VISIT TO A VILLAGE OF THE DWARFS.--WALK THROUGH THE PRIMEVAL
FOREST.--AN ANCIENT ACCOUNT OF THIS STRANGE RACE.--A GREAT ASHANGO
DANCE.--A WATCH AND A TREMENDOUS SNEEZE.--FIRST VIEW OF THE
DWARFS.--QUEER SPECIMENS OF HUMANITY.
THE day after I had done before the Ashangos the wonderful things I
have described to you, as I was seated under the veranda of the king
with Mokounga and a few Ashango elders, I began to talk of the country,
and I said to them, "People say that there are Dwarfs living in the
forest. Is it so, Ashangos? How far are they from Niembouai?" "At no
great distance from this spot," said the chief, "there is a village of
them; but, Oguizi, if you want to see them you must not go to them with
a large number of attendants. You must go in a small party. Take one of
your Commi men, and I will give you my nephew, who knows the Dwarfs, to
go with you. You must walk as cautiously as possible in the forest, for
those Dwarfs are like antelopes and gazelles; they are shy and easily
frightened. To see them you must take them by surprise. No entreaty
of ours could induce them to stay in their settlements if they knew
you were coming. If you are careful, to-morrow we shall see them, for
as sure as I live there are Dwarfs in the forest, and they are called
Obongos."
Early the next morning the Ashango chief called one of his nephews and
another Ashango, and ordered them to show me the way to the country of
the Dwarfs. So we got ready to start, I taking three of my Commi men
with me--Rebouka, Igalo, and Macondai. I had put on a pair of light
India-rubber boots in order not to make any noise in the forest. Before
leaving I gave a large bunch of beads to one of the Ashango men, and
told him as soon as we made our appearance in the village to shout,
"Obongos, do not run away. Look here at the beads which the Spirit
brings to you. The Spirit is your friend; do not be afraid; he comes
only to see you."
After leaving Niembouai we walked through the forest in the most
cautious manner, and as we approached the settlement the Ashango man
who was in the lead turned his head toward us, put a finger on his lips
for us to be silent, and made a sign for us to walk very carefully, and
we advanced with more circumspection than ever. After a while we came
to the settlement of the Dwarfs. Over a small area the undergrowth had
been partially cut away, and there stood twelve queer little houses,
which were the habitations of these strange people, but not a Dwarf was
to be seen. They had all gone. "Nobody here," shouted the Ashangos, and
the echo of their voices alone disturbed the stillness of the forest. I
looked around at this strange little settlement of living Dwarfs. There
was no mistake about it. The fires were lighted, the smoke ascended
from the interior of their little shelters; on a bed of charcoal embers
there was a piece of snake roasting; before another were two rats
cooking; on the ground there were several baskets of nuts, and one
of berries, with some large wild fruits that had been gathered by the
Dwarfs in the woods; while near by stood several calabashes filled with
water, and some bundles of dried fish.
There was, indeed, no mistake: the huts I had seen on my way to
Niembouai were the same as these, and had been made surely by the same
race of Dwarfs. The Ishogos had told me no idle stories. I wish you
could have seen the faces of Rebouka, Igalo, and Macondai. "Oh! oh!
oh!" they exclaimed. "Chally, what are we not going to see in the wild
countries you bring us to? These people must be _niamas_ (beasts);
for, look," said they, pointing to their huts, "the shelters of the
nshiego-mbouvé are quite as good."
I lingered a long while in the hope that the Dwarfs would return, but
they did not. We called for them, but our voices were lost; we followed
some of their tracks, but it was of no use. "You can not overtake
them," said the Ashangos, "for they can run through the jungle as fast
as the gazelle and as silently as a snake, and they are far off now.
They are afraid of you." Before leaving their settlement I hung on the
lower branches of trees surrounding their village strings of beads of
bright colors which I carried with me in my hunting-bag, for I always
had some ready to give away whenever I wanted to do so. I had red,
white, and yellow beads with me that day, and the trees looked gay
with these strings hanging from them. We had taken goat-meat for the
Dwarfs, and I hung up three legs of goats also, and several plantains,
and I put a little salt on a leaf near a hut, and we departed. So I
hoped that the dwarfs, seeing what we had left behind us, would become
emboldened, and see that we did not desire to do them harm, and that
the next time they would not be afraid of us.
I was pleased to perceive on our arrival in the evening at Niembouai
that the Ashangos seemed glad to see us again, though the chief was
quite disappointed that we had not seen the little Obongos.
That evening the Ashangos clustered around me, and wanted me to talk
to them, not in their own language, but in the language of the oguizis
(spirits). So I talked to them, and their wonder was great, and I
read to them from a book, all of them listening the while with their
mouths wide open. Then I took my journal, and read to them aloud in
English, and after reading the part which related to what I had done
in the Ishogo village of Mokenga, I translated it to them, to the
great delight of the Ishogos. The part I read related to my arrival
in Mokenga; how the people were afraid of me, and what warm friends
we became, and how the villagers said I had moved the big boulder of
granite. At this there was a tremendous shout. Then I said, "Ashangos,
the oguizis do not forget any thing. What I write will always be
remembered. Now I will read you something we have from an oguizi who
wrote about Dwarfs. The name of that oguizi was Herodotus." "And
yours," shouted the Ishogos, "is Chally!"
"That oguizi, Herodotus," I continued, "wrote about what he heard
and what he saw, just as I do. Long, long ago, before any tree of
the forest round you had come out of the ground" (I could not count
in their language, and say about 2300 years ago), "that oguizi,
Herodotus, traveled just as I am traveling to-day"--"_Oh! oh!_" shouted
the Ashangos. "Mamo! mamo!" shouted the Ishogos. "Listen! listen!"
said my Commi men in English, for they all now could talk a little
English--"and he writes:
"'I did hear, indeed, what I will now relate, from certain natives of
Cyrene. Once upon a time, when they were on a visit to the oracular
shrine of Ammon, when it chanced in the course of conversation with
Etearchus, the Ammonian king, the talk fell upon the Nile--how that
its source was unknown to all men. Etearchus, upon this, mentioned
that some Nasamonians had come to his court, and, when asked if they
could give any information concerning the uninhabited parts of Libya,
had told the following tale (the Nasamonians are a Libyan race who
occupy the Syrtes and a tract of no great size toward the east). They
said there had grown up among them some wild young men, the sons of
certain chiefs, who, when they came to man's estate, indulged in all
manners of extravagances, and, among other things, drew lots for five
of their number to go and explore the desert parts of Libya, and try
if they could not penetrate farther than any had done previously. (The
coast of Libya, along the sea, which washes it to the north throughout
its entire length from Egypt to Cape Soloeis, which is its farthest
point, is inhabited by Libyans of many distinct tribes, who possess
the whole tract except certain portions which belong to the Phœnicians
and the Greeks.) Above the coast-line and the country inhabited by
the maritime tribes, Libya is full of wild beasts, while beyond the
wild-beast region there is a tract which is wholly sand and very scant
of water, and utterly and entirely a desert. The young men, therefore,
dispatched on this errand by their comrades, with a plentiful supply of
water and provisions, traveled at first through the inhabited region,
passing which they came to the wild-beast tract, whence they finally
entered upon the desert, which they proceeded to cross in a direction
from east to west. After journeying for many days over a wide extent of
land, they came at last to a plain where they observed trees growing:
approaching them and seeing fruit on them, they proceeded to gather
it; while they were thus engaged there came upon them some _dwarfish
men under the middle height_, who seized them and carried them off.
The Nasamonians did not understand a word of their language, nor had
they any acquaintance with the language of the Nasamonians. They
were carried across extensive marshes, and finally came to a city in
which all the men were of the height of their conductors, and dark
complexioned. A great river flowed by the city, running from west to
east, and containing crocodiles. Etearchus conjectured this river to be
the Nile, and reason favors this idea.'"
"Oh! oh!" shouted my Commi men. "It is no wonder that the white man
forgets nothing. Chally, will what you write about the strange things
we see be remembered in the same manner with what that man Herodotus
wrote?"
"I do not know," said I. "If the white people think that what we saw
is worthy of preservation, it will be remembered; if not, it will be
forgotten. But never mind," I said; "let us see for ourselves, and
what a tale we shall have to tell to our people on our return; for what
we see no other men have ever seen before us."
After my story of Herodotus the shades of evening had come, and a
great Ashango dance took place. How wild, how strange the dancing
was in the temple or house of the mbuiti (idol)! The idol was a huge
representation of a woman, and it stood at the end of the temple,
which was about fifty feet in length, and only ten feet broad. The
extremity of the building, where the mbuiti was kept, was also dark,
and looked weird by the light of the torches as I entered. It was
painted in red, white, and black.
Along the walls on each side were Ashango men seated on the ground,
each having a lighted torch before him. In the centre were two
mbuiti-men (doctor, priest) dressed with fibres of trees round their
waist; each had one side of his face painted white and the other side
red. Down the middle of the breast they had a broad yellow stripe, and
the hollow of the eye was painted yellow. They make these different
colors from different woods, the coloring matter of which they mix
with clay. All the Ashangos were also streaked and daubed with various
colors, and by the light of their torches they looked like a troop of
devils assembled on the earth to celebrate some diabolical rite. Round
their legs were bound sharp-pointed white leaves from the heart of the
palm-tree; some wore feathers, others had leaves behind their ears, and
all had a bundle of palm-leaves in their hands. They did not stir when
I came in. I told them not to stop; that I came only to look at them.
They began by making all kinds of contortions, and set up a deafening
howl of wild songs. There was an orchestra of instrumental performers
near the idol, consisting of three drummers beating as hard as they
could with their sticks on two _ngomas_ (tam-tams), one harper, and
another man strumming with all his might on a sounding-board. The two
mbuiti-men danced in a most fantastic manner, jumping and twisting
their bodies into all sorts of shapes and contortions. Every time the
mbuiti-men opened their mouths to speak a dead silence ensued. Now and
then the men would all come and dance round the mbuiti-men, and then
they would all face the idol, dance before it, and sing songs of praise
to it.
I could not stand this noise long, so I left my Ashangos to enjoy
themselves, and, as usual before retiring, ordered my men to keep their
watch in a proper manner.
"Don't be disheartened," said the chief of Niembouai to me after my
unsuccessful attempt to see the Dwarfs. "I told you before that the
little Obongos were as shy as the antelopes and gazelles of the woods.
You have seen for yourself now that what I said was true. If you are
careful when you go again to their settlement, you will probably
surprise them, only don't wait long before going again, for they may
move away."
Before sunrise the next morning we started again for the settlement of
the little Dwarfs. We were still more cautious than before in going
through the jungle. This time we took another direction to reach them,
lest perhaps they might be watching the path by which we had come
before.
After a while I thought I saw through the trunks of the trees ahead of
us several little houses of the Dwarfs. I kept still, and immediately
gave a sign to make my guides maintain silence. They obeyed me on the
instant, and we lay motionless on the ground, hardly daring to breathe.
There was no mistake about it; we could see, as we peeped through the
trees, the houses of the Dwarfs, but there seemed to be no life there,
no Obongos. We kept watching for more than half an hour in breathless
silence, when lo! Rebouka gave a tremendous sneeze. I looked at him.
I wish you had seen his face. Another sneeze was coming, and he was
trying hard to prevent it, and made all sorts of faces, but the look I
gave him was enough, I suppose, and the second sneeze was suppressed.
Then we got up and entered the little settlement of the Dwarfs. There
was not one of them there. The village had been abandoned. The leaves
over the little houses were dry, and, while we were looking all round,
suddenly our bodies were covered with swarms of fleas, which drove us
out faster than we came. It was awful, for they did bite savagely, as
if they had not had any thing to feed upon for a whole month.
We continued to walk very carefully, and after a while we came near
another settlement of the Dwarfs, which was situated in the densest
part of the forest. I see the huts; we cross the little stream from
which the Dwarfs drew their water to drink. How careful we are as we
walk toward their habitations, our bodies bent almost double, in order
not to be easily discovered. I am excited--oh, I would give so much to
see the Dwarfs, to speak to them! How craftily we advance! how cautious
we are for fear of alarming the shy inmates! My Ashango guides hold
bunches of beads. I see that the beads we had hung to the trees have
been taken away.
All our caution was in vain. The Dwarfs saw us, and ran away in the
woods. We rushed, but it was too late; they had gone. But as we came
into the settlement I thought I saw three creatures lying flat on the
ground, and crawling through their small doors into their houses. When
we were in the very midst of the settlement I shouted, "Is there any
body here?" No answer. The Ashangos shouted, "Is there any body here?"
No answer. I said to the Ashangos, "I am certain that I have seen some
of the Dwarfs go into their huts." Then they shouted again, "Is there
any body here?" The same silence. Turning toward me, my guides said,
"Oguizi, your eyes have deceived you; there is no one here; they have
all fled. They are afraid of you." "I am not mistaken," I answered.
I went with one Ashango toward one of the huts where I thought I
had seen one of the Dwarfs go inside to hide, and as I came to the
little door I shouted again, "Is there any body here?" No answer. The
Ashango shouted, "Is there any body inside?" No answer. "I told you,
Oguizi, that they have all run away." It did seem queer to me that I
should have suffered an optical delusion. I was perfectly sure that
I had seen three Dwarfs get inside of their huts. "Perhaps they have
broken through the back part, and have escaped," said I; so I walked
round their little houses, but every thing was right--nothing had gone
outside through the walls.
In order to make sure, I came again to the door, and shouted, "Nobody
here?" The same silence. I lay flat on the ground, put my head inside
of the door, and again shouted, "Nobody here?" It was so dark inside
that, coming from the light, I could not see, so I extended my arm in
order to feel if there was any one within. Sweeping my arm from left
to right, at first I touched an empty bed, composed of three sticks;
then, feeling carefully, I moved my arm gradually toward the right,
when--hallo! what do I feel? A leg! which I immediately grabbed above
the ankle, and a piercing shriek startled me. It was the leg of a human
being, and that human being a Dwarf! I had got hold of a Dwarf!
"Don't be afraid; the Spirit will do you no harm," said my Ashango
guide.
"Don't be afraid," I said, in the Ashango language, and I immediately
pulled the creature I had seized by the leg through the door, in the
midst of great excitement among my Commi men.
"A Dwarf!" I shouted, as the little creature came out. "A woman!" I
shouted again--"a pigmy!" The little creature shrieked, looking at me.
"Nchendé! nchendé! nchendé!" said she. "Oh! oh! oh! Yo! yo! yo!" and
her piercing wail rent the air.
What a sight! I had never seen the like. "What!" said I, "now I do see
the Dwarfs of Equatorial Africa--the Dwarfs of Homer, Herodotus--the
Dwarfs of the ancients."
How queer the little old woman looked! How frightened she was! she
trembled all over. She was neither white nor black; she was of a
yellow, or mulatto color. "What a little head! what a little body!
what a little hand! what a little foot!" I exclaimed. "Oh, what
queer-looking hair!" said I, bewildered. The hair grew on the head in
little tufts apart from each other, and the face was as wrinkled as a
baked apple. I can not tell you how delighted I was at my discovery.
So, giving my little prize to one of the Ashangos, and ordering my
Commi men to catch her if she tried to run away, I went to the other
little dwelling where I thought I had seen another of the Dwarfs hide
himself. The two little huts stood close together. I shouted, "Nobody
here?" No answer. Then I did what I had done before, and, getting my
head inside of the hut through the door, again shouted, "Nobody here?"
No answer. I moved my right hand to see if I could feel any body,
when, lo! I seized a leg, and immediately heard a shriek. I pulled
another strange little Dwarf out of the door. It was also a woman, not
quite so old as the first, but having exactly the same appearance.
The two Dwarf-women looked at each other, and began to cry and sing
mournful songs, as if they expected to be killed. I said to them, "Be
not frightened!"
Then the Ashangos called to the last Dwarf who had hid to come out;
that it was no use, I had seen them all. They had hardly spoken when
I saw a little head peeping out of the door, and my Ashangos made the
creature come out. It was a woman also, who began crying, and the trio
shrieked and cried, and cried and shrieked, wringing their hands, till
they got tired. They thought their last day had come.
"Don't be afraid," said the Ashangos; "the Oguizi is a good oguizi."
"Don't be afraid," said my Commi men.
After a while they stopped crying, and began to look at me more quietly.
For the first time I was able to look carefully at these little
Dwarfs. They had prominent cheek-bones, and were yellow, their faces
being exactly of the same color as the chimpanzee; the palms of their
hands were almost as white as those of white people; they seemed
well-proportioned, but their eyes had an untamable wildness that struck
me at once; they had thick lips and flat noses, like the negroes;
their foreheads were low and narrow, and their cheek-bones prominent;
and their hair, which grew in little, short tufts, was black, with a
reddish tinge.
After a while I thought I heard a rustling in one of the little houses,
so I went there, and, looking inside, saw it filled with the tiniest
children. They were exceedingly shy. When they saw me they hid their
heads just as young dogs or kittens would do, and got into a huddle,
and kept still. These were the little dwarfish children who had
remained in the village under the care of the three women, while the
Dwarfs had gone into the forest to collect their evening meal--that is
to say, nuts, fruits, and berries--and to see if the traps they had set
had caught any game.
I immediately put beads around the necks of the women, gave them a leg
of wild boar and some plantains, and told them to tell their people to
remain, and not to be afraid. I gave some meat to the little children,
who, as soon as I showed it to them, seized it just in the same manner
that Fighting Joe or ugly Tom would have done, only, instead of
fighting, they ran away immediately.
Very queer specimens these little children seemed to be. They were, if
any thing, lighter in color than the older people, and they were such
little bits of things that they reminded me--I could not help it--of
the chimpanzees and nshiego-mbouvés I had captured at different times,
though their heads were much larger.
I waited in vain--the other inhabitants did not come back; they were
afraid of me. I told the women that the next day I should return and
bring them meat (for they are said to be very fond of it), and plenty
of beads.
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