Gulf Coast breeze. [volume] (Crawfordville, Fla.) 1897-19??, 1898-03-18
DWARF LIFE IN AFRICA.
piMlNUTivE PEOPLE ARE NOTED
TRAPPERS AND HUNTERS.

They Drive Game Into Long Nets and
Wander From One Place tn Another
Their Women. Intermarry with other
Tribes Peculiar Customs. Thrifiy Ways.
Writing about tribe of little peo-
,le in Africa, Oscar Roberts says:
Most of these people are smaller
than their Bakoko and Mnb6ya neigh.
bors, but not all, rs the dwarf women
nre sometimes married into these
tribes. They deserve the name dwarf
more from the similarity of their habits
to the true dwarfs further inland
They live wandering, lndian-like
life, hunting. They have nets 100
feet long and three or four feet high,
n number of which they stretch across
the bush, aud the men women and
children drive the game into these
nets. They are experts in trapping
too. They do not stay in one place
long enough to plant, so they trade
their game to their agricultural neigh
bors for vegetable food. These Mabeya
head men have II certain kind of own
ership over them, sometimes furnish
ing them with powder and guns, and
nets and very little cloth for their
game during the time they are in that
community. When not successful in
the hunt, they must depend upon the
wild plants, nuts, honey, which they
know so well how TO find. They often
have feast and more often a famine.
Their sheds are from fifteen to fifty
feet long, the leaf roof touching the
ground on one side, and being about
four feet and half high on the other
side. When there are large trees the
roofs are made of the bark Of tree
four or five feet in diameter, which
often does not have time to crack and
leak before the dwarfs want to move.
Under these sheds are the pole beds,
supported by forked sticks four or five
inches from the ground, There il n
space left for fire between every two
beds. If they have any boxes or small
tin trunks, they keep them hid in the
bush; there is nothing to be seen un-
less they have a pot, or bowl, or bas-
ket, net or gun, or native AK; aud
no man is rich enough to possess all
Of these. They can move oil their
possessions on fifteen minutes notice;
may be living here today and twenty
miles away tomorrow. Three moves
do not equal one fire with them.
For amusement q man goes through
violent form of exercise, trying to move
az many of the muscles Of his body at
one tihe a. possible, the spectators
clapping their hands and calling, beat
ing on sticks aud their drums during
the performance. They seem to be-
lieve in one supreme being who is
good and kind, but, of course have no
definite knowledge Of him. They
fear the spirits OF the departed, aud
are said to move at once from place
where one OF their number died. They
fear and try to appease many evil
spirits, one Of which takes dreadful
form for his punishment. Among the
Maybeyas near here | know OF but
one blind man; yet it is the rule to
find one blind man in q community OF
from fifteen to fifty dwarfs, and some
times as many as three blind ones,
made blind some night by the agent
of this evil spirit AZ n punishment for
some oflense.
Miss MacClean, a lady of Glasgow,
has given the funds for the work for
these people. 1t is the purpose TO es-
tabish n station about ninety miles
from the beach, doing regular station
work with the Mabeya.speaking pco-
pie there, and at the same time doing
everything possible for the speedy
eyangelization of these wandering
people. But the workers are needed,
men with good constitutions and n
real love for itinerating bush travel.
If a man has love for plants and in
sects and birds, so much the better.
These people might be able to show
him q medical property of some OF the
plants they know that would be help
full to all. The power to shoot par
rot out of high tree with a Winches-
ter ought not to be lightly overlooked
ina country where everything is eaten,
l.. Il.