days without the sight of a Pygmy. Suddenly he became aware of their
presence by mysterious movements among the trees, which he at first
attributed to the monkeys. Finally he came to a clearing and stopped at
an Arab village, where he met a great number of the diminutive nomads.
"They told me," says Mr. Lloyd, "that, unknown to me, they had been
watching me for five days, peering through the growth of the forest.
They appeared very much frightened, and even when speaking covered their
faces. I asked a chief to allow me to photograph the dwarfs, and he
brought a dozen together. I was able to secure a snap-shot, but did not
succeed in the time exposure, as the Pygmies would not stand still. Then
I tried to measure them, and found not one over four feet in height. All
were fully developed, the women somewhat slighter than the men. I was
amazed at their sturdiness. The men have long beards, reaching halfway
down the chest. They are very timid, and will not look a stranger in
the face, their bead-like eyes constantly shifting. They are, it struck
me, fairly intelligent. I had a long talk with a chief, who conversed
intelligently about their customs in the forest and the number of the
tribesmen. Both men and women, except for a tiny strip of bark, were
quite nude. The men were armed with poisoned arrows. The chief told me
the tribes were nomadic, and never slept two nights in the same place.
They just huddle together in hastily thrown-up huts. Memories of a white
traveller,--Mr. Stanley, of course,--who crossed the forest years ago,
still linger among them."
The discovery of these forest Pygmies has directed attention to the
Bushmen of South Africa, a desert-dwelling race, long known though
comparatively little regarded in their ethnological significance. They
are now by many regarded as an outlying branch of the forest Pygmies,
the chief difference being in the shape of the skull, which is rather
long in the Bushmen, rather short in the Pygmies. These degraded
wanderers inhabit an area extending from the inner ranges of the
mountains of Cape Colony, through the central Kalahari desert, to near
Lake Ngami, and thence northwestward to the Ovambo River. Into these,
the most barren portions of the South African deserts, they have been
driven by the encroachments of Kaffirs, Hottentots, and Europeans.
They closely resemble the Akka tribes of the north, averaging about four
and a half feet in height, and possessing deep-set, crafty eyes, small
and depressed nose, and a generally repulsive countenance. Their
complexion is of a dirty yellow. Their hair grows in small, woolly
tufts. In the vicinity of Lake Ngami, Livingstone found them to be of
larger stature and darker color, while Baines measured some in this
region who were five feet six inches in height. In disposition the
Bushmen are strikingly wild, malicious, and intractable, while their
cerebral development is classed by Humboldt as belonging to almost the
lowest class of the human species.
Close in affinity with the Bushmen, and in various respects unlike the
dark races around them, are the Hottentots, the original inhabitants of
Cape Colony, a race of herdsmen who are much superior in culture to the
degraded desert nomads. They are not dwarfish, being of medium stature,
but they resemble the Bushmen in complexion, in which and in general
cast of features they present some similarity to the Chinese. Their
hair, like that of the Bushmen, grows in tufts, with spaces between, and
they are like them in language, their method of speech consisting
largely in a series of clicking sounds. Their manner of talking has been
compared to the clucking of a hen, and by the Dutch to the "gobbling of
a turkeycock." The Hottentots present every appearance of being a
developed branch of the Pygmy family, or the result of a cross between
Bushmen and negroes.
These tribes of dwarfs, now extended throughout the equatorial forests
and over the South African deserts, were probably once far more
widespread, inhabiting much of the continent and reaching as far as
Madagascar, where a branch of them, known as Kinios or Quinias, are
thought still to exist. They extended north to the Mediterranean, and
have left their representatives in Morocco in a tribe of dwarfs, about
four feet high, who differ widely in appearance from all other people of
that country. As to their origin, there is a diversity of opinion. Some
anthropologists look upon them as a primeval race, distinct from the
negroes, who came among them later. Professor Virchow, on the contrary,
is of the opinion that their only important difference from the negroes
is that of size, and regards them as the remains of a primitive
population from whom the negroes have descended.
In a preceding section a statement was made as to what was the probable
general appearance of the man-ape. It was based upon the physical aspect
of the Pygmies, whom we hold to form the immediate derivative of man's
ape ancestor, and to have made no radical change in personal appearance,
if we may judge from the various ape-like characteristics which they
still present. Mentally they have made a very considerable advance, and
have reached the stage of men of low intellectual powers; but while
their brains have been growing their bodies have not greatly changed,
and the marks of their origin are thick upon them. There has probably
been little change in size, the diminutive stature and small bodily
dimensions being in accord with their incessant activity, while the
difficulties of traversing the thick growth of the tropical forest may
have helped to keep them small. As it is, they are of about half the
size of civilized man, the weight of a full grown adult male being
probably not over ninety pounds.
Taking the Pygmies as a whole, it may be said that, though many of the
Akkas are disproportionate in shape and tottering in gait, on the whole
these people are well made, their protuberant paunch being probably a
result of their habits of eating. Captain Guy Burrows says that a Pygmy
will eat twice as much as would suffice a full-grown man, and that one
of them will devour a whole stalk of bananas at a meal, with other food.
Some tribes are described as physically and mentally degenerate, and
prognathism is in many cases strongly declared, the lower part of the
face having an ape-like contour, and the protruding chin, that feature
peculiar to man, being very deficient. In their great abdominal
development the adult Akkas resemble the children of Arabs and negroes.
This, therefore, seems the retention of a primitive feature which has
become a passing characteristic in the more advanced types of mankind.
The Pygmies are not destitute of intelligence, and are capable of
receiving some of the elements of education. Two of them were brought to
Italy about 1875, who within two years' time learned to read and write
and to speak Italian with much fluency. They showed themselves superior
in school studies to European children of ten or twelve years of age,
and one of them became somewhat proficient in music. In their habits
they resembled children, being sensitive and impulsive, fond of play,
and very quick in their motions. Their readiness in gaining the elements
of education is in accord with experience in the case of other savages.
It is when studies requiring abstruse thought are reached that the
facility in acquisition of the savage races comes to an end.
With this consideration of the characteristics and habitat of the
Pygmies we may proceed to a review of their habits. The weapons which
they seem to have developed during their long upward progress, and to
which their supremacy over the wild beasts of the forest is probably
due, consist of two, the bow and arrow and the spear. The bow and arrow
are small and insignificant in appearance, and would be of little value
but for the poison which the Pygmies have somehow learned how to obtain,
and which makes them dreaded, not only by beasts, but by men. Wherever
found, from the deserts of the south to the forest of the Welle and
Aruwimi on the north, the poisoned arrow is a mark of affinity as
decided in its way as their physical resemblance. Its wide distribution
goes to indicate that it was the general weapon of the Pygmies ages ago,
when, presumably, they had all Africa for their own, and ruled supreme
over the animal world in that continent.
It is true, indeed, that the use of the poisoned arrow is not peculiar
to them, but is a somewhat common possession of savage tribes in all
parts of the earth. This makes it quite possible that it was not
original with the Pygmies, but was derived by them from other tribes. On
the other hand, in view of its great value in giving them supremacy over
the lower animals, it may well have been a primeval Pygmy invention, and
these tribes the original source of its existing wide distribution.
They possess more than one poison; one being a dark substance of the
color and consistence of pitch, which is supposed to be made out of a
species of arum. It is laid in the splints of their wooden arrows, or
spread thickly upon their iron arrowheads, when they possess these.
Another poison is of a pale glue color, which is supposed by Stanley to
be made of crushed red ants. When fresh these poisons are deadly,
producing excessive faintness, palpitation of the heart, nausea, and
deep pallor, soon followed by death. In Stanley's experience one man
died within a minute, from a mere pin prick in the breast. Others lived
during different intervals, extending up to one hundred hours. The
difference in virulence seems to have depended on the degree of
freshness of the venom, which apparently lost its strength as it became
dry.
The possession of a weapon so deadly as this, together with the agility
and daring and the unerring marksmanship of the forest dwarfs, seem
sufficient to give them absolute control of the animals of the African
wilds. The lion, the elephant, and the buffalo, the largest and fiercest
of the beasts of field and forest, are powerless before the virulent
venom of the arrows of the Pygmies, and doubtless for ages they have
held dominion as the fearless rulers of wood and wild. Captain Burrows
says of the skill with the bow of the Pygmy that "he will shoot three or
four arrows, one after the other, with such rapidity that the last will
have left the bow before the first has reached its goal."
The bow and spear are not their only means of obtaining food. They have
certain of the arts of the trapper, perhaps original with them, perhaps
borrowed from their larger neighbors. They sink pits in the pathways of
their game, covering them with light sticks and leaves and sprinkling
earth over the whole. They build hut-like structures, and lay nuts or
plantains beneath, for the purpose of tempting chimpanzees, baboons, or
other apes. A slight movement causes the hut to fall on the incautious
animals. Bow traps are placed along the tracks of civets, ichneumons,
and rodents, which snap and strangle them. The Pygmies do not hesitate
to attack the elephant, spearing it from beneath, and hunting it for its
ivory, which they trade with the settled tribes. In short, they are of
unsurpassed agility, and are the best of woodsmen and hunters, their
skill being taken advantage of by the settled tribes, who trade with
them vegetables, tobacco, spears, knives, and arrows for meat, honey,
the feathers of birds, the ivory of the elephant, and other forest
spoil. So destructive are they of game that they would soon denude the
surrounding forest if they stayed long in one spot, so that they are
compelled to move frequently. Schweinfurth speaks of them as cruel and
fond of tormenting animals.
They serve the settled natives in other ways, acting as scouts and
informing them of the coming of strangers while still distant. Every
forest road runs through their camps, their villages command every
crossway, and no movement can take place in the forest without their
knowledge, while they are adept in the art of concealment.
The superior woodcraft, the malicious disposition, and the poisoned
arrows and good marksmanship of these forest folks make them formidable
enemies, and the settled tribes hold them in dread and are glad to keep
on good terms with them. Yet they find them much of a nuisance, since
their dwarfish neighbors claim free access to their gardens and
plantain fields, where they help themselves to fruit in return for small
supplies of meat and furs. In short, they are human parasites on the
larger natives, who suffer from their extortions, yet fear to provoke
their enmity. Burrows says that they will never steal, but that they pay
very inadequately for the plantains they take, leaving a very small
package of meat in return for an ample supply of food.
The Pygmies build their camps two or three miles away from the negro
villages, living in groups of sixty to eighty families. A large clearing
may have eight to twelve of these Pygmy camps around it, with perhaps
two thousand inmates. Their dwellings are of the shape of an oval cut
lengthwise, and are built in a rude circle, the residence of the chief
occupying the centre. The doors are two or three feet high. On every
track leading to the camp, at about one hundred yards' distance, is a
sentry house large enough to hold two of the little folks, its doorway
looking up the track from the camp. While wandering in the forest they
build the flimsiest of leaf shelters.
The intelligence of the Pygmies is of a very low order. In the arts
which they have been developing for ages they are experts, they are
thoroughly familiar with the habits of animals, and as hunters they are
unsurpassed. But in intellect they are decidedly lacking. They are
destitute of agriculture, possess no animals except a few dogs, and
have none of the elements of culture. The Bushmen, for instance, can
count only up to two; all beyond that is "many." Yet this low tribe of
desert nomads is, as we have said, skilled in the art of drawing, its
sketches of men and animals being widely distributed through Cape
Colony.
The Pygmies seem greatly lacking in the social sentiments. Burrows, in
his "Land of the Pygmies," says that they do not possess even the most
ordinary ties of family affection. Such common and natural feelings of
affinity as those between mother and son, brother and sister, etc.,
seemed to be wanting in them.
It is a fact of great interest that the Pygmy race does not seem
confined to Africa, for tribes of men resembling the Pygmies in stature
and in various other particulars are found in widely removed localities,
as in Malacca, the Andaman Islands, and the Philippine Archipelago,
while there are indications that they once spread widely over this
island region of the earth. Those of the Philippines, known as Negritos
or Aetas, have been somewhat closely observed and may be briefly
described.
The Negritos are similar in stature to the Pygmies of Africa, the men
averaging four feet eight inches high, and they are like them in general
appearance. They are darker in complexion, some being as sable as
negroes, and all of them darker than the African Pygmies. Their features
are coarse and ill-shaped, their nose depressed, lips full, hair black
and frizzled. In body, like the Pygmies, they are thin and
spindle-legged. The calf of the leg is not developed in any of these
dwarfish people. The Negritos possess one marked and significant
characteristic,--the separation of the great toe. This, while it has not
the full power of movement shown in the apes, is much more separated
from the others than in the whites, and can be readily used in grasping.
By its aid the Negrito can not only pick up small objects, but can
descend the rigging of a ship head downward, holding on like a monkey by
his toes. It may be said that among uncivilized and barefoot people the
great toe is usually very mobile. The artisans of Bengal can weave, the
Chinese boatmen can row, with its aid, and it adds much to facility in
climbing.
The Negritos wear little clothing, have no fixed abodes, and pass a
wandering life in the forests, living on game, honey, wild fruits, roots
of the arum, and other forest food. Their weapons consist of a bamboo
lance, a bow of palm wood, and a quiver of poisoned arrows. It is
certainly a striking fact that, wherever found, from South Africa to the
Far East, the Pygmy tribes possess the art of poisoning their weapons.
This art is not practised by the surrounding peoples, and is the
strongest evidence of a community of origin. It seems to point back to a
remote period when the Pygmy peoples spread far through the tropics of
the Eastern hemisphere, though in the region now under consideration
they have almost vanished through the assaults of the Malays.
The Negritos are very alert physically, being remarkably fleet of foot,
while they can climb like monkeys. They live in groups of about fifty
families, shelter being obtained by a simple erection of sloping poles
and leaves, though in their more settled locations they built bamboo
huts like those of the Malays. They are a short-lived race, seldom
living more than forty years. Mentally, they are stupid and apparently
incapable of improvement, seeming to stand at the foot of the human
scale. Attempts to instruct them have been made, but all proved
failures. Efforts to make agriculturists of them have proved similarly
futile. They are hereditarily hunters, and hunters they are likely to
remain.
The only Eastern locality of which the Pygmy race remained in full
possession until recent times is that of the Andaman Islands. This is no
longer the case. Great Britain made a penal settlement of these islands
after the mutiny in India, and as a consequence the Mincopies, as their
native inhabitants are called, have begun to disappear. These islanders
are rather taller than the Philippine Negritos, ranging from four and a
half to five feet in height, but otherwise there is a somewhat close
resemblance between them. Their color is dark brown or black, their hair
woolly, and inclined to grow in tufts, like that of the Bushmen. The
head, though large in proportion to the body, is really very small and
of low cranial capacity. That of the men is only 1244 cubic centimetres,
as contrasted with 1554 cubic centimetres of a large number of male
Parisians measured by Broca. That of the women differs in the same
proportion. Flower says that the Mincopies rank lowest among the human
races in this respect; but it must be remembered that the brain usually
decreases in size with decrease in stature.
Small as these islanders are, however, their strength is relatively
great. They use with ease bows which the strongest English sailors
cannot string, though practice may have much to do with this facility.
And they can send arrows with a force that seems out of accord with
their size. Their agility is remarkable. Travellers speak of the speed
of the bullet in describing their running--doubtless with some
exaggeration. Their senses are strikingly acute. It is said that they
can distinguish fruits by their odor when hidden in the foliage of the
jungle, and have wonderful powers of sight and hearing. As in the case
of the Aetas, their life is short, though the age of puberty is nearly
as great as with us. Fifty is extreme old age with these people, and
twenty-two is said to be their average length of life.
Mentally, they are at a low level, the lowest, in the opinion of Owen,
among the races of mankind. In counting they have words for only one
and two, but can count up to ten by touching the nose with each of the
fingers in succession, saying each time, "this one also." Their language
is of a primitive type, and in various respects they manifest low
intelligence. Yet, as in the case of the Akkas mentioned, they can be
taught to the level of other children of twelve or fourteen years. Their
mind, in the opinion of Dr. Brander, seems rather to be asleep than
incapable. One child was taught to read and write, and to speak English
fluently, and gained some knowledge of arithmetic; and this was not an
exceptional case.
It does not seem at all remarkable, when we consider the ease with which
monkeys can be taught many arts and acts new to them, that those
dwarfish men, like other savages, greatly superior as they are in brain
power to the apes, should be capable of acquiring the minor elements of
education. It is not what they can be taught, but what they have taught
themselves, that we must consider in assigning them to their comparative
place in intellectual development. In this respect the Mincopies are on
a very low plane. They have not even acquired the art of making a fire,
though this is almost universal with mankind. All they know is how to
keep a fire alive, and in this they are very assiduous. It is probable
that they may have obtained fire at first from volcanoes on neighboring
islands.
They are lacking, like the Pygmy races in general, in the art of
chipping stone, one of the earliest arts acquired by man. Their only
means of shaping stone is to put it into the fire until it breaks or
splinters, when they can use the sharp splinters for their purposes.
They are quite destitute of the art of drawing, and have no means of
communicating their thoughts except by speech.
Yet with these deficiencies, they have made some progress in the
industrial arts. They make wooden vessels, and can produce pottery which
stands the fire and in which they cook most of their food. They make
nets of considerable size, which they use to fish with in the narrow
streams. They have arrows and harpoons, whose points are fastened to the
shaft by a long cord. The fish or land animal struck unwinds this cord
in trying to get away, and its speed being checked by the shaft which it
drags along, it is easily caught.
The Mincopies possess boats, and these seem to have been early
possessions of the Negrito populations, by whose aid they were able to
migrate from island to island. Their canoes have nautical qualities
which have astonished English sailors. At one time they were probably
bold and daring fishermen and navigators, until driven to the forests
and mountains by the invasion of the Malays.
As the Pygmies were in all probability the aborigines of Africa, so the
Negritos appear to have been the aboriginal people of the Eastern
islands, if not of India. Quatrefages, in his work "The Pygmies," finds
reason to believe that even at the present day traces of them, pure or
mixed, can be found from southeast New Guinea to the Andaman Islands,
and from the Sunda Islands to Japan. On the continent their range
extends, according to him, "from Annam and the peninsula of Malacca to
the western Ghauts, and from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas."
In one part of India the Negrito-like population are called
_Bander-lokh_ (literally "man-ape") by the neighboring tribes. The
Semangs of Malacca are jet-black in color, with thick lips, flat nose,
and protruding abdomen. In regard to the characteristic of prognathism,
it is possessed in various degrees, the most pronounced instance being
seen in the photograph of one of the Kalangs of Java, a tribe which has
recently become extinct. The face of this individual is strikingly
ape-like in profile.
Everywhere that these dwarfish people are found, whether in Africa,
India, or Malaysia, they present the appearance of being an aboriginal
race, now largely annihilated by the incursions of larger and
better-armed people, but once widespread and numerous. As to their place
of origin, whether in Africa, India, or the island region, it is useless
to speculate, as the facts on which an opinion could be based are not
known. Wherever found they are in close relation to the black races, the
negroes of Africa, the Papuans of Polynesia, and evidences of a
considerable degree of mixture of races exist. This is especially the
case in Polynesia and India, where the Negritos appear to shade off into
the full-sized blacks through an intermediate series of half-breeds.
Yet one fact of ethnological importance needs to be mentioned. The
Negritos and Pygmies are everywhere brachycephalic, or short-headed,
with the exception of the Bushmen, who are dolichocephalic, or partially
so. Negroes and Papuans are strongly dolichocephalic. In this respect
the Pygmy peoples agree more closely with the short-headed Mongolian or
yellow races than with the long-headed negro or black races, though in
general features they come near the latter.