550 PYGMIES AND TOREST NEGROES 



invasions of Nilotic Negroes, Baliima (Gala), and Bantu, But the 

 general tradition among the Lendu tliemselves is that they came from 

 the countries to the west of the AN'liito Nile, and were forced by other 

 tribes pressing on them from the north to establish themselves on the 

 jilateau countries to the west of Lake Albert. Here they found the 

 Dwarfs (as already related) existing in numbers. They drove the Dwarfs 

 out of the grass country of the high plateau, and then, again, being 

 attacked bv the Aluru and the Banyoro, the Lendu were forced to enter 

 the forest, which to a great extent they inhabit at the present day, 

 living in fairly amicable relations with the Pygmies, the !Mbuba, and the 

 Bantu-speaking forest folk. 



I have already stated that examph^s of the so-called Lendu are of a 

 distiuctlv superior physical type, with almost Hamitic features, and I 

 attribute this to mingling with or receiving settlers from Lnyoro and the 

 Nile countries. But as regards the bulk of the Lendu population, both Dr. 

 Stuhlmann and Dr. Shrubsall (who has contributed a most valuable analysis 

 of mv anthropometrical observations) considered that they showed distinct 

 signs of affinity to the PN'gmy-Proguathous type. No doubt the explanation 

 is that some ordinary race of Sudanese Negroes came down from the north 

 and mingled so much with the Pygmies, whom they superseded, as to 

 absorb many of their physical characteristics. Dr. Shrubsall classes the 

 Lendu with the Pygmy group as regards some of the measurements of the 

 head and body. The -physical characteristics of this type of Lendu are 

 shared by many of the Baamba, Bahuku, and Babira people of the forest 

 borderland, though all these three tribes speak Bantu languages. They 

 mav be described liriefly as a great want of proportion between the mass 

 of the bodv, and the short, feeble legs which support it. Were not my 

 ])hotographs there to attest the jjroof, it would be thought, if they were 

 drawings, that the artist had in serious error attributed limbs to the torso 

 which were three times too small. The arms are long, the face is net 

 generally so simian in appearauce as among the Pygmy-Prognathous group, 

 yet the nose, bv its broad tip and large raised wings, often shows affinity 

 with the forest Dwarfs. The colour of the skin is usually a dirty chocolate- 

 brown. The hair is allowed to grow as long as possible, and its length is added 

 to bv the addition of string, so that the face is often surrounded by a mop 

 of little plaits, which are loaded with greese, clay, or red camwood. There is 

 a scrubbv beard on the face of every man of twenty-five years and upwards. 

 Most of the Lendu young men, like all the forest folk round them, bore the 

 upper lip with from two to eight holes. Into these holes are thrust rounded 

 pencils of quartz or sections of the stems of reeds, or small brass rings may 

 pass completely through the upper lip. The Pygmies also have their lips 

 bored in this fashion, and sometimes stick small flowers into the holes. 



