482 THE PYGMIES OF THE GREAT CONGO FOREST. 



So far I have given the result of a general impression on the e3"e of 

 various travelers when I have spoken of these negroes in the forested 

 regions and border lands of the Uganda Protectorate l)eiu2" "ape-like." 

 But I should state that the skulls examined, the photographs of the 

 physical appearance studied, the measurements of head and body 

 analyzed do not enable scientific anthropologists to indorse the term 

 " ape-like " which has been used by myself and others to describe these 

 negroes of degraded aspect. They offer sufficient general resemblance 

 to the forest Pygmy type to be classed with them, perhaps in a group 

 which I have st3ded (for want of a better name) the "Pygmy-Prog- 

 nathous." '^ * * The resemblance between the pygmies and these 

 Banande would appear to be osteological. Outwardly there is no 

 special likeness between the two groups. Further evidence may show 

 that the ape-like type may crop up in any negro race, whereas there 

 can be do doubt that the forest pygmies are a well-marked and distinct 

 type of negro. 



Even before the negro quitted Arabia to invade and occupy the 

 greater part of Africa he ma}' have developed a pygmy t} pe, or have 

 had a tendency to generate races of stunted stature. Remains which 

 have been found in Sicil}^, in Sardinia, in Liguria, and the Pyrenees, 

 including a curious little statuette fashioned bv men of the Stone Age 

 discovered in the last-named locality, hint at the possibilit}?^ of men of 

 this p.ygmy negro type having spread over part of P^urope. It has 

 been even suggested by more than one anthropologist of authorit}^ that 

 a dwarf-negroid race ma}^ have at one time existed in northern Europe, 

 and by an exaggeration in legend and story of their peculiar habits — 

 habits strangely recalling the characteristics of the little dwarf people 

 of the Congo of the present day — have given rise to the stories of 

 kobolds, elves, sprites, gnomes, and fairies. Like some of the Bush- 

 men (who are, however, an independent development or an arrested 

 type of negro) who inliabited South Africa when it Avas first discov- 

 ered by Europeans, and who still exist iii the southwestern part of 

 that continent, like the P^uropean and Asiatic races of the early Stone 

 Age, these negro dwarfs in bleak or poorly forested regions no doubt 

 lived in caves and holes, and the rapid manner in which they disap- 

 peared into these holes, together witli their baboon-like adroitness 

 in making themselves invisible in squatting immobility— a faculty 

 remarkabl}' present in the existing dwarfs of the Congo forest — gave 

 rise to the belief in the existence of creatures allied to man who 

 could assume at will invisibility. Traits in the character of the Congo 

 dwarfs of the present day recall iiresistibly the tricks of Puck, of 

 Kol>in Goodfellow, of the gnome.5 and fairies of German and Celtic 

 tradition. ^ * '^ 



These j^eople arc not dehnitely organized into a trilu', but hang about 

 the fringe of other communities Tlun >i)eak the languages or dia- 



