San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1926-04-18

noSed, Old Woman, with Hair
Short Like That of the Men, Who
Was Estimated to Be Con-
siderably More Than 100
e Years Old.
TOR many years science has thought
that the wretchcd Australian Bush
men were the most primitive and
animal-Iikc human beings anywhere on the
face of the earth, but the explorers Of the
Denver State Library Expedition have
come across a tribe near the Kalahari
Desert of Africa which, by comparison,
make the Australian wild men rather high
class persons.
These newly discovered human animals
are called Heikum Bushmen and so utterly
worthless and degraded are they that the
surrounding tribes, who have very little
to boast of themselves, despise the Heikum
people and kill them on sight, just as they
would a wild dog or a buzzard. The only
ann in life Of these animal men from the
day Of their birth until their death is to
get something to put in their stonachs
and il does not matter much what it is.
Anything that can be digested is food, and
snakes scorpions, worms, caterpilars or
the putrid carcasses left behind by the
lions and leopards of the jungle are en-
tirely satisfactory for meal.
The Heikum Bushmen, as a rule. wear
no more clothes than the monkeys in the
trees above them and they have no more
standards of morality or family or matri-
monial notions than the animals Of the
Jungle. They build no houses and have
no homes of any kind.
These animal men have no tribal or
ganization and no chief. As the women
have no husbands and the men have no
wives, and as there is no one in authority
they do completely as they please, with
nobody to give them any orders. They
have no cooking utensils nor tools, not
even a knife. And these strange wander
ers have no religion. The most creditable
thing which can be said about them is that
thcv are not cannibals. SO far as the ex-
plorers were able to find out, they have
the dcccncv not to eat each other, no
matter how long. it has been since they
caught their last snake or ate their last
caterpillar
To escape the blazing hot sun of the
desert they bury themselves in the sand,
and TO escape the chill of the tropical
nights they roll up together, men, women'
and children indiscriminately, like litter
of kittens, to get what warmth they can
from each other. And when a mother
dies the living baby is tossed into the
grave with her.
Nobody loves these man-animals of the
wilderness and, therefore, they have learn
ed TO keep out of sight when ALTERNATIVES
or occasional travellers are in the ncighbor-
hood. But the Denver explorers were
able to coax one of the natives into camp
and show him their big automobile. He
went back into the bush and described
the miracle of what he called the magic
wagon" Their curiosity and ncredulity
at ,tne story of this machine, which would
run around Without horses or without any
body pushing it, would snort and belch
fire and make strange noises and pull ter
rble loads, finally overcame their timid-
ity and, at last, the explorers won their
confidence.
How well the tactful scientists were
able to tame these living relics Of the pre-
historic past when man was little better
than his ape cousins is shown by the in
terestlng photographs printed on this page.
The expedition was sent out to Africa
by the University of Denver to make
motion picture record of the life and hab-
its of Kalahari Bushmen for the Denver
State Library, which is forming collec-
ton of pictures of all the human races of
the globe. The leader of the expedition
was Mr. C. J. Cadle, and he brought with
him from the United States Mr.. Paul