The Indiana State sentinel., 1889-01-09
A REMARKABLE PEOPLE.
AKA DwARFs OF THE CONGO BASIN.
-Four Feet Hish-An Ugly and Pugnacious
Racs-CunnInG Pygmies-SleepinG in
the Trees-A Vivid Description
OF n Peculiar Race.

None OF the remarkable discoveries made
by explorers in the depths of Africa, says
the New York Sun, has ever excited
deeper interest than Schweinfurth's vivid
description OF the Aka dwarfs whom he
found in the northeastern part OF the
Congo basin. Living among tribes OF
splendid physical development, these little
people, from four feet to four feet six
inches in height, are noted for their cour-
age and agility, for their prowess as
hunters, and for their unusual dexterity
in the use OF the bow and spear. In a
recent lecture in London Prof. Flower
director of the natural history museum,
described them as the smallest people in
the world, and expressed the opinion, now
generally held, that they and their rela-
tiveS south of the Congo are the Pygmies
who were known to the Greeks, and OF
whom Herodotus and Aristotle gave des-
criptions that were long believed to be
fanciful. The industry of four great trav-
ellers, who took up the work OF explora-
ton where Stanley left it, has now sup
piled us with considerable information
about the remarkable Batwa dwarfs, who
are spread in little communities through
the densely-wooded regions south of the
great northern bend of the Congo. They
have been found in districts about four
hundred miles apart and in much of the
intervening regions that are still little
known. They have been studied by Wolf
near the Lulua river, still further east by
Wissmann in the interminable forests
which sunlight hardly penetrates north
of the Sankuru, by Grenfel and
Tchuapa rivers, and by Grenfell
on the Lubilash, southwest of Stanley
Falls. These discoveries were made in
the years 1855 and 1886, but the explorers
were too busy accumulating facts to pre-
pare them for public perusal, and we have
had only the most fragmentary illusions
to these unique and interesting little folks
until the writings of Wolf, Wissmann,
and Won Francois were published in Ger
many this summer. One day DIR. Wolf
was pushing through the forests east OF
the Lulua River, when he suddenly came
upon a little glade in which were about
twenty tumble-down beehive huts, the
homes of the Batwa. He had seen few
of these little people kept as hunters
at the towns of big chiefs, but this
was the first time he had met them in
their own poorly cared for villages. Some
Of them could speak the language of the
Bakuba, the great tribe which claims this
region, but they were so awe-struek bv
the white mans sudden advent that they
would hardly utter a word. 4 crowd of
nearly a hundred coffee-brown little folks,
none OF them larger than children two
thirds grown, stood tImidly at distance
and surveyed the visitors In wonder. DR..
Wolf won their confidence so far at last
that they permitted him to approach, and,
unobserved by the natives, he took the
nights of many of them on a spear
shaft. These and later measurements
by DR.. Wolf OF full-grown
adults vary from four feet three
inches to four feet seven and one-half
inches. The average height, according to
the several authorities, scenes to be about
four feet five inches. Unlike the Aka,
the Batwa are not unusually prognathOus,
nor have they disportionately large
abdomens, but they are compact we'll
built little creatures, without any physical
peculiarity except their small size. Lieut.
Wissmann, however, received quite an
unfavorable impression of the Batwa
from the few specimens he
saw among the Bassonge, whom he
describes as dwelling in tiny huts,
despised by their neighbors, ill-shaped
and woe-begonc specimens of humanity.
All through this great forest region may
be found these nomad hunters. In little
bands of eight or more families they build
their grass huts wherever game is plenti-
ful, live there a few months, and then
move on to other hunting grounds. Here
and there in the woods they dig pits about
eight feet deep, which they cover with
branches and turf, and in these traps they
catch elephants, ,hippopotami and bufaloes,
which are often impaled upon sharpened
stakes driven into the bottom of the pits.
They also hunt large game with the bow
and spear They cannot kill an elephant
at once with their weapons, but they sell
dom lose an animal they once wound.
Won Francois says that, living in ambush,
they attack the largest game, and follow
ii If necessary for days. Whenever the
wounded animal halts IL becomes the
target for a fresh shower of spears, and
finally, weakened by the loss of blood, it
falls an easy prey. The cunning pyg-
mics incur small loss OF weapons III these
long chases after elephants and buffaloes
Their arrow and spear heads are barbed
and cannot drop out of the wound,
neither do they loose the spear shaft, tor
they are fastened by stout cords to the
head, and il the animal in his flight
brushes against trees, the shafts, in
stead of falling to the ground, merely
dangle at his sides. It's not usual for ex-
plorers TO find the Batwa timid and un-
demonstrative, like the first villagers that
DR.. Wolf met. They have earned the
reputation of being very ugly and pug
nacious little fellows. In war they use
poisoned arrows. They take the war-path
at night, steal noiselessly up TO the sleep
ing village of the enemy, fire the huts,
and kill the people with arrows and spears
by the light OF their burning houses.
Their fallen foes and their prisoners be-
come food at cannibal feasts, for the
Batwa, like the Aka, are numbered
among the anthrophagi of Africa. Their
fame as fighters has travelled far, and
the natives who accompanied Gren-
fell and Won Francois were
panic-stricken when they first saw
a dwarf One of their peculiarities is the
fact that on their numerous marches they
do not sleep by camp-tires at night, like
other natives, but stretch themselves on
the branches of trees, which they clasp
with arms and legs, and there slumber out
of reach OF wild beasts. Don't go near
the dwarfs," was the admonition of the
Congo natives to Grenfell '"They permit
no one to enter their country. They
poison their weapons. They are the
ugliest OF mOrtals and have great heads