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hunter. No wonder the Okapi remained so long unknown, and no wonder 

 that still the Okapi hunter has to hire the Pigmies to help him. 



There can be no doubt that the Pigmy is a very primitive type, and there 

 is every reason to think that they are survivals of the primitive stock which has 

 become geographically and ethnologically isolated among races that have had a 

 different origin. It is our present purpose to briefly indicate the chief char- 

 acteristics of these ancient and interesting peoples, as they are found to exist 

 at the present day. They are widely distributed, but may be roughly classed 

 into two main geographical groups — the African Pigmies and the Eastern 

 Pigmies. 



The African Pigmies. 



The Equatorial Pigmies are distributed over the region included within 

 5 degs. North latitude and 17 degs. South latitude, and about 1 deg. East longi- 

 tude to 32 degs. East longitude ; that is, including the whole watershed of the 

 Congo and the Semliki. They are known in different areas by different names, 

 and as the names are varied by different authors the position is complicated. 

 Akka, Tiki Tiki, Wambuti, Batwa, Watwa, Obongo are the various names of 

 the same or different tribes. They occur apparently in the greatest numbers 

 along the Equatorial line, the Banana Belt of Africa, but are recorded from low 

 down on the Congo Basin, joining up in the south with the Bushmen of Lake 

 Ngami. 



The Bushmen were formerly widely distributed in South Africa, reaching 

 from the west coast to the east coast and from Table Mountain to Lake Ngami. 

 Stow ("Native Races of South Africa") gives a graphic account of the former 

 great distribution of this unfortunate race and the causes that led to its practical 

 extinction. Living in a country that is more variable in contour and climate 

 than that occupied by the Equatorial Pigmies, their life was less specialized in 

 one direction, but more so in others, as there were Bushmen of the Mountains, 

 of the Rivers, the Plains, the Sea Shore, and the Desert. The few pure Bushmen 

 who still remain are probably the Kungs and Haikums of the north-west Kali- 

 hari, but there may be many more. The Kalihari is so vast that its aboriginal 

 population is imperfectly known. 



Traces of an aboriginal Negrito-Pigmy population are said to be found in 

 Madagascar. These people were called Mazimba, Kimos, and Behosy, but, 

 like the Abyssinian Dokos, they seem to have received little notice in literature. 



The Eastern Pigmies. 



In the Andaman islanders we find the only isolated Pigmy race at present 

 living comparable, in their isolation, to the Tasmanians, and resembling that 

 race in several remarkable anthropological and ethnological respects. The 

 Andamanese, when discovered, and prior at least to the establishment of Port 

 Blair as a convict settlement, were a pure negrito race, and their anthropology 

 and ethnology have been admirably recorded in the works of Man and Portman. 



The ethnological position of the Semang, who occupy the mountains that 

 form the backbone of the Malay Peninsula, is not so clear. There are Semangs 

 who are pure negritos and who conform ethnologically to the Pigmy type, but 

 they are so scattered and surrounded by other races, who are absorbing them, 

 that it seems unsafe to make dogmatic statements about their cultural char- 

 acteristics. The Semangs are hemmed in by the Malayan coastal tribes and in 

 close contact with tribes like the Senoi and Sakai, who, in themselves, provide 

 problems. The student will find Skeat and Blagden's "Pagan Races of the 

 Malay Peninsula" full of information on the Semangs and their neighbours. 



In nearly all the larger islands of the Phillipines negritos have been observed. 

 They are, as a rule, displaced from the coast and occupy the more inaccessible 

 parts of the islands, and chiefly come in contact with the Tagals and X'icols. 



