544 



PYGMIES AND FOREST NEGROES 



and • as if the original motif had been forgotten and the gestures and 

 writhings were merely traditional. Actually I never noticed any liking for 

 deliberate indecency on the part of these Pygmies, who should certainly be 



299. PYGMIES EATING 



described as strictly observing the ordinary decencies of life, perhaps rather 

 punctiliously. Amongst themselves they are said to be very moral. Their 

 women, however, soon degenerate into immorality when they come into 

 contact with Sudanese or Swahilis. But even then they observe outward 

 decorum and assume an affectation of prudishness. 



I have referred already to the agricultural forest, negroes who dwell 

 alongside the Dwarfs. Native traditions, as recorded by Schweinfurth and 

 Junker and other early explorers of the Bahr-al-Ghazal region of the Congo 

 watershed, would seem to show that the Congo Dwarfs were far more 



