532 PYGMIES AND FOREST NEGROES 



A Pygmy's arms are proportionately longer and the legs proportionately 

 shorter than in well-developed Negroes, Europeans, and Asiastics. The feet 

 are large, and the toes comparatively longer than in the higher races. 

 There is a tendency in some of the Dwarfs for the four smaller toes of the 

 foot to diverge somewhat from the big toe, and when the feet are firmly 

 planted together, the two big toes turn inwards towards each other. 

 Although these peculiarities of the foot are often strongly marked in the 

 Congo Dwarfs, they are not infrequently seen in other Negro types, and 

 must not be regarded as peculiar to the Pygmies. These Dwarfs are adroit 

 in climbing, and to a slight extent make use of their feet in grasping 

 branches between the big toe and the rest of the toes. 



The average height of the Pygmy men whom I measured was about 

 4 feet 9 inches; the average height of the women about 4 feet 

 inches. One male Pygmy was a little over 5 feet ; another, an elderly 

 man, was scarcely 4 feet 2 inches in height. One adult woman only 

 measured 4 feet.* 



Before concluding this description of the physical aspect of the 

 Pygmies, it should be mentioned that, even when forced to keep them- 

 selves clean (they never wash naturally), they exhale from their skins 

 a most offensive odour midway between the smell of a monkey and of 

 a Negro. 



The Pygmies apparently have no language peculiar to their lace, but 

 merely speak in a more or less corrupt form the language of the other 

 Negro tribes nearest to them, with whom they most associate. One group 

 of the Pygmies on the borders of the Uganda Protectorate, dwelling more 

 or less to the south of the equator, speaks the Bantu jargon of the Babira 

 or forest Negroes. The Pygmies dwelling to the north of the equator r 

 on the border and within the limits of the Uganda Protectorate, speak a 

 dialect of the Mbuba language, a non-Bantu tongue in which I can trace 

 no affinities to any other great group of Negro languages, though it is 

 related to Momfu, a tongue spoken on the Upper Welle. The Dwarf 

 pronunciation of the Mbuba language differs markedly from that of the 

 Bambuba themselves. It consists mainly in the substitution for certain 

 consonants, such as " k," of a curious gasp or hiatus, a sound which 

 occasionally approaches a click, and at other times has a rasping, faucal 

 explosion like the Arabic " ain " (£). They also have a peculiar singing 

 intonation of the voice when speaking which is noteworthy. It consists 

 usually in beginning the first syllable of a word on a low note, raising the 



*■ The Belgians at Fort Mbeni gave me the height measurements of four males 

 and two female Pygmies which they had taken. These amounted to (in English 

 measures) 5 feet 1 inch, 4 feet 6j inches, 4 feet 5^ inches, 4 feet 4^ inches for the 

 four males, and 4 feet 0| inch and 4 feet 1 inch for the women. 



