268 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



Photo by R 



A PYGMY. 



elements, thus justifying the prediction that the Bushmen proper 

 will shortly be an extinct race." 



The evidence of Corporal Hobma that the Bushmen were 

 already known in the eighteenth century is sufficient to disprove 

 the theory, advocated by a well-known missionary, Dr. Phillips, 

 that the Bushmen are Hottentots who have become degenerate 

 owing to the confiscation of their cattle by the Dutch settlers. It is 

 true that in language and physical characters the Bushmen are allied 

 to the Hottentots; but the resemblances are due to the fact that the 

 Hottentots are a hybrid race, formed by the intermarriage of the 

 aboriginal Bushmen with the Negro immigrants. 

 The chief physical characteristics of the 

 Bushmen are as follows: The most con- 

 spicuous feature is their shortness of stature. 

 Fritsch, the author of the most important 

 monograph on the race, states that the average 



height is 4 feet 9 inches. Some of the Bushmen living in the Kalahari 

 Desert are a few inches taller, ranging from 4 feet 11 inches to 5 feet. 

 Barrow, however, records the average as 4 feet for the women and 

 4 feet 6 inches for the men, a difference between the sexes which is 

 certainly exaggerated. The colour of the skin is much lighter than 

 that of Negroes; the tint is yellowish or reddish. The head is said by 

 most South African travellers to be short and broad and well rounded, 

 and thus differs from the Negroes, in which the head is long. The 

 forehead is broad and bulging; the cheek-bones are prominent; the eyes 

 are small, deeply set, and slightly oblique, with a sly and roguish aspect. 

 The lips are thick and projecting, while the chin is small and receding. 

 The arrangement of the hair is very characteristic; instead of being 

 evenly distributed over the top and back of the head, it occurs in small 

 isolated tufts, which look like peppercorns scattered over the head; as 

 Schulz describes it, "the hair is tufted in woolly, curling islets on the 

 skull, showing bare spaces of scalp shining between the agglomerated 

 lumps of wool." 



Another well-marked feature in the Bushmen is that the buttocks 

 are very large and projecting, owing to a thick accumulation of fat. 

 This character is no doubt useful, as it acts as a reserve store of food, 

 which can be drawn upon by the body during periods of famine. 

 Similar fatty developments occur in some animals, which live through 

 their period of hibernation on stores of reserve fat, the disappearance of 

 which causes so great a difference in the appearance of the animals 

 that specimens collected at different seasons have been described as 

 distinct species. 



The dress of the Bushmen is very primitive. The most elaborate 

 native article of clothing is a kaross, or cloak of skins, which is hung 

 over the shoulders. But very often the only garment worn is a flap of 

 skin passed between the legs and tied round the waist by a thong. 



Their ornaments are also primitive, and consist of simple beads and 

 rings made from brass wire, belts of leather adorned with shells or teeth, 

 and feathers or the tails of small mammals worn in the hair. The 

 women paint their "faces red. The main Bushman weapon is the bow 

 and arrow, in the use of which they are more expert than the average ' Photo by Rau. 

 Negro; but as the arrows are not feathered, their range is short. The ON A COFFEE PLANTATION. 



