The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1893-06-28
ADVANCE OF Man.
Object Lesson of Progress al
the Worlds Fair.
VISIT TO TEE DAHoMEY VILLAGE

Specimens of Savage Life Gathered from
the Wiids Of Africa Cute Little Black
| Baby Which Everyone Wants to Sec
! The King of the yiliage-The Theater
and Musical Instruments.
WORLDS FAIR, June s7 - Especial =
II this great exposition teaches any lesson
1t is of the wonderful progress made by
man In the arts and sciences, in the knowl-
edge of how TO Live and behave. It shows
! how step By step he has advanced from
savagery to his present high estate. As If
| to make the picture more real, more strik-
| ing and impressive. here are large num-
| Der Of specimens Of savage life, gathered
| from the forest, The jungle and the desert
Of all the earth Thus it is that here in
this ideal city, this city Of palaces, this city
in which modern man has displayed the
best of which he IS capable in all fields OF
human energy, the primitive man comes
in also to afford graphic contrast in the
object-lesson OF progress.
None of these savages are more interest
ing than the Dahomeyites from Africa.
From the very center of the dark continent
they have come, through the enterprise of
French Snowman, TO exhibit their per
sons and their customs. A village has
been built for them on the Midway plais-
Rnce. 1t is as large IN area as an ordi-
nary city block Visitors pay % cents
each for the privilege of entering, and the
show is well worth the money. One finds
the village TO be hollow square. Run
ming all round the Enclosure is a line OF
huts of native construction. built Of trees
and boughs with rude mud walls. AS
looked at these huts / could not avoid the
thought Of how in the building of the
White City itself modern man has merely
initiated the methods of his savage ances-
tors. The palaces of the Worlds fair are
simply Undiscovered buildings. But their
mud is white Ike marble, and it is
moulded into all the beautiful and express
sive forms which art can give it. Well,
the huts of the Dahomeyites are not
pretty, but they are comfortable They
have floors Of wood, and their matched
roofs do tolerably well to keep the rain off.
There is very little furniture within them,
uuu III glass III INC SHidil NiHuONS III
the climate of Dahomey cold is not an ele-
ment that must be guarded against The
inhabitants of these huts sleep on the
floor, rolling themselves in rude blankets
Of their own construction and in the skins
of animals.
One of the huts is kitchen-an open
house with tables and modern cook
stove! 70 this extent at least it must be
presumed the village is not true 10 ma
ture," for in the savage life Of west Africa
the cook-stove is an exotic. Some of the
huts are workshops and dwellings COM
bined, for even the Dahomeyites have their
industries. In one blacksmith lives, and
his principal business, which he carries on
in front of his dwelling, himself seated
squat upon the ground, is that of sharpen
ing spear heads and repairing the spikes
which hTotru0e i'll suchsan ugly fashion
from the wer-clubs of the AmaZens and
fighting men. Another workman sits
cross-legged doing embroidery, curious
admixture OF savagery and art, of war and
peace. In Daholney the women do not
neither do they sew or cook.
That is the work Of the men. The women
nurse the babies and then go forth to till
the soil and TO fight.
In one of the nuts there is the queerest
little black baby you ever saw. 1t lies
wholly naked on g, skin thrown down on
the floor. Like all babies in the world it
passes most OF it's time at sleep, and when