ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



1377 



farther shore like a veteran swimmer. Shouts 

 for assistance brought a man to the opposite 

 bankj who deflected the animal's course. The 

 pursuers and the monkey turned up the river 

 and covered a distance about equal to a city 

 block. The keepers followed along the bank 

 and at last the animal headed in and sur- 

 rendered. He was out of breath and altogether 

 meek^ but otherwise did not show anj^ indication 

 of distress from his aquatic monoeuvers. 



THE STORY OF OTA BENGA, THE 

 PYGMY 



By Samuel P. Verner 



THE news of Ota Benga's sad death 

 shocked and grieved me. especially as I 

 had not heard from him in a long time, 

 owing to the distance and conditions which 

 have separated us. His case is strangely like 

 that of the devoted companion of David Liv- 

 ingstone, Skeletu, who jumped overboard from 

 the ship on which he was traveling with the 

 great explorer, apparently rendered suddenly 

 insane by the marvels of civilization as they 

 grew upon him. But Ota Benga, although of 

 the most primitive of all African races, en- 

 dured the struggle with civilization much long- 

 er, and probably succumbed only after the 

 feeling of utter inassimilability overwhelmed 

 bis brave little heart.* 



He was the first of the pygmies that consent- 

 ed to come to America, and so was the first that 

 ever left his native wilds to see what the white 

 man's country was like. Ota Benga was from 

 an entirely distinct settlement from the other 

 pygmies, who came from the town of King 

 Ndombe, at Wismann Falls on the Kasai. Of 

 the latter, all were returned to their homes un- 

 der Ndombe's suzerainty, and were content to 

 stay there where they were comparatively safe. 



The story of Ota Benga's first coming to 

 America is as follows ; 



When our steamer called at the confluence of 

 the Kasai with the Sankuru, where Command- 

 ant Loos of the Belgian colonial army was sta- 

 tioned, he told me that there was a strange little 

 man in his settlement, who had been found by 

 his soldiers as a captive slave in the hands of 

 the cannibal Baschilele, when the former had 

 gone on an expedition to stop one of the lat- 



*As noted in the Bulletin for May, 1916, Ota 

 Benga committed suicide at Lynchburg, Va., la^^t 

 April. His height was four feet, eleven inches; his 

 weight was 103 pounds, and when he was at the Zoo- 

 logical Park, in 1906, he was twenty-three years of 

 age. 



ter's periodic forays, into the interior. The 

 Baschilele nearly always ate their captives, and 

 therefore Ota Benga was released just in time 

 to save his life. 



He came back to the settlement with his de- 

 liverers, and lived there. His language was 

 entirely different from that of the soldiers and 

 of the Baschilele, and very little could be 

 learned from him about his tribe. After I ar- 

 rived, being an old-timer in knowing the pyg- 

 mies at Ndombe, I managed to find out from 

 him some facts which subsequently were en- 

 larged upon when Ota Benga learned to speak 

 a little English. 



It appeared that his tribe was known as the 

 Badi, in contrast to the pygmies at Ndombe, 

 who were of the Batwa tribe. His language 

 differed from theirs to a considerable extent, 

 though there is a good deal in common. All 

 the members of his tribe, like himself, were 

 undersized, and had the other characteristics of 

 the i3ygmies, who in reality are widely scat- 

 tered through the Congo valley. 



When I asked him if he would like to go to 

 America with me, he said he would stay with 

 me while I was in the Kasai country, and see 

 how he liked it, provided I would agree to let 

 him remain behind, should he so decide before 

 we were due to leave. On these conditions he 

 went with me farther up the river to Wissmann 

 P'alls, where the Batwa lived in Ndombe's 

 country. 



When the palavers about the group going to 

 St. Louis were being held, Ota Benga took up 

 the side for going, and it was largely because 

 he was personally of a brave and a strong tem- 

 perament that he took that side. His influence 

 had much to do with the final decision of the 

 others to take the trip, which, be it remem- 

 bered, was an unqualified success from start to 

 finish. Within a year's time the whole party 

 returned, with Ota Benga included, in safety 

 to Ndombe. 



When we got back to Ndombe, I offered to 

 leave Ota Benga there in Ndombe's care, or let 

 him stay at the Belgian station below; but he 

 did not wish to stay at either place, nor at a 

 mission. His own country was remote from any 

 of these places, and his people were in a state 

 of war with the Baschilele, who were between 

 them and the white settlements that were situ- 

 ated among the friendly Bakuba and Baluba 

 tribes. Ota said he wanted to go back to Amer- 

 ica ; and with some misgivings, I permitted him 

 to come. 



I did not think that Ota ever would acquire 

 an education in the conventional sense of the 

 word , but I believed that I would be making 



