrate in Paldamo, as did his eldest son Alexander. His second son, Anders, who was to become the father of the giant Daniel, called himself Cajanus like many of his relatives. Anders Cajanus married the daughter of a colleague, Anna Sculptorius, with whom he had six sons and two daughters. Although Anders Cajanus was removed from office in 1710 - among other things, he had attached pagan amulets to his fishing nets to influence the catch - Daniel Cajanus received a solid school education.
Life
Daniel Cajanus must have left his homeland around 1723. According to an old tradition, he first went to the court of Friedrich Wilhelm I in Prussia to join his Tall Boy , but was rejected because he was too large: he would have towered over the other soldiers by a head. During this time his portrait is said to have been painted and hung in a picture gallery in Potsdam . After a bizarre and illegal competition in which a man is said to have died, Daniel Cajanus is said to have fled Prussia.
However, these reports are not secured. On the other hand, it can be assumed that Cajanus stayed at the court of King August II of Poland for a while and belonged to the Polish cavalry , which is why he often wore his Polish uniform later on.
August II died in 1733. Daniel Cajanus may have traveled to Germany, Holland or other European countries before appearing in London in early 1734 . There he first appeared at the Drury Lane Theater in the play Cupid and Psyche . Even after his various appearances on stage, he stayed in London and showed himself for money. The success also attracted one of his brothers to London, who also appeared on the stage. He played the Captain Bully in the play Britannia and was quite successful with it. London actor John Rich also tried to profit from Cajanus' popularity and played a gigantic sister of Daniel Cajanus in a burlesque .
During his time in London, Daniel Cajanus was painted twice by Enoch Seeman . While one of these paintings is now in private hands, the other has been in the Finnish National Museum in Helsinki since 1975 .
After his first visit to London, Daniel Cajanus settled in Amsterdam for a long time . He lived there in the Blauw Jan , a well-known establishment where curio dealers and experts in exotic animals used to meet. In 1735, Daniel Cajanus exhibited at the Hôtel de la Porte Royale in Paris for fifteen days and was also used by Louis XV. received, but his permanent quarters from 1735 to 1741 was the Blauw Jan, where he used to sit in front of the fireplace and play chess . In addition to the Swedish giant, Evert Metz, the owner of the Blauw Jan, also showed other “exotics” such as small stature, Eskimos , Siamese twins etc. In 1737 the Blauw Jan was taken over by the Bergmeyer couple, which apparently wasn't too big in Cajanus' life Changes resulted.
During his time in Amsterdam, Daniel Cajanus also tried his hand at lending money, but had a lot of bad luck in this profession. In October 1741 he therefore concluded another contract, according to which he had to show himself for money in London; a tour to Oxford and other cities followed. In 1742 he was presented as a case of gigantism in the Royal Society . At that time he was examined by, among others, James Douglas , James Parsons and William Nourse . At that time, Cajanus spread the lie that he was a brother of the giant Mr. Cajanus, who appeared in London in 1734; however, it quickly became known that they were one and the same person.
During his second stay in London, Cajanus had contact with Thomas Boreman , who published the children's book series Gigantick Histories . Boreman also wrote a biography of the giant Cajanus for this series under the title The History of Cajanus, the Swedish Giant, from his Birth to the Present Time . Two copies of this book are preserved in the Houghton Library at Harvard University and in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries in London. Whether the American bibliophile Wilbur Macey Stone, who claimed to have a complete set of the Gigantick Histories, was telling the truth has not yet been established.
In 1745 Daniel Cajanus moved to Haarlem . He bought his way there in the Proveniershuis , a combination of hotel, hospital and old people's home, especially for soldiers. Although he showed up again in the Blauw Jan in 1747 and 1748, the Proveniershuis of Haarlem remained his preferred residence.
Even when it appeared before the Royal Society of London, it was discovered that Daniel Cajanus had health problems. The Dutch writer Jan Marchant , who saw Cajanus in Haarlem, narrated that the giant had difficulty walking. Apparently, in 1746, Cajanus was counting on its end soon, because he drew up a first will in June of that year. In it, a gift was intended for various representatives of the Church - Cajanus was a Lutheran; the rest of the money was to be shared among Cajanus' siblings. Three weeks after the drafting of this last will, however, Cajanus changed his decisions and now favored a few closer friends; Above all, however, he arranged for an elegant burial in the Groot Sint Bavo Kerk .
From 1747 onwards, Cajanus also worked as a writer. He wrote and published two long poems of homage. In March 1748 Daniel Cajanus moved within the Proveniershuis and now lived in number 25. There he died on February 27, 1749 after a long illness. Reports of his demise appeared in the major domestic newspapers as well as in London Magazine . Several thousand people attended the funeral, which was as lavishly designed as he had wished.
After death
Daniel Cajanus had secured a burial site inside St. Bavo's Church to ensure that his body would not be treated unworthily after his death. He feared that grave robbers would steal the body if buried in a cemetery and that its skeleton would end up in a cabinet of curiosities . Therefore, he had also determined that his tombstone was not allowed to wear jewelry or inscriptions. Nevertheless, his tomb passed into the possession of a Hodshon family in the late 18th century - perhaps because he had only secured the right to this burial site for a limited period of time, perhaps also because there were no descendants to intervene. In any case, parts of his skeleton appeared in various museums in Leiden in the 19th century .
Today the pelvis, thigh bones and other parts of his lower extremities are in the Anatomical Museum in Leiden - albeit largely in the form of plaster casts from the 19th century, while nothing is known about the whereabouts of the originals. The Anatomical Museum in Leiden also owns the giant's shoes. Other shoes and a shirt that Cajanus owned are in the Teylers Museum in Haarlem.
Medical
Daniel Cajanus apparently suffered from giant stature caused by a malfunction of the pituitary gland . This condition may have been associated with hypogonadism . The fact that Cajanus' body proportions, especially his strikingly long arms, corresponded to the eunuch type , and his apparently little interest in the opposite sex speak for it.
Giant predispositions were evidently common in Cajanus' family. His sister Agneta, who came to Haarlem after his death to settle estate issues, is portrayed as a strikingly tall woman. A more distant relative, Israel Cajanus, had extremely large hands and feet, and so probably suffered from acromegaly .
The information about Daniel Cajanus' real height varies a little; What seems clear, however, is the fact that it shrank over the course of his life. Investigations of the preserved skeletal parts showed a phenomenon typical of gigantism, which explains this shrinkage: the overproduction of growth hormones leads to a thickening of the cartilage , which is, however, heavily worn down over time. This results in symptoms that are similar to osteoarthritis . The condyles on Cajanus' preserved bones show severe signs of wear and tear, which explains both his loss of size and the problems he had walking in later years.
literature
- Jan Bondeson : The Two-Headed Boy and Other Medical Marvels. Ithaca, New York 2004, ISBN 0-8014-8958-X , pp. 217-236
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cajanus, Daniel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | giant |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1704 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Paldamo |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 27, 1749 |
| Place of death | Haarlem |