The Canton advocate. [volume] (Canton, D.T. [S.D.]) 1877-1897, 1881-10-06
NEITHER GORILLAS NOR MEN.
A Japanese Tribe OFT Hairy IeOpl
- WHO Posse 50 TailS

A Japanese Tribe OF Hairy People
VINO Possess Tails.
Can it be supposed that when Dean
Swift ibeled humanity by degrading it
below the level of the brutes in his
dreadful fiction Of the Yahoos he ever
imagined that there ever existed aught
that approximated toward the odious
picture. Yet such is the case. There
are, undoubtedly, races whose at
tributes do, in various degrees, suggest,
If they do not realize, the misanthrop-
ic fables of the man-beasts of Houy-
huhms Land. The Maintains of At
RIGA, who live between the Gulf of Ben
in and Abyssinda, are said to have.
tails, statement confirmed by DR..
Hubish, Of Constantinople in 1851.
The "hairy people" mentioned Of old
by Hanno seems to have real exists
ence, apart from the gorilla, judging
from Miss Birds account of the Anio-
OF Japan, a strange, savage and little
known race, supposed to be the aborgi-
mes of that country, but now only to be
found on the Island of Yezo. They
are, she, says, Of a most ferocious as
pect, owing TO- the profusion of their
thick, soft black hair ard boards, and
to the singular fact that their bodies
are commonly covered with yigor-
Gus growth of black hair or fur, up
ward Of al, inch in length, and incrust-
ed with dirt, for i9.the 2 Amos
never wash. Their food is a, sssstew
of abominable things and a
.'thick soup made Of putty-clay, which
is boiled with the bulb of white lily"
They believe themselves to be descend
ed from dogs, but other characteristics
Of this strange people are not unamia-
BILE. Beyond these instances, and pre-
senting q far more striking resemblance
to the Yahoo type, there are the We'd
das in Weodahs Of Ceylon, their dupli-
Gates or Borneo or New Guinea, and
kindred ysrieties discovered in the
Philippine Islands, Terra del Fuego,,
and South America. Only none of
these are so hateful as the creatures of
Swift's invention. 1t needed that fierce
indignation against his kind, which he
has recorded in his epitaph, to depict
them. The Veddas and similar. races
on the islands Of the Asiatic archipel
ago are described as the aborigines Of
their respective countries, who have,
shrunk into the jungle and forest to
escape from civilization, and have lived
there for upwards Of two thousand
years. They construct no habitations,
but lodge in caves or treesior under
oyezhanging rocks. They are Istunted
N slze, seldom exceeding four feet
eight inches in stature. and but .feebly
built, except as regards their arms,
which the constsntuse OF the bow rem
ders very muscular. notwithstanding
Their short, ape-like thumbs. With
this weapon they kill animals for
food, devonring, besides, snakes, rep
tiles. wild honey, ants, eggs, and carton
OF al.kinds. They lack both memory
and foresight, cannot count or discrim-
mate between coloD, are filthy in their
habits, and in everything save rudi-
mentary language Of uncouth cultural
sounds, and some dim. yestiges of 70
ligion and social order, are the beasts
Of the field. eSaddest perhaps of al,
they never laugh. When they die
they believe they become devils. Yet
this benighted and outcast race, so low
in organization, habits, and character
- scarcely 10 DO distinguished from
the monkeys Of the jungle among
whom they live, practice BY instinct,
virtues, which are not too comman 10
civilization. They never lie, steal, nor
quarrel. Some OF these infortunaaei
creatures have been half.tamcd by the
EnKalcse and sent u dc nntdoe go..s,
like The YAhoos OF the Houyhhms.
When lne Prince or Wslcs visited the
tsland IN 1915, certain IL tho jungle
veddas ~sfc actually caught Il. snarcs
and traps TO be exhibited 70 him AID
one n the nnmber---a female
lively disd II fright IN being secured
veddAs arg regarded merely ~ AMI
mak. Finally, Il may be remarked, in