The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1902-11-04
PYCM|ES
Of AFRICA
Spend Their Lives in
Hunting and
Fishing.

In the Atlantic Monthly for August,
Mr.. Samuel Phillips Werner has an I'M
usually readable article on 1.-THE Afri-
can Pygmies," whom he has visited and
studied in their native town in Cen
trail Africa. on the Kasai River, a trib-
utary Of the Congo. These are the true
pygmies of Herodotus, the tabled
dwarfs Of Ethiopia. The little folk lived
ia a city called Ndombe. ruled over by
a king of the same name. There are
about 5000 in the city, and 800 more
around 1t. They dwell in little huts
shaped like a beehive, with an opening
on the side at the bottom, barely large
enough to admit their bodies crawling.
Although a full grown negro could not
even lie down at full length in such
house, one of them sufiices for pygmy
and his whole family, sometimes con-
sistng of a wife and half dozen child
rem.
The pygmies are occupied almost
solely in hunting and fishing, their
chief weapon being bow and poisoned
arrows. These arrows have no heads
except the mere sharpened point Of
bamboo, but they are dipped into veg
etable decoction which Is one of the
most fatal poisons known, and which
produces insanity or death almost i'm
mediately, even If the arrow makes not
much more than a scratch.
The pygmy community is ruled by a
giant king, Ndombe, who stands six
feet six inches in stature, with broad,
square shoulders, Herculean limbs, and
massive statuesque features of a dis
tinctively Egyptian cast. Mr.. Werner
says he has never seen the mans phys
zeal superior. He has thirty-one wives
and over forty children, and his family
connections are so extensive that they
themselves, however, do not usually
have more than one wife.
The clothing of the little negroes was
the most primitive imaginable. The
children and some of the women went
nude, and the most elaborate costume
amounted to nothing more than yard
Of palm fiber around their loins, this
garment being obtained from the other
natives.
The average height of fifty grown
men of the Batwa village was fifty-one
and seven-eighths inches, or four feet
and nearly four inches. Seven of these
We're less than three feet and nine
inches high, and five of them were over
four feet six inches. 1t was very diff
cult to persuade the women to submit
to measurement, but eight of them,
mothers of families, averaged forty
seven and three-eighths inches, four
inches shorter than the men. The prev
alent color was a light chocolate brown.
The older men wore scanty boards.
The head of the pygmy is of the
brachycephalic order. The mean cram
ial index of the skulls of eight adult
males was eighty-one degrees. The nose
was small, but more aquiline than that
of the real negro. The mouth was large,
and the chin receding. The hair
was of lighter color,-almost a
shade of brown,-and was kinky and
woolly. Their hands and feet were
small and well shaped, the hands in
particular being delicately formed. In
proportion to their size, their strength
far exceeded that of all the other Afri-
cans. Their powers of endurance on the
march or in the chase We're phenomenal.
Fifty miles a day was an ordinary
march for them, and they were almost
as much at home in the trees as the
monkeys themselves. The senses of
the pygmies were unusually acute. At
quite distance, they could distinguish
the chameleon from the foliage in which
1t was hidden, Notwithstanding the fact
that the color of the little animal coin
cided with that of its hiding place
Much of their quarry was discovered
through the powers of the nose, and it
is no eXaggeration to say that the pyg-
mics sense of smell was as keen as
that of their dogs. They We're such
shots with the bow that l have seen one
send an arrow through rat at twenty
yards, while it was running across the
village. The Bantu would spear fish as
they leaped from the water, or darted
among the rocks in the streams.
Mr.. Werner cites the scientific fact
that no traces have been found of any
human beings prior to the pygmies. 1t
is certain that the little people have ap-
parently preserved and enjoyed a phys
lcal eHtItE LOT lNe tlousdhu years nc
does not attempt to decide between the
various hypothesis as to the origin of
the pygmy race, some holding that the
ancestors of the pygmies were larger
men, and that the present dwarfs are a
degenerate race, and others that the
pygmies have been unchanged from
their creation. 1t is interesting to know
that the Kasai valley has recently been
opened to steam navigation, a steam
boat for the river having been built at
Richmond, Va. and that the ethnolo-
gists will have a good opportunity of
making thorough study OF the pecul-