68 



NA TURE 



[May 17, 1888 



There is every reason to believe that these Bushmen represent 

 the earliest race of which we have, or are ever likely to have, any 

 knowledge, which inhabited the southern portion of the African 

 continent, but that long before the advent of Europeans upon 

 the scene, they had been invaded from the north by Negro 

 tribes, who, being superior in size, strength, and civilization, had 

 taken possession of the greater part of their territories, and 

 mingling freely with the aborigines, had produced the mixed 

 race called Hottentots, who retained the culture and settled 

 pastoral habits of the Negroes, with many of the physical fea- 

 tures of the Bushmen. These, in their turn, encroached upon 

 by the pure-bred Bantu Negroes from the north, and by the 

 Dutch and English from the south, are now greatly diminished, 

 and indeed threatened with the same fate that will surely soon 

 befall the scanty remnant of the early inhabitants who still 

 retain their primitive type. 



At present the habitat of the Bushman race is confined to 

 certain districts in the south-west of Africa, from the confines of 

 the Cape Colony, as far north as the shores of Lake Ngami. 

 Further to the north the great equatorial region of Africa is 

 occupied by various Negro tribes, using the term in its broadest 

 sense, but belonging to the divisions which, on account of pecu- 

 liarities of language, have been grouped together as Bantu. 

 They all present the common physical characteristics typical of 

 the Negro race, only two of which need be specially mentioned 

 here — medium or large stature, and dolichocephalic skull 

 (average cranial index about 73 "5). 



It is at various scattered places in the midst of these, that 

 the only other small people of which I shall have to speak, the 

 veritable pygmies of Homer, Herodotus, and Aristotle, according 

 to Quatrefages, are still to be met with. 1 



The first notice of the occurrence of these in modern times is 

 •contained in "The strange adventures of Andrew Battell of 

 Leigh in Essex, sent by the Portugals prisoner to Angola, who 

 lived there, and in the adjoining regions near eighteen yeares " 

 {1589 to 1607), published in "Purchas his Pilgrimes" (1625), 

 lib. vii. chap. iii. p. 983 : — 



" To the north-east of Mani-Kesock, are a kind of little people, 

 -called Matimbas ; which are no bigger than Boyes of twelve 

 yeares old, but very thicke, and live only upon flesh, which they 

 kill in the woods with their bows and darts. They pay tribute 

 to Mani-Kesock, and bring all their elephants' teeth and tayles 

 to him. They will not enter into any of the Marambds houses, 

 nor will suffer any to come where they dwell. And if by chance 

 any Maramba or people of Longo pass where they dwell, they 

 will forsake that place, and go to another. The women carry 

 Bows and Arrows as well as the men. And one of these will 

 walk in the woods alone and kill the Pongos with their poysoned 

 Arrows." 



Battell's narrative, it should be said, is generally admitted as 

 having an air of veracity about it not always conspicuous in 

 those of travellers of his time. In addition to the observations 

 on the human inhabitants, it contains excellent descriptions of 

 animals, as the pongo or gorilla, and the zebra, now well 

 known, but in his day new to Europeans. 



Dapper, in a work called " Description dela Basse Ethiopie," 

 published at Amsterdam in 1686, speaks of a race of dwarfs 

 inhabiting the same region, which he calls Mimos or Bakke-Bakke, 

 but nothing further was heard of these people until quite recent 

 times. A German scientific expedition to Loango, the results of 

 which were published in the Zeitschrift fur Ethnologic 1874; and 

 in Hartmann's work, " Die Negritier," o'Uained, at Chinchoxo, 

 photographs and descriptions of a dwarf tribe called " Baboukos," 

 whose heads were proportionally large and of roundish form 

 -{cephalic index of skull, 78 to 81). One individual, supposed to 

 be about forty years of age, measured 1 "365 metre, rather under 

 4 feet 6 inches. 



Dr. Touchard, in a " Notice sur le Gabon," published in the 

 Revue Maritime et Coloniale for 1861, describes the recent 

 destruction of a population established in the interior of this 

 country and to which he gives the name of "Akoa." They 

 seem to have been exterminated by the M'Pongos in their 

 expansion towards the west. Some of them, however, remained 

 as slaves at the time of the visit of Admiral Fleuriot de Langle, 

 who in 1868 photographed one (measuring about 4 feet 6 inches 

 high) and brought home some skulls, which were examined by 

 Hamy, and all proved very small and sub-brachycephalic. 



1 The scattered information upon this subject was first collected together 

 -by Hamy in his " Essai de co-ordination des Materiaux recemment recueillis 

 sur l'ethnologie des Negrilles ou Pygmees de 1' Afrique equatoriale," Bull. 

 Soc. d' Anthropologie de Paris, tone i : . (se-. iii.), 1879, r - . j}. 



Another tribe, the M'Boulous, inhabiting the coast north 

 of the Gaboon River, have been described by M. Marche 

 as probably the primitive race of the country. They live in 

 little villages, keeping entirely to themselves, though surrounded 

 by the larger Negro tribes, M'Pongos and Bakalais, who are 

 encroaching upon them so closely that their numbers are rapidly 

 diminishing. In i860 they were not more than 3000 ; in 1879 

 much less numerous. They are of an earthy-brown colour, and 

 rarely exceed 1 600 metre in height (5 feet 3 inches). In the 

 rich collections of skulls made by Mr. R. B. Walker and by M. 

 Du Chaillu, from the coast of this region, are many which are 

 remarkable for their small size and round form. Of many other 

 notices of tribes of Negroes of diminutive size, living near the 

 west coast of Equatorial Africa, I need only mention that of 

 Du Chaillu, who gives an interesting account of his visit to an 

 Obongo village in Ashango-land, between the Gaboon and the 

 Congo ; although unfortunately, owing to the extreme shyness and 

 suspicion of the inhabitants, he was allowed little opportunity 

 for anthropological observations. He succeeded, however, in 

 measuring one man and six women ; the height of the former was 

 4 feet 6 inches, the average of the later 4 feet 8 inches. 1 



Far further into the interior, towards the centre of the region 

 contained in the great bend of the Congo or Livingstone River, 

 Stanley heard of a numerous and independent population of 

 dwarfs, called " Watwas," who, like the Batimbas of Battell, are 

 great hunters of elephants, and use poisoned arrows. One of 

 these he met with at Ikondu was 4 feet 6£ inches high, and of a 

 chocolate brown colour. 2 More recently Dr. Wolff describes 

 under the name of "Batouas" (perhaps the same as Stanley's 

 Watwas), a people of lighter colour than other Negroes, and 

 never exceeding 1 '40 metres (4 feet 7 inches) high, but whose 

 average is not more than 1*30 (4 feet 3 inches), who occupy 

 isolated villages scattered through the territory of the Bahoubas, 

 with whom they never mix. 3 



Penetrating into the heart of Africa from the north-east, in 

 1870, Dr. George Schweinfurth first made us acquainted with a 

 diminutive race of people who have since attained a consider- 

 able anthropological notoriety. They seem to go by two names 

 in their own country, Akka and Tikki-tikki, the latter reminding 

 us curiously of Dapper's Bakke-bakke, and the former, more 

 singularly still, having been read by the learned Egyptologist, 

 Mariette, by the side of the figure of a dwarf in one of the 

 monuments of the early Egyptian Empire. 



It was at the court of Mounza, king of the Monbuttu, that 

 Schweinfurth first met with the Akkas. They appear to live 

 under the protection of that monarch, who had a regiment of 

 them attached to his service, but their real country was further 

 to the south and west, about 3 N. lat. and 25 E. long. 

 From the accounts the traveller received they occupy a consider- 

 able territory, and are divided into nine distinct tribes, each 

 having its own king or chief. Like all the other pygmy African 

 tribes, they live chiefly by the chase, being great hunters of the 

 elephant, which they attack with bows and arrows. 



In exchange for one of his dogs, Schweinfurth obtained from 

 Mounza one of these little men, whom he intended to bring to 

 Europe, but who died on the homeward journey at Berber. Un- 

 fortunately all the measurements and observations which were 

 made in the Monbuttu country by Schweinfurth perished in the 

 fire which destroyed so much of the valuable material he had 

 collected. His descriptions of their physical characters are there- 

 fore chiefly recollections. Other travellers — Long, Marno, and 

 Vossion — though not penetrating as far as the Akka country, 

 have given observations upon individuals of the race they have 

 met with in their travels. The Italian Miani, following the foot- 

 steps of Schweinfurth into the Monbuttu country, also obtained, 

 by barter, two Akka boys, with the view of bringing them tc 

 Europe. He himself fell a victim to the fatigues of the journey 

 and climate, but left his collections, including the young Akkas, tc 

 the Italian Geographical Society. Probably no two individual; 

 of a savage race have been so much honoured by the attention; 

 of the scientific world. First at Cairo, and afterwards in Italy. 

 Tebo (or Thibaut) and Chairallah, as they were named, wen 

 described, measured, and photographed, and have been the subject: 

 of a library of memoirs, their bibliographers including the name! 

 of Owen, Panceri, Cornalia, Mantegazza, Giglioli and Zannetti 

 Broca, Hamy, and de Quatrefages. On their arrival in Italy 

 they were presented to the King and Queen, introduced into thi 



1 " A Journey to Ashango-land," 1867, p. 3:5. 



2 " Through the Dark Continent," vol. ii. 



3 La Gazette Giogiaphique, 1SS7, p. 153, quoted by Quatrefages. 



