Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1900-03-03
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end Of the Tertiary period. Now, the
Tertiary ended about zoo, 900 years back
with the great Ice Age and thus one
gets a notion of the extreme antiquity
assignable to the first families of the
Philippines.
DR. Becker surmises that the black
dWarfs of LuZon and other islands of
the group. known as Negritos, are ac-
tually descended from the primitive
human stock in question. These black
pigmies. now nearly extinct, who have
not advanced even as far as the stone
Age. are astonishingly monkey-like in
aspect and in their ways, the sounds
they utter in lieu of language resembl-
ing the short and sharp shriekS OF
those animals. Apparently they arr
not digtantly related to certain savages
discovered in the interior of BOrneo.
rot exceeding four feet in stature,
whose wrinkled skins are covered with
TIar. and who sleep in caves or in trees
living on mice and such other small
manuals as they can catch. These wild
people of BOrneo can neither be tanned
nor employed for any work. and their
speech is the gable of brutes
AIl liIItIS u tll' RAJ S'l lsNi'iliNi t1ltuI'H
IF the Southwest Pacific are found,
more or less differentiated. tribes of
rlonkey-like dwarfs. There is no ques-
ION Of the fact that most Of that part
Of the world now called Oceanica was
inhabited by these little black people
long before bigger races came in boats
and began the work of discriminating
them. They have been wiped out en-
tirely on all but the largest islands,
such as LuZon and Mindanao, where
they still survive in small numbers in
the mountainous and inaccessible in
terror. Among them are certain aborig
ines of Sumatra, whose bodies are
covered all over with soft. dark hair.
and who wear no clothing, have no Ian
guage of their own, and learn with the
utmost difficulty to pronounce few
Malay words. AS far away as Ceylon,
the wild folk Of the mountains, known
as Veddahs, make themselves under
stood by signs, grimaces and inarticu-
late grunts.
These pigmy peoples, according to
the belief of DIR. Becker and Professor
Marsh, are descended directly from the
original stock of the sO-called missing
link. OF course, the missing link was
not an individual, but a species, and
the best authorities are of the opinion
that the type was not unlike the chin
panzee-a kind of ape now almost eX-
tinct, unfortunately, but regarded as
nearer to man than any other of the
great anthropoidS. Nobody viii ever
know how he came about, but he ar
rived somehow-very likely in LuZon
or its near Northumberland it soon
became apparent that he was there to
stay. He was smarter than the other
monkeys. and so could get a better liv-
ing; he learned how to grasp stick
and use it as club, and thus he was
enabled to whip all corners in a fight.
Now, this missing link is no theory.
That he and his kinda whole tribe.
constituting new and improved
species-did actually exist has been |
proved by the discovery, in Java, not
very far from the Philippines. of a fos- |
sill specimen. One should rather say. a
few Of the bones of an individual. but |
they were enough to show his physical |
and even his mental characteristics, in |
n rough way. There was the upper |
part of skull, a molar tooth and left |
thigh bone-all completely fossiliZed
and found ir volcanic deposit of zap
proximately) known age, on the banks
of the Bengawan river. The earth sur
rounding these interesting remains had
turned to solid rock, and it is a surmise
that the cataclysm which destroyed |
this individual may have wiped out an
entire nation of his kind. Certainly,
the creature in question was not hui
man. but in size, brain power and erect
posture he approached much nearer to
man than any other animal hitherto
known. The capacity of his skull /
seems to have been about two-thirds !
that of the average human being. !