410 



Negritos have been reported as occurring in Borneo, but Dr. Eric Mjoberg, 

 now Director of the Museum at Kuching, writes that they are unknown to him. 



Formosa, too, has been credited with the possession of a Pigmy race. Miss 

 McGovern in her book, "The Head Hunters of Formosa," tells of a little people 

 a little over 4 feet high with crinkly hair. Dr. Oshima, a Japanese zoologist, 

 and delegate to the Pan Pacific Congress, 1923, who has been in Formosa 

 fourteen years, informs me that he cannot corroborate this statement. 



Wollaston and his party discovered the Tapiro Pigmies in the mountains 

 of Dutch New Guinea, in 1910, and, a little later, Williamson's book on the 

 Mafulu People of British New Guinea, gave some references to a Pigmy race 

 in the British portion. 



Neuhauss, in his "Deutsch Neu Guinea," figures and gives accounts of 

 Pigmies discovered by Keyser in the Sattelberg, and by Poch, in the Goliathberg. 

 Their nearest neighbours on the seaward side are the Papuans, who, again, are 

 displaced from the shore by the coast-loving Melanesians. 



In New Britain the Sulka people declare that a race of small men lives 

 in the caves in the ranges of the centre of the island and comes down to steal 

 their bananas. On the Gazelle Peninsula, at the eastern end of the same island, 

 live the Baining (a curly-haired race forced into the mountains by the ubiquitous 

 Melanesians), a wandering people who cultivate a little taro, and whom Parkin- 

 son, in his "Dreissig Jahre in der Siidsee," characterises as "in every particular 

 an absolutely primitive and simple folk such as I have never encountered any- 

 where else in the South Seas." 



Felix Speiser, in his "Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific," 

 gives an account of the Pigmies in Santo. This, I understand from Professor 

 Skinner, is authenticated by Dr. Bowie, of Ambrym. 



Physical Characteristics. 



The Pigmies are small races which show no marks of degeneration. To lay 

 claim to the distinction of being a Pigmy, the males must average under 5 feet 

 in height ; the Pigmy, like a child of twelve, is six heads high as 

 against eight heads high for an average Englishman and nine and a half heads 

 high for a Nilotic Dinka. Thus their heads look relatively large for the small 

 body. Von Luschan says that the cause of the diminutive stature is an early 

 cessation of growth rather than a decrease of the yearly increment while growth 

 is actvially taking place. 



Sir H. H. Johnstone gives the average height of the Equatorial Pigmies as 

 4 feet 7 inches for men and 4 feet 2 inches for women, the minimum being 

 4 feet 2 inches and 4 feet, respectively. Other observers record still lower 

 minima. 



For the Bushmen, Fritsch gives 4 feet 9 inches and Barrow 4 feet 6 inches 

 for men and 4 feet for women. Fritsch's figures are probably more reliable for 

 a large number. Of the Asiatic or Eastern Pigmies, the Andamanese average 

 is 4 feet 10^ inches (Haddon) ; the Semang, 4 feet 10| inches (Haddon) ; the 

 Aetas, 4 feet 10 inches (Haddon) ; the Tapiros, of New Guinea, 4 feet 9 inches 

 (Rawling). 



In general physique all the Pigmy races are sturdy and well built, with good 

 muscular development. The hands and feet are generally small in proportion 

 and the great toe markedly drawn inwards away from the second toe. The 

 abdomen is prone to be protuberant, especially in the children, and the buttocks 

 are, as a rule, markedly prominent, although the steatopygia with which the 

 Bushmen are credited is, according to Fritsch, not authenticated, as the Bushmen 

 women show far less of steatopygous deformity than the Hottentots. 



The Equatorial Pigmies, as well as the Bushmen, are, on the average, 

 mesaticephalic, while the Asiatic Pigmies are all inclined to be brachycephalic. 



