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Tall Tales: Anthropometric Measures of Weil-Being in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union, 1821-1960

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Steven L. Hoch
Steven L. Hoch*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Iowa
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Extract

“From the soles of his feet to the roots of his hair, Paul Bunyan split the atmosphere exacdy 12 feet 11 inches. His weight, he told me—and I don't doubt his word for a moment—was 888 pounds.” Together with precise measures of Paul Bunyan's hips, waist, shoulders, thighs, calves, and reach, subsequently detailed, we would, it seems, have a rather comprehensive anthropometric description of this legendary logger. But his companion, Babe the Blue Ox, “was seven axe handles wide between the eyes,” quite a different anthropometric measure indeed. Moreover, “some persons give the measurement as forty-two axe handles and a plug of Star tobacco.” And, we are told, “both figures are correct,” all of which quickly brings us to the heart of the problem, species aside.

Type
Discussion
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 58 , Issue 1 , Spring 1999 , pp. 61 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1999

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