538 



PYGMIES AND FOREST NEGROES 



the beasts and some of the birds witli whieh they are famih'ar. Drawing, 

 it would seem to n)e, was a very early development of the gesture 

 language, and may have been practised by the earliest human prototyjies 

 almost before they could articulate a definite speech. But thougli the 

 Pvgmv has this innate appreciation of form in him, he has in his natural 

 state but little appreciation of colour, and ignores personal decoration. 

 Almost alone among African races, he neither tattoos nor scars his body, 

 he adorns himself 'ivith nothing (wears no ear-rings, necklace, bracelet, 

 waist-belt, or anklet), unless it may be finger-rings of iron — and these 

 have prolmbly lieen borrowed of late from his bigger and more civilised 

 friends, the ^Ibuba and Baamba cultivators.* The males of all the Congo 

 Pvgmies seen by me were circn/nicised, and all in both sexes had their 



upper incisor teeth and 

 canines sharpened to a 

 pjoint, after the fashion 

 of the Babira and Upper 

 Congo tribes. In their 

 forest homes they often 

 go naked, both men and 

 women ; yet in the pre- 

 sence of strangers they 

 don a small covering — 

 the men a small piece 

 of genet, monkey, or 

 antelope skin, or a wisp 

 of bark-cloth, and the 

 women leaves or bark- 

 cloth — over the pudenda. 

 They tell me that in the 

 forest they wear nothing, 

 but I cannot say that 

 the Pygmy men struck 

 me as being so callously 

 and unconsciously naked 

 as the Nilotic Negroes, 



* Some of the Pygmies, 

 liowever, do imitate the 

 agricultural ^Ibuba and 

 Babira Negroes in jdercing 

 their ui)per lips with holes 

 into which they thrust small 

 MAN rv,.^n ii:.,M NKAu 1,1 1'a.nzula's (uiTEu quills, uodules of quartz, or 

 iTLKi j.iviKRT) even tiowers. 



294. AN i>l. 



