The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1888-04-05
The Smallest People i'm the
World.
From the London Standard.

From the London standard.
At the last meeting of the Anthro.
biological Institute, Professor Flower,
c. B., Director of the National Histo-
ry Museum, gave description OF the
two skeletons of Akkas, lately obtain
ed in the Monbuttu country, Central
Africa, by Emin Pasha. Since this
diminutive tribe was discovered by
Schweinfurth in 1870, they have re-
ceived considerable attention from va
rious travellers and anthropologists,
and general descriptions and move
ments OF several living individuals
have been published, but no account of
their astrological characters has been
given, and no specimens have been sub.
mitted to careful anatomical exami-
nation.
The two skeletons are those
OF fully grown-up people, a male
and female. The evidence they afford
entirely corroborates the view pre-
viously derived from external meas
urements that the Akkas are among
the smallest,if not actually the small
est people upon the earth. These skeIe-
tons are both of them smaller than any
other normal skeleton known, smaller
certainly than the smallest Bushman's
skeleton in any museum in this coun-
try, and smaller than any out of the
20 skeletons OF the diminutive inhabi-
tants Of the Andaman Islands, OF
which the dimensions have been re-
corded by Prof. Flower in a previous
communication to the AnthropoIogi-
cal institute.
The height OF neither of them ex-
ceeds l.219 metres, or four feet, while
q living Aka, of whom Emin Pasha
has sent careful measurements, is only
1.164 metres, or barely three feet ten
inches. The results previously OBJ
tanned from the measurements OF
about half a dozen living Akkas are
not quite SO low as these, varying from
1.216 to 1.42O metres. and give an av-
erage for both sexes of 1855, or four
feet 1-2 inches. But the numbers
measured are not sufficient for estab.
fishing the true average of the race, es-
pecially as it is not certain that they
were all pure bred examples.
According to Topinard's list. there
mean height below 1.5OO metres,
viz, the Negritor of the Adaman ISL
ands 1.478), and the Bushmen OF
South Africa (1.4O4. Of the real
height of the former we have abuni-
ant and exact evidence, both from
living individuals and from skeletons.
which clearly proves that they consid-
erably exceed the Akkas in stature.
That this is also the case with the
Bushmen there Is little doubt. The
point of comparative size being set
tied, it remains to consider to what
races the Akkas are most nearly al.
lied.
That they belong in all their es-
sentiai characteristics to the black or
Negroid branch OF the human species
there can be no doubt-in fact, they
exhibit all the essential characteristics
of that branch even to exaegeration.
The form of the head is somewhat
more rounded than usual, bat it has
been shown that in Equatorial Africa,
extending from the west coast far in
to the interior, are scattered tribes of
negroes distinguished from the ma
iority OF the inhabitants OF the con.
tinent by this special cranial charac-
ter as we'll as by their smaller stature,
to which the name "Negrillo" has
been applied by Hamy. 1t is to this
race OF the great Negroid branch that
the Akkas belong, and they are not
by any means closely allied, either to
the Bushmen or the Negritor of the
same great branch, distinguished
among the general character by their
closely curled or frizzly hair 1t is
possible that the Negrillo people gave
origin to the stories of pygmies so
common in the writings OF the Greek
poets and historians, and whose hab.
itations were often placed near the
sources of the Nile. The name Aka.
by which Schweinfurth says that the
tribe now cali themselves, has, sim
cularly enough, been read by Marietta
Pasha by the side OF the portrait OF a
dwarf in q monument of the ancient
Egyptian empire.