The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1908-05-07
AFRICAN BUsHMEN DOOMED.
Or. Rudolf Pooh 10 Make Stud!
of a Disappearing Race.

Or. Rudolf Pooh 10 Make study
of Il Disappearing Race.
A letter received in Washington from
DR.. Rudolf Pooh, the well known an
thropologist, says:
| am about 10 start, under the aus
pieces of the Imperial Academy of
Sciences of Vienna, to make a study
Of the Bushmen. The race is rapidly
dying out, and the sole purpose of my
expedition is to add to our knowledge
of this people before they become ex-
tinct.
The fact has been recognized for
some years that this African race is
destined to extinction. This is all the
more remarkable because everywhere
else the African races are more than
holding their own.
Pestilence, war, and the evils that
the whites introduce are powerless to
obliterate them. Africa is growing
in native population.
But the Bushmen are now reduced
to a handful, and every year they
are dwindling Circumstances are toe
hard for them, and it is not believed
they could be saved, even by change
in their conditions.
The Bushmen inhabit the great
desert of South Africa There is nc
running water. and yet among the
sand wastes there are depressions
where the natives find water by dig
ging, and in places it comes SO neal
the surface that vegetation fiourishes
and many animals find nurture in the
desert.
The Bushmen are only a few inches
taller than the pygmies of Central
Africa. They live in rock caves OF
in huts of sticks and grass. They sci
dom wear more than a leather apron tC
protect their legs from thorns.
They subsist on the scant vegeta
tion, on roots, and on the animals they
kill. Clubs. bows and arrows. and 9
few spears are their only weapons
They are primitive, but they do not
buy their wives; they have been faith
full to those whites who have befriend
ed them, and they paint and draw il
an astonishing manner. Much ha:
been written of the thousands of ami
NAL paintings with which they adcrI
the rocks and the walls of their caves
Why do they not abandon the descr
to which they are confined? The!
could not if they would. They ar,
hemmed around by pastoral and agri
cultural regions. all occupied by stron:
tribes, who kill them like vermin i
they venture across the line.
If they were free TO leave the deser
it is doubtful If they would do so, fo
they are hunting people, and sucl
tribes have never voluntarily becom
a pastoral or an agricultural commu
nifty. Whenever cattle have been givel
to the Bushmen they have kille,
them. for they will not herd them.
The whites have been even NOR
destructive of the Bushmen than thei
native enemies. Late in the eighteenth
! century the Dutch used to shoot thes
little people as they would game. |
is recorded that in the ten years end
ing in 1875 the Dutch killed 2,4SO Bush
men.
They have always shrunk from con
tact with civilization, and to-day, whel
they see white protectorates plante,
all around them, they are retreatin
| farther into the desert. The white
are invading the more fertile valleys
are stalking out ranches and buildin
little settlements. are killing off tn
game that is the hereditary food O
the desert nomads, blowing the place
where the Bushmen go for berries an,
edible roots, and narrowing the are
i'm which they can live.
They seem wholly unable to live I'm
der new conditions. and the old con
ditions are passing away. All VIII
know them best say that their abso
lutte determination Is question o
| only n few yearS-WaShington Post