526 



THE CHANGING GENERATIONS 



traloid in all but their greater size; the mixed peoples of southern India appear 

 to contain a considerable Australoid element. In blood-group gene frequencies 

 the Australoids are set off from all other major groups by having high A h no A 2 , 

 no rh, high N, and Rh z present. 



The South African Bushmen — a dwarfish people, but not so small as Negritos — 

 live in the Kalahari Desert of southwest Africa. They show an extraordinary 

 combination of Negroid with apparently Mongoloid traits. In their black hair 

 growing in tiny spirals ("peppercorns"), broad noses, and full, everted lips they 

 resemble Negroids; in their yellow skin, slitlike slanted eyes, bridgeless nose and 

 projecting, fat-covered cheek bones they resemble Mongoloids. But they are 



Fig. 31.12. African Pygmies of the Ituri 

 Forest in the Congo Basin, contrasted with 

 a tall European. {Courtesy Chicago Natural 

 History Museum.) 



Fig. 31.13. A native Australian. {Courtesy 

 Chicago Natural History Museum.) 



unique in the enormous development of steatopygia (fat accumulation on but- 

 tocks and thighs), especially in the women, and in certain peculiarities of the 

 male and female external genitalia. 



Some authorities derive the Bushmen from an ancient cross between Negritos 

 and Mongoloids; many believe they are a relict group descended from the late 

 Pleistocene Boskop people of Africa; still others think they are a specialized 

 offshoot of the Negroid stock that has taken on a wholly accidental resemblance 

 to the Mongoloids. No really acceptable theory of their origin and relationships 

 has yet been proposed. Bushmen or similar peoples seem once to have occupied 

 much of East Africa and to have been forced into their present inhospital home- 

 land by pressure from invading Negro groups. The Hottentot tribes that now 

 surround them share some of the Bushman traits and seem to represent hybrid 

 populations in the zone of contact with the Bantu tribes of Negroes. 



