CHAPTER XIV 

 PYGMIES AND FOREST NEGROES 



SUMMING up the experiences of many African travellers, together with 

 my own observations, I should venture to say that there is a 

 prognathous beetling-browed, short-legged, long-armed — " ape-like " — type 

 of Negro dwelling in pariah tribes or cropping up as reversionary 

 individuals in a better-looking people, to be met with all down Central 

 Africa, from the Bahr-al-Grhazal to the upper waters of the Zambezi, and 

 westwards from the Bahr-al-Grhazal to Portuguese Guinea. I have seen 

 during my experience in British Central Africa very prognathous, ape-like 

 Negroes coming from the i-egions round about the Congo-Zambezi water- 

 shed. They were slaves in Arab caravans. Messrs. Grogan and Sharp 

 noticed this strange simian type between Lake Kivu and Lake Albert 

 Edward, on the eastern edge of the Congo Forest.* Knowing nothing at 

 the time of their observations in this respect, I was much struck on 

 entering the countries west of Kuwenzori at the ape-like appearance of some 

 of the Negroes whom I encountered. These were either ostensibly members 

 of the Bakonjo or Baamba tribes on the western flanks of that snowy 

 range, or they were pariahs dwelling by themselves on the fringe of the 

 great Congo Forest, west of the Semliki River. This ape-like type was 

 generally known to the surrounding negroes as "Banande."f Whenever I 



* Dr. Stuhlmann met with it amongst the Basongora in the Congo watershed 

 west of Lake Albert. 



t This being a designation in the Bantu language would in the singular be 

 " Munande." The root would be " -nande," a word offering a strange similarity to 

 " Nandi," which is the name given to a particular tribe on the forested plateaux to 

 the north-east of the Victoria Nyanza. The Nandi, however, of this part of the 

 Protectorate are anything but apedike in appearance, and are of a Negro or Masai 

 stock which has received a strong intermixture in times past with the Hamite, the 

 result being in some instances handsome and almost European features. 



Note. — For convenience of reference, in the following six chapters dealing with 

 anthropology I shall print in italics an occasional word or phrase giving the subject 

 of the paragraph. Thus a reference to "marriage customs" will be facilitated if 

 "marriage" (when specially dealt with) appears in italics. The same will occur with 

 "industries," "physical characteristics," etc. 



510 



