THE PYGMIES. Nubian stories. Ancient classical allusions. Homer,
Herodotus, Aristotle. My introduction to Pygmies. Adimokoo the
Akka. Close questioning. War-dance. Visits from many Akka.
Mummery’s Pygmy corps. My adopted Pygmy. Nsewue’s life and
death. Dwarf races of Africa. Accounts of previous authors:
Battel, Dapper, Kölle. Analogy of Akka with Bushmen. Height and
complexion. Hair and beards. Shape of the body. Awkward gait.
Graceful hands. Form of skull. Size of eyes and ears. Lips.
Gesticulations. Dialect inarticulate. Dexterity and cunning.
Munza’s protection of the race.
Whenever two or three Egyptians are found in company, the chances
are very great that their conversation, if it could be overheard,
would be found to relate to the market prices of the day, or to some
fluctuations in the state of trade. With the romantic sons of the
Nubian Nile-valley the case would be very different. Ample opportunity
of making this comparison was continually afforded me during the long
evenings which I passed in my transit upon the waters of the Upper
Nile; and even now I can recall with vivid interest the hours when,
from my detached compartment on the stern of the boat, I could, without
being observed, listen to the chatter by which the Nubians on the
voyage beguiled their time. They seemed to talk with eagerness of all
the wonders of the world. Some would expatiate upon the splendours of
the City of the Caliphs, and others enlarge upon the accomplishment of
the Suez Canal and the huge ships of the Franks; but the stories that
ever commanded the most rapt attention were those which treated of war
and of the chase; or, beyond all, such as described the wild beasts
and still wilder natives of Central Africa.
[Sidenote: NUBIAN TALES.]
It was not with stories in the sense of ‘The Thousand and One Nights’
that this people entertained each other; neither did they recite their
prolix histories as though they were reading at the celebration of
Ramadan in Cairo, amidst the halls where night by night they abandoned
themselves to the enjoyment of their coffee. These things I had now
long ago left far behind; however, occasionally, as the expiring strain
of Arabia, I might still hear the song of Abd-el-Kader the sheikh, or
of Aboo Zeyd the hero. My whole style of living seemed now to partake
of the character of an Odyssey; it appeared to be adapted for the
embellishment of an Homeric episode, and such an episode in truth was
already awaiting me.
Of the Nile itself, which had the appearance, day by day, of becoming
wider as farther and farther we progressed towards the south, they
affirmed that it issued from the ocean by which Africa was girt; they
would declare that we were on the route which would lead us, like the
cranes, to fight with the Pygmies; ever and again they would speak of
Cyclops, of Automoli, or of “Pygmies,” but by whatever name they called
them, they seemed never to weary of recurring to them as the theme of
their talk. Some there were who averred that with their own eyes they
had seen this people of immortal myth; and these—men as they were
whose acquaintance might have been coveted by Herodotus and envied by
Aristotle—were none other than my own servants.
It was a fascinating thing to hear them confidently relate that in the
land to the south of the Niam-niam country there dwelt people who never
grew to more than three feet in height, and who wore beards so long
that they reached to their knees.[29] It was affirmed of them that,
armed with strong lances, they would creep underneath the belly of an
elephant and dexterously kill the beast, managing their own movements
so adroitly that they could not be reached by the creature’s trunk.
Their services in this way were asserted to contribute very largely to
the resources of the ivory traders. The name by which they are known is
the “Shebber-digintoo,” which implies the growth of the disproportioned
beard.
I listened on. The more, however, that I pondered silently over the
stories that they involuntarily disclosed—the more I studied the
traditions to which they referred—so much the more I was perplexed
to explain what must either be the creative faculty or the derived
impressions of the Nubians. Whence came it that they could have gained
any knowledge at all of what Homer had sung? How did it happen that
they were familiar at all with the material which Ovid and Juvenal, and
Nonnus and Statius worked into their verse, giving victory at one time
to the cranes, and at another to the Pygmies themselves?
My own ideas of Pygmies were gathered originally only from books,
but the time seemed now to have come when their existence should be
demonstrated in actual life.
[Sidenote: CLASSICAL WITNESS TO PYGMIES.]
Legends of Pygmies had mingled themselves already with the earliest
surviving literature of the Greeks, and the poet of the Iliad, it will
be remembered, mentions them as a race that had long been known:—
“To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
With noise, and order, through the midway sky;
To pygmy nations wounds and death they bring,
And all the war descends upon the wing.”
_Pope’s_ ‘Homer’s Iliad,’ iii. 6-10.
But not the classic _poets_ alone; sober historians and precise
geographers have either adopted the poetic substance of the tradition
or have endeavoured, by every kind of conjecture, to confirm its
accuracy. Nothing, for instance, can be more definite than the
statement of Herodotus about the Nasamonians after they had crossed
the Libyan deserts: “They at length saw some trees growing on a plain,
and having approached they began to gather the fruit that grew on the
trees; and while they were gathering it some diminutive men, less
than men of middle stature, came up and seized them and carried them
away.”[30] The testimony of Aristotle is yet more precise when he says
plainly: “The cranes fly to the lakes above Egypt, from which flows
the Nile; there dwell the Pygmies, and this is no fable but the pure
truth; there, just as we are told, do men and horses of diminutive size
dwell in caves;”[31] a quotation this, which would seem to imply that
the learned Stagyrite was in possession of some exact and positive
information, otherwise he would not have ventured to insist so strongly
upon the truth of his assertion. Very likely, however, we should be
justified in surmising that Aristotle mentions cranes and Pygmies
together only because he had the passage of the Iliad floating in
his memory, and because he was aware of the fact that cranes do pass
the winter in Africa. For my own part, I should be inclined to doubt
whether cranes ever reach the Victoria and Albert Nyanza; on the Red
Sea I saw them in latitude 20° N., and Brehm observed them in Sennaar;
on the White Nile, however, and farther inland, I only found the native
Balearic crane, which could hardly have been the species mentioned by
Aristotle. But whether cranes were really capable of fighting with
Pygmies or not, or whether (as Pauer attempts to prove) the Homeric
tradition was derived from ancient Egyptian symbolism, and so was an
emblematic representation of the cranes battling with the falling
waters of the Nile stream, this is now immaterial; all that concerns
us, with regard to the present topic, is that three or four centuries
before the Christian era the Greeks were aware of the existence of a
people inhabiting the districts about the sources of the Nile, who were
remarkable for their stunted growth. The circumstance may warrant us,
perhaps, in employing the designation of “pygmy,” not for men literally
a span long, but in the sense of Aristotle, for the dwarf races of
Equatorial Africa.
Throughout the time that I had resided in the Seribas of the Bongo
territory, of course I had frequent opportunities of enlarging my
information, and I was continually hearing such romantic stories that
I became familiarised in a way with the belief that the men about
me had really been eye-witnesses of the circumstances they related.
Those who had been attached to the Niam-niam expeditions, whenever
they described the variety of wonders about the splendour of the
courts of the cannibal kings, never omitted to mention the dwarfs who
filled the office of court buffoons; every one outvying another in the
fantastic embellishment of the tales they told. The general impression
that remained upon my mind was that these must be some extraordinary
specimens of pathological phenomena that had been retained by the kings
as natural curiosities. The instance did not escape my recollection
that Speke had given the description and portrait of a dwarf, Kimenya,
with whom he had become acquainted at the court of Kamrasi;[32] but
that there could be a whole series of tribes whose average height
was far below an average never really found a reception in my
understanding, until at the court of Munza the positive evidence was
submitted to my eyes.
Several days elapsed after my taking up my residence by the palace of
the Monbuttoo king without my having a chance to get a view of the
dwarfs, whose fame had so keenly excited my curiosity. My people,
however, assured me that they had seen them. I remonstrated with them
for not having secured me an opportunity of seeing for myself, and
for not bringing them into contact with me. I obtained no other reply
but that the dwarfs were too timid to come. After a few mornings my
attention was arrested by a shouting in the camp, and I learned that
Mohammed had surprised one of the Pygmies in attendance upon the king,
and was conveying him, in spite of a strenuous resistance, straight to
my tent. I looked up, and _there_, sure enough, was the strange little
creature, perched upon Mohammed’s right shoulder, nervously hugging his
head, and casting glances of alarm in every direction. Mohammed soon
deposited him in the seat of honour. A royal interpreter was stationed
at his side. Thus, at last, was I able veritably to feast my eyes upon
a living embodiment of the myths of some thousand years!
[Sidenote: ADIMOKOO THE AKKA.]
Eagerly, and without loss of time, I proceeded to take his portrait.
I pressed him with innumerable questions, but to ask for information
was an easier matter altogether than to get an answer. There was the
greatest difficulty in inducing him to remain at rest, and I could
only succeed by exhibiting a store of presents. Under the impression
that the opportunity before me might not occur again, I bribed the
interpreter to exercise his influence to pacify the little man, to set
him at his ease, and to induce him to lay aside any fear of me that he
might entertain. Altogether we succeeded so well that in a couple of
hours the Pygmy had been measured, sketched, feasted, presented with
a variety of gifts, and subjected to a minute catechism of searching
questions.
His name was Adimokoo. He was the head of a small colony, which was
located about half a league from the royal residence. With his own lips
I heard him assert that the name of his nation was Akka, and I further
learnt that they inhabit large districts to the south of the Monbuttoo
between lat. 2° and 1° N. A portion of them are subject to the
Monbuttoo king, who, desirous of enhancing the splendour of his court
by the addition of any available natural curiosities, had compelled
several families of the Pygmies to settle in the vicinity.
My Niam-niam servants, sentence by sentence, interpreted to me
everything that was said by Adimokoo to the Monbuttoo interpreter, who
was acquainted with no dialects but those of his own land.
In reply to my question put to Adimokoo as to where his country was
situated, pointing towards the S.S.E., he said, “Two days’ journey and
you come to the village of Mummery; on the third day you will reach the
River Nalobe; the fourth day you arrive at the first of the villages of
the Akka.”
“What do you call the rivers of your country?”
“They are the Nalobe, the Namerikoo, and the Eddoopa.”
“Have you any river as large as the Welle?”
“No; ours are small rivers, and they all flow into the Welle.”
“Are you all one people, or are you divided into separate tribes?”
To this inquiry Adimokoo replied by a sudden gesture, as if to indicate
the vastness of their extent, and commenced enumerating the tribes one
after another. “There are the Navapukah, the Navatipeh, the Vabingisso,
the Avadzubeh, the Avagowumba, the Bandoa, the Mamomoo, and the
Agabundah.”
“How many kings?” I asked.
“Nine,” he said; but I could only make out the names of Galeema,
Beddeh, Tindaga, and Mazembe.
My next endeavour was directed to discover whether he was acquainted
in any way with the dwarf races that have been mentioned by previous
travellers, and whose homes I presumed would be somewhere in this part
of Africa. I asked him whether he knew the Malagilagé, who, according
to the testimony of Escayrac de Lauture, live to the south of Baghirmy.
My question, however, only elicited a comical gesture of bewilderment
and a vague inquiry, “What is that?” Nor did I succeed at all better
in securing any recognition of the tribes of the Kenkob or the Betsan,
which are mentioned by Kölle. Equally unavailing, too, were all my
efforts to obtain answers of any precision to the series of questions
which I invented, taking my hints from Petermann and Hassenstein’s map
of Central Africa, so that I was obliged to give up my geographical
inquiries in despair and turn to other topics. But in reality there did
not occur any subject whatever on which I obtained any information that
seems to me to be worth recording. At length, after having submitted
so long to my curious and persistent questionings, the patience of
Adimokoo was thoroughly exhausted, and he made a frantic leap in his
endeavour to escape from the tent. Surrounded, however, by a crowd of
inquisitive Bongo and Nubians, he was unable to effect his purpose, and
was compelled, against his will, to remain for a little longer. After
a time a gentle persuasion was brought to bear, and he was induced to
go through some of the characteristic evolutions of his war-dances. He
was dressed, like the Monbuttoo, in a rokko-coat and plumed hat, and
was armed with a miniature lance as well as with a bow and arrow. His
height I found to be about 4 feet 10 inches, and this I reckon to be
the average measurement of his race.
[Sidenote: THE PYGMY’S WAR-DANCE.]
Although I had repeatedly been astonished at witnessing the war-dances
of the Niam-niam, I confess that my amazement was greater than ever
when I looked upon the exhibition which the Pygmy afforded. In spite
of his large, bloated belly and short bandy legs—in spite of his age,
which, by the way, was considerable—Adimokoo’s agility was perfectly
marvellous, and I could not help wondering whether cranes would ever
be likely to contend with such creatures. The little man’s leaps and
attitudes were accompanied by such lively and grotesque varieties of
expression that the spectators shook again and held their sides with
laughter. The interpreter explained to the Niam-niam that the Akka jump
about in the grass like grasshoppers, and that they are so nimble that
they shoot their arrows into an elephant’s eye and drive their lances
into their bellies. The gestures of the Akka, to which I shall have
occasion again to refer, always reminded me of the pictures given by
travellers to represent the Bushmen of the south.
[Illustration: Bomby the Akka.]
Adimokoo returned home loaded with presents, I made him understand that
I should be glad to see all his people, and promised that they should
lose nothing by coming.
On the following day I had the pleasure of a visit from two of the
younger men. I had the opportunity of sketching their likenesses, and
as one of the portraits has been preserved it is inserted here.
After they had once got over their alarm, some or other of the Akka
came to me almost every day. As exceptional cases, I observed that
some individuals were of a taller stature; but upon investigation I
always ascertained that this was the result of intermarriage with the
Monbuttoo amongst whom they resided. My sudden departure from Munza’s
abode interrupted me completely in my study of this interesting people,
and I was compelled to leave before I had fully mastered the details
of their peculiarities. I regret that I never chanced to see one of
the Akka women, and still more that my visit to their dwellings was
postponed from day to day until the opportunity was lost altogether.
[Sidenote: COLLISION WITH THE AKKA.]
I am not likely to forget a _rencontre_ which I had with several
hundred Akka warriors, and could very heartily wish that the
circumstances had permitted me to give a pictorial representation of
the scene. King Munza’s brother Mummery, who was a kind of viceroy
in the southern section of his dominions, and to whom the Akka were
tributary, was just returning to the court from a successful campaign
against the black Momvoo. Accompanied by a large band of soldiers,
amongst whom was included a corps of Pygmies, he was conveying the bulk
of the booty to his royal master. It happened on the day in question
that I had been making a long excursion with my Niam-niam servants, and
had heard nothing of Mummery’s arrival. Towards sunset I was passing
along the extensive village on my return to my quarters, when, just
as I reached the wide open space in front of the royal halls, I found
myself surrounded by what I conjectured must be a crowd of impudent
boys, who received me with a sort of bravado fight. They pointed their
arrows towards me, and behaved generally in a manner at which I could
not help feeling somewhat irritated, as it betokened unwarrantable
liberty and intentional disrespect. My misapprehension was soon
corrected by the Niam-niam people about me. “They are Tikkitikki,”[33]
said they; “you imagine that they are boys, but in truth they are
men; nay, men that can fight.” At this moment a seasonable greeting
from Mummery drew me off from any apprehension on my part and from
any further contemplation of the remarkable spectacle before me. In
my own mind I resolved that I would minutely inspect the camp of the
new-comers on the following morning; but I had reckoned without my
host: before dawn Mummery and his contingent of Pygmies had taken their
departure, and thus,
“Like the baseless fabric of a vision,”
this people, so near and yet so unattainable, had vanished once more
into the dim obscurity of the innermost continent.
Anxious, in my contact with this mythical race, to lose or pass over
nothing which might be of interest, I very diligently made memoranda
after every interview that I had with the Akka. I measured six
full-grown individuals, none of whom much exceeded 4 feet 10 inches
in height, but, unfortunately, all my notes and many of my drawings
perished in the fire.
A brief account may now be given of the little Pygmy that I carried off
and kept with me during the remainder of my wanderings till I was again
in Nubia, who for a year and a half became my companion, thriving under
my care and growing almost as affectionate as a son.
I have already explained in a previous chapter the circumstances under
which the little man came into my keeping. I succeeded tolerably
well in alleviating the pain of the lad’s parting from all his old
associations by providing him with all the good living and bestowing
upon him all the attention that lay in my power. To reconcile him to
his lot I broke through an old rule. I allowed him to be my constant
companion at my meals—an exception that I never made in favour of any
other native of Africa. Making it my first care that he should be
healthy and contented, I submitted without a murmur to all the uncouth
habits peculiar to his race. In Khartoom at last I dressed him up till
he looked like a little pasha. The Nubians could not in the least
enter into my infatuation, nor account for my partiality towards the
strange-looking lad. When he walked along the thoroughfares at my side
they pointed to him, and cried, with reference to his bright-brown
complexion, “See, there goes the son of the Khavaga!” Apparently they
overlooked the fact of the boy’s age, and seemed not to be in any way
familiarised with the tradition of the Pygmies. In the Seribas all
along our route the little fellow excited a still greater astonishment.
[Sidenote: NSEWUE’S DEATH.]
Notwithstanding all my assiduity and attention, I am sorry to record
that Nsewue died in Berber, from a prolonged attack of dysentery,
originating not so much in any change of climate, or any alteration in
his mode of living, as in his immoderate excess in eating, a propensity
which no influence on my part was sufficient to control.
During the last ten months of his life, my _protégé_ did not make any
growth at all. I think I may therefore presume that his height would
never have exceeded 4 feet 7 inches, which was his measurement at the
time of his death. The portrait on the following page may be accepted
as a faithful representation of one who was a fair type of his race.
Altogether very few examples of the Akka came under my notice; but so
ample was my opportunity of studying in detail the peculiarities of
this individual specimen, that, in the course of any observations that
follow, I shall feel justified in referring to Nsewue, when the rest of
my experience furnishes no other illustration.
[Illustration: Nsewue the Akka.]
[Sidenote: THE OBONGO.]
The Akka would appear to be a branch of that series of dwarf races
which, exhibiting all the characteristics of an aboriginal stock,
extend along the equator entirely across Africa. Whatever travellers
have penetrated far into the interior of the continent have furnished
abundant testimony as to the mere fact of the existence of tribes of
singularly diminutive height; whilst their accounts are nearly all
coincident in representing that these dwarf races differ in hardly
anything from the surrounding nations excepting only in their size. It
would be entirely an error to describe them as dwarfs either in the
sense of the ancient myths, or in the way of _lusus naturæ_, such as
are exhibited as curiosities amongst ourselves; most of the accounts,
moreover, that have been given, concur in the statement that these
undersized people are distinguished from their neighbours by a redder
or brighter shade of complexion; but they differ very considerably in
the reports they make about the growth of the hair. The only traveller,
I believe, before myself that has come into contact with any section
of this race is Du Chaillu, who, in the territory of the Ashango,
discovered a wandering tribe of hunters called Obongo, and took the
measurements of a number of them. He describes these Obongo as “not
ill-shaped,” and as having skins of a pale, yellow-brown, somewhat
lighter than their neighbours; he speaks of their having short heads
of hair, but a great growth of hair about their bodies. Their average
height he affirms to be 4 feet 7 inches. In every particular but
the abundance of hair about the person, this description is quite
applicable to the Akka. According to Battel,[34] there was a nation of
dwarfs, called the Matimbos or Dongo, to the north-east of the land of
Tobbi, which lies to the north of the Sette River, and consequently in
the same district as that in which Du Chaillu discovered the Obongo.
Portuguese authorities, moreover, quite at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, contain a distinct reference to a dwarf nation
called Bakka-bakka. Dapper furnishes corresponding information on
the same subject; and all that he relates about the dwarfs coincides
very accurately with what is known about the Akka, whose name had
penetrated even at that date to the western equatorial coasts. It is to
be understood that districts were known by the name of the people who
chanced to be occupying them, and not by any permanent name of the soil
itself. After Dapper, in his compilation, had told the history of the
Yagas, who is said in olden time to have spread fear and destruction
as far as the coasts of the Loango, a hundred miles away, so that it
took three months for caravans to come and go, he proceeds to state
that the greater part of the ivory was obtained still farther inland,
and was brought from a people who were tributary to the great Makoko,
and called Mimos or Bakke-bakke. “These little men,” he writes,[35]
“are stated by the Yagas to have the power of making themselves
invisible, and consequently can slay an elephant with little trouble.”
And this dexterity in killing elephants seems to be implied in another
place,[36] where, in describing the court of Loango and the dwarfs
who took up their positions before the throne, he says, “the negroes
affirm that there is a wilderness inhabited by those dwarfs, and where
there are many elephants; they are generally called Bakke-bakke, but
sometimes Mimos.” Farther on again[37] he speaks of the empire of the
great Makoko (described as lying beyond the kingdom of Kongo, and some
200 miles or more inland, north of the River Zaire), and proceeds to
specify that “in the wilderness of this country there are to be found
the little people that have been mentioned before, who carry on the
greater part of the ivory trade throughout the kingdom.” Besides this
it is expressly stated that the ivory was bartered for the salt of
Loango. Now in none of the countries that I visited in Central Africa
was either sea salt or common salt ever an article of commerce, but
each separate nation produced its own supply from ashes: but whilst I
was at the court of Munza I learnt from the Khartoomers who had settled
there that, as matter of fact, king Munza did receive tribute from the
Akka in the shape of “_real good salt_,” which was brought from the
far south. Taken in connection with Dapper’s account, this statement
would seem to justify the hypothesis that even at this day there may
be commercial transactions between the very heart of Africa, where the
Akka dwell, and the western coasts.
[Sidenote: THE KENKOB.]
Still more demonstrative than any reports about Matimbos
and Bakke-bakke, as proving the identity of my Akka with the
abnormally-formed folks previously named, is the evidence that is
furnished by the natives of the Upper Shary districts. Escayrac de
Lauture[38] was told of a Lake Koeidabo, which was said to be a two
months’ journey to the S.S.E. of Masena, the capital of Baghirmy, and
to unite the source-affluents of the Shary just at the spot where,
according to the Monbuttoo, the Welle widens into a boundless expanse
of water. Somewhat to the west of this lake, he was informed, were the
dwellings of the Mala-gilageh (literally, men with tails), who were of
small stature and reddish complexion, or, as the Africans expressed
it, “_white_,” and covered with long hair. The fabulous tails must be
supposed to be added by a kind of poetic licence, or as a concession
to the belief in marvellous stories that were rife throughout the
Soudan. It may with much probability be assumed that the same districts
in Central Africa must be the homes of the Kenkob and Betsan, of
whom Kölle,[39] residing in Sierra Leone, heard reports from those
who professed to have actually seen them. In these reports the great
lake was very often referred to. One of Kölle’s informants called it
“Leeba,” and said that he had on one occasion personally accompanied an
embassy that was commissioned to convey a present of salt to the king
who governed over the territories by the shores of the lake; and he
distinctly affirmed not only that the Kenkob lived in close proximity
to the same lake, but that they were a people only three or four feet
in height, but who nevertheless possessed great strength and were
excellent hunters. Another witness informed Kölle that he only knew
of “a river Reeba” in that part of the country; but it is extremely
likely that in reality he was referring to the same Lake Leeba which,
by repeated geographical investigation, has been proved to be a part of
the Shary:[40] he went on to describe that by this river Reeba there
dwelt a diminutive race called Betsan, varying from three feet to five
feet in height, and stated that they had very long hair and very long
beards, adding that they supported themselves entirely by the produce
of the chase.
Both these witnesses agreed in describing the hair of the dwarfs as
long; and I always found that the Niam-niam laid particular stress upon
their having long beards; but I must confess I never observed this
characteristic in any of the Akka who came under my notice.
Nor is east Tropical Africa without its representatives of people of
this stunted growth. Of these I may especially mention the Doko, who
are reported to dwell to the south of Enarea and Kaffa on the Upper
Juba. Krapf, who has with much diligence compared the various accounts
of many slaves who have been carried away from the district in question
to Shoa, fixes the habitation of the Doko as being below the latitude
of 3° north. Their height is compared with that of boys ten years of
age. Even those who have seen them and (like A. d’Abbadie) deny that
they are _dwarfs_, yet admit that they are under a medium stature.
On the coast itself, in Zanzibar and at Brava, where, occasioned by
the Mohammedan Somali, there is a considerable intercourse with the
districts said to be populated by the Doko, stories of these dwarfs
are in every one’s mouth, and they are termed the “Berikeemo,” _i.e._
people two feet high.
[Sidenote: PYGMIES COMPARED WITH BUSHMEN.]
This rapid summary of the dwarf races that are known in Africa would
be incomplete without a passing reference to the Kimos of Madagascar,
of whom, from the middle of the seventeenth century down to our own
time the most contradictory reports have been in circulation. Any
detailed accounts of these would of course be here entirely out of
place. Madagascar, too, from its isolation, must ever be treated
independently. The relation of its inhabitants to the inhabitants of
Central Africa is very doubtful. It will now suffice to say generally
that the evidence appears to lie open before us of there being a series
of unestablished and imperfectly developed nations which, although they
are now in their decline, extend from ocean to ocean across the entire
equatorial zone of Africa.
Scarcely a doubt can exist but that all these people, like the
Bushmen of South Africa, may be considered as the scattered remains
of an aboriginal population now becoming extinct; and their isolated
and sporadic existence bears out the hypothesis. For centuries
after centuries Africa has been experiencing the effects of many
immigrations: for thousands of years one nation has been driving out
another, and as the result of repeated subjugations and interminglings
of race with race, such manifold changes have been introduced into the
conditions of existence that the succession of new phases, like the
development in the world of plants, appears almost as it were to open a
glimpse into the infinite.
Incidentally I have just referred to the Bushmen, those notorious
natives of the South African forests, who owe their name to the
likeness which the Dutch colonists conceived they bore to the ape,
as the prototype of the human race. I may further remark that their
resemblance to the equatorial Pygmies is in many points very striking.
Gustav Fritsch, the author of a standard work upon the natives of
South Africa, first drew my attention to the marked similarity between
my portraits of the Akka and the general type of the Bushmen, and so
satisfied did I become in my own mind that I feel quite justified (in
my observations upon the Akka) in endeavouring to prove that all the
tribes of Africa whose proper characteristic is an abnormally low
stature belong to one and the self-same race.
According to Fritsch the average height of the genuine Bushmen is 1·44
metres, or about 4 feet 8½ inches; the height of the two Akka, whose
portraits I have inserted, were 4 feet 1 inch and 4 feet 4 inches
respectively; and, as I have said, I never saw any instance in which
the height materially exceeded 4 feet 10 inches. The skin of the Akka
is of a dull brown tint, something of the colour of partially roasted
coffee. As far as I can remember, the colour would correspond nearly
with Nos. 7 and 8 in the table of skin-tints in Plate 49 of Fritsch’s
work, and these are the numbers by which he indicates the complexion
of the Bushmen. It is somewhat difficult to discriminate between the
complexion of the Akka and that of their neighbours the Monbuttoo,
since the latter exhibit a variety of shades of the same tint; but I
should be inclined to say that the distinction lies in the somewhat
duller hue of the Akka, such as might be understood by comparing No. 2
with No. 8 in the table to which I have referred.
The hair and beard are but slightly developed. All the Akka that I saw
wore the ordinary costume and cylindrical straw hat of the Monbuttoo;
but, in consequence of their hair being short as well as woolly, they
are unable to form a chignon like their neighbours. The colour of their
hair corresponds with their complexion; in texture it may best be
compared with the waste tow from old cordage. This absence of the beard
is characteristic also of the Bushmen. The Nubians indeed used to tell
me of the dwarfs about the courts of the Niam-niam princes being noted
for long hair, and they affirmed that some of them, in the fashion
of the West Africans, were in the habit of stiffening out their long
pointed tufts of hair on their chin with pitch; no doubt, too, their
common designation for this people (Shebber digintoo) has reference to
this characteristic; but I could never succeed in getting any accurate
or more definite information about dwarfs of this species. The Akka
resemble the majority of the Monbuttoo in having brown hair, other
nations of a reddish tone of complexion not sharing this peculiarity.
[Sidenote: CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AKKA.]
Taking, as I have said, my little _protégé_ Nsewue as a fair type of
the Akka in general, I will proceed to enumerate the most prominent
marks in their common appearance.
The head of the Akka is large, and out of proportion to the weak, thin
neck on which it is balanced. The shape of the shoulders is peculiar,
differing entirely from that of other negroes in a way that may
probably be accounted for by the unusual scope required for the action
of the shoulder-blades; the arms are lanky; and altogether the upper
portion of the body has a measurement disproportionately long. The
superior region of the chest is flat and much contracted, but it widens
out below to support the huge hanging belly, which gives them, however
aged, the remarkable appearance of Arabian or Egyptian children. The
look of the Akka from behind is very singular. Their body seeming then
to form a curve so regular and defined that it is almost like a letter
S; this is probably to be accounted for by an exceptional suppleness in
the lower joints of the spine, since after a full meal the centre of
gravity is shifted, and the curve of the back accordingly becomes more
or less concave. All the various personal traits of the Akka to which
I have thus referred are illustrated very plainly in Fritsch’s work by
the figure (No. 69) which represents an old Bushman.
The joints of the legs are angular and projecting, except that the
knees are plump and round. Unlike other Africans, who ordinarily
walk with their feet straight, the Akka turn them somewhat inward. I
hardly know how to describe their waddling; every step they take is
accompanied by a lurch that seems to affect all their limbs alike; and
Nsewue could never manage to carry a full dish for any distance without
spilling at least a portion of its contents.
Of all their members their hands were undoubtedly the best formed.
These might really be pronounced elegant, although I do not mean that
they were in the least like the long narrow ladies’ hands that are so
lauded in romance, but which Carl Vogt has characterised as appropriate
to the monkey type. Nothing about my poor little favourite ever excited
my admiration to the same degree as his pretty little hands, and so
attentively have I studied every part of his singular form that not
even the smallest detail has escaped my memory.
But all the peculiarities of the race culminate in the shape of the
skull and in the physiognomical character of the head. As matter of
fact, history has not exhibited that any general degeneracy in a nation
has ever been attended by a general decrease in a people’s stature;
but still it is quite possible that the peculiarities I have already
mentioned might originate in some modification of the way of living.
Any attempt, however, to attribute the formation of the skull to the
effects either of circumstance, of food, or of climate must at once be
rejected as inadmissible. The most noticeable points in the structure
of the heads of the Akka is their high degree of _prognathie_. The
two portraits that are given exhibit facial angles of 60° and 66°
respectively. Besides this they are remarkable for the snout-like
projection of the jaw with an unprotruding chin, and for the wide skull
which is almost spherical, and which has a deep indentation at the base
of the nose. These leading resemblances indubitably exist between the
Akka and the Bushmen; and where the general similarity is so great, all
minor discrepancies must sink into insignificance.
All the accounts of the South African Bushmen agree in representing
that their eyes are small and their eyelids contracted. “Their eyes,”
says Lichtenstein, “are small, deeply set, and so compressed as to be
scarcely visible.” Fritsch lays special stress upon this peculiarity of
the Bushmen, but at the same time draws attention to the likeness of
expression between them and the Hottentots, who otherwise differ from
them so widely. Now the Akka, on the other hand, have large eyes, wide
open, so as to give them the bird-like appearance of Azteks; and does
not Bomby’s portrait,[41] I may ask, recall the Azteks who a few years
ago were exhibited in Europe? Amid the multitude of resemblances this
may be said to be the only important difference between the Akka and
the Bushmen, and probably even this may be accounted for as being the
effect either of food or climate, in the same way as the weather-beaten
countenance of the mariner may be attributed to the life of exposure
that he has led.
[Sidenote: COMPARISON OF AKKA WITH BUSHMEN.]
Setting aside, however, this diversity with regard to the eyes, the
heads of the Akka and the Bushmen will be found to present various
points of similarity in other respects. The Akka are distinguished from
all other nations of Central Africa by the huge size of the ear. Now,
however small, in an æsthetic sense, the negroes’ pretensions to any
beauty may ordinarily be supposed to be, it must be conceded that they
can vie with any race whatever in the elegance and symmetrical shape of
their ears; but no share of this grace can be assigned either to the
Bushmen or to the Akka.
The lips project in a way that corresponds completely with the
projecting jaw. They are long and convex; they do not overlap, and
are not so thick as those of the generality of negroes. What really
suggests the resemblance to an ape is the sharply-defined outline of
the gaping mouth; for the pouting lips of most negroes convey no idea
at all of relationship with inferior animals. These gaping lips, again,
are possessed by the Akka in common with the Bushmen, whose profiles
may be seen in the illustrations given by Fritsch; they are not found
at all amongst the Monbuttoo.
The continual changes of expression which, as Lichtenstein observes,
play upon the countenance and render the Bushmen like apes rather than
human beings are exhibited to a very remarkable degree by the Akka.
The twitching of the eyebrows (in this case still more animated by
the brightness of the eyes), the rapid gestures with the hands and
feet while talking, the incessant wagging and nodding of the head,
all combine to give a very grotesque appearance to the little people,
and serve to explain the fund of amusement derived from the visit of
Adimokoo.
Of the language of the Akka I must confess my entire ignorance, having
lost the few notes that I possessed. I remember that I was much struck
by the inarticulateness of the pronunciation. During the year and a
half that my _protégé_ was domesticated with me he was unable to learn
sufficient Arabic to make himself understood; in this respect he was
very different to the other natives about me, who made themselves
masters of a copious vocabulary. He never advanced beyond stammering
out a few Bongo phrases, which no one except myself and a few of my own
people could comprehend.
Although I was informed that circumcision was practised by the Akka, I
could never ascertain whether it was really an indigenous custom, or
whether it was merely borrowed from the Monbuttoo, and so adopted by
such of the Akka as had settled near the court of Munza.
In acuteness, dexterity, and it must be added in cunning, the Akka
far surpass the Monbuttoo. They are κατ' ἐβξοχήν, a nation of
hunters. The cunning, however, which they display is but the outward
expression of an inner impulse which seems to prompt them to find a
delight in wickedness. Nsewue was always fond of torturing animals, and
took a special pleasure in throwing arrows at the dogs by night. During
the period in which we were involved in war, and while my servants were
almost beside themselves with anxiety, nothing afforded him greater
amusement than to play with the heads that had been severed from the
slain A-Banga; and when I boiled some of the skulls his delight knew no
bounds; he rushed about the camp shouting, “Bakinda,[42] nova? Bakinda
he he koto” (Where is Bakinda? Bakinda is in the pot!) Such a people as
this would naturally excel in the inventive faculty for laying traps
and snares for game.
[Sidenote: RELATIONS OF THE AKKA WITH THE MONBUTTOO.]
Like the Obongo and the Bushmen, as I myself experienced during my
first _rencontre_ with Adimokoo, the Akka are extremely shy with other
men.
Their only domestic animals are poultry; and it struck me as a
coincidence somewhat curious that one of the Pompeian mosaics which
I saw in the National Museum at Naples represents the Pygmies in the
midst of their little houses, which are depicted as full of common
fowls.
It is notorious that the natives of South Africa in general have
vowed death and destruction against the Bushmen, reckoning them as
incorrigibly wild and in no way superior to apes of the most dangerous
character. Now the dwarfs of Central Africa, although they fall little
short of the Bushmen in natural maliciousness, are not regarded as
mischievous fiends who must be exterminated like a brood of adders, but
they are considered rather as a sort of benevolent spirits or mandrakes
who are in no way detrimental. They are of assistance to the Monbuttoo
in securing them a more abundant produce from the chase, and so they
enjoy the protection of their neighbours very much in the same way
as (according to Du Chaillu) the Obongo enjoy the protection of the
Ashango. These amicable relations, however, would not be possible but
for the reason that the Monbuttoo possess no herds. If the Monbuttoo
were a cattle-breeding people, it cannot be doubted that the Akka would
consider all their animals as game, and could not deny themselves the
delight of driving their spears into the flanks of every beast they
could get near, and by these tactics would very soon convert their
guardians into enemies.
Munza supplies all the Akka who have settled near him with the best
of diet, and Nsewue was never weary of descanting in praise of the
flasks of beer, the plantain wine, the ears of corn, and all the other
delicacies with which his people were feasted.
I will only add that a debt of gratitude is due from the students
of ethnology to the Monbuttoo king, who has been instrumental in
preserving this remnant of a declining race until the time has come for
the very heart of Africa to be laid open.
[Illustration: Dinka Pipe. (See description, vol. i., p. 292)]
FOOTNOTES:
[29] It may be remarked that the people of the Soudan
when they depict a dwarf, ordinarily, like we should
ourselves, represent him as a diminutive man with a
long beard.
[30] Herodotus, ii. 32.
[31] Aristotle’s ‘Hist. Animal,’ lib. viii. cap. 2.
[32] ‘Speke’s Travels,’ p. 550.
[33] Tikkitikki is the Niam-niam designation of the Akka.
[34] _Vide_ Battel. ‘Purchas his Pilg.,’ II. London, 1625,
p. 983.
[35] Dapper, Germ. ed., Amsterd., p. 571.
[36] Ib., p. 527.
[37] Ib., p. 573.
[38] ‘Bulletin de la Soc. de Géograph. de Paris,’ tom. x.,
1855.
[39] ‘Polyglotta Africana,’ p. 12.
[40] In nearly all the negro dialects the letters _l_ and
_r_ are used indifferently; and Africans, as a rule,
very much confound the ideas of lake and river.
[41] _Vide antè_, p. 130.
[42] “Bakinda,” is a mere derisive nickname.