The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-03-17
SMALLEST PEOPLE OF THE WORLD
a Race Of Men Under Four Feet High
The Akkas, the Worlds Dwarfs.
From the London Standard.

The Akkas, the Worlds Dwarfs.
From the London Standard.
AT the last meeting of the Anthropologi-
cal Institute, Prof. Flower, c. B., Director
of the Natural History Museum, gave de-
scription of the two skeletons of Akkas,
lately obtained in the M0nbuttu country,
Central Africa, by Emin Pasha. Since this
dlminutive tribe was discovered by
Schweinfurth in 1870, they have received
| considerable attention from various travel
lers AMI anthropologists, and general de-
scriptions and movements of several hv-
ing individuals have been published, but no
| account of their astrological characters
has been given, and no specimens have teen
submitted TO careful anatomical examina-
| ton.
| The two skeletons are those Of fully
| grown-up people, a male and female. The
evidence they afford entirely corroborates
the view previously derived from external
measurements that the Akkas are among
| the smallest, If not actually the smallest,
| people upon the earth. These skeletons are
both of them smaller than any other nor
NAL skeleton known, smaller certainly than
| the smallest Bushman's skeleton in any
| museum in this country, and smaller than
any out Of the twenty-nine skeletons Of the
| diminutive inhabitants of the Andaman
Islands, of which the dimensions have been
recorded by Prof. Flower in previous
communication to the Anthropological In
| stitute
! The height of neither of them exceeds
| l,2l9 metres, or feet, while a living
| female Aka, of whom Emin Pasha has sent
careful measurements, is only l. l64 metres,
| or barely 3 feet 10 inches. The>results
| previously obtained from the measurements
of about half a dozen living Akkas are not
| quite so low as these, varying from l.2l6 to
| ]. 40 metres, and give an average for both
sexes of 1855, or 4 feet s. inches. But the
numbers measured are not sufficient for es-
tablshing the true average of the race, es-
| peclally as it is not certain that they were
all pure bred examples
According to Topinard's list, there are
| only two known races which have a mean
height below 1,500 meters, viz, the Negri-
| tor of the ALBANIAN Islands Il ,47S), and the
Bushmen of South Africa Il ,404) OF the
| real hight of the former we have abundant
| and exact evidence both from living indl-
vlduals and from skeletons, which clearly
proves that they considerably exceed the
| Akkas in stature. That this is also the case
with the Bushmen there is little doubt. The
point of comparative size being settled, it
remains to consider to what races the Akkas
| are most nearly allied.
That they belong in all their essential
characteristics to the black or Negroid
branch OF the human species there can be
no dOubt--in fact, they exhibit all the essen
tial characteristics of that branch even to
exaggeration. The form of the head is
| somewhat more rounded than usual, but it
has been shown that in Equatorial Africa,
extending from the west coast far into the
interior, are scattered tribes of negroes dis
tinguished from the majority of the inhabi-
tants of the continent by this special cranial
character as well as by their smaller stature,
to which the name "Negrilio" 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 Negri-
tor of the Indian ocean, except in SO far as
they are members of the same great branch,
| distinguished among the sc eral character
| by their closely curled or frizzly hair. 1t is
possible that the Negrillo people gave origin
to the stories of pygnies so common in the
writings of the Greek poets and historians,
and whose habitations were often placed
near the sources of the Nile. The name
| Aka, by which Schweinfurth says the
| tribe now call themselves, has, singularly
enough, been read by Marietta Pasha by
the side of the portrait of dwarf 10 a mon
ument of the ancient Egyptian empire.