232 THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN 



and neither keep herds nor till the ground, contenting 

 themselves with such food as wild fruits and roots and the 

 animals they kill with spear or arrow or capture in traps. 

 They do not mutilate or bedaub their bodies (though the 

 Andamanese indulge in a kind of " tattooing "). Among 

 them the struggle for life does not exist in its more brutal 

 forms. They take care of the sick and feeble, the children, 

 and the old people. Cannibalism is unknown amongst 

 them ; they punish murder and theft. They are honest, and, 

 moreover, are monogamous, and punish adultery, which is 

 rare among them. Their religion is remarkably simple. It 

 is limited to reverence for a Supreme Being, without any 

 offering of sacrifice, and they do not worship ancestors 

 nor exhibit the superstitions known as "animism." It has 

 been argued that these characteristics, taken together, 

 indicate a primitive condition of humanity. On the other 

 hand, many writers regard them as degenerate offshoots 

 of negro-like races of larger stature and more complicated 

 mental development. 



There is no name by which the whole series of these 

 small-sized people is indicated excepting the ancient 

 designation of "pygmies." Many careful students oi 

 human races separate the pygmies of Africa as " negril- 

 loes " from the pygmies of Asia, whom they designate 

 " negritoes," and it is held that the negrilloes (Congo 

 pygmies and bushmen) hold the same relation to African 

 negroes and Zulus as the negritoes (Andamanese, and 

 scattered tribes in New Guinea, the Philippines, For- 

 mosa, and the Solomon Islands, as well as in Malacca 

 and Annam and in the north-west and in other parts of 

 Hindustan) hold to the full-sized, frizzly haired Papuans. 

 This, no doubt, is a convenient way of stating the case, 

 but the important fact remains that the pygmies of purest 

 race, both of Africa and Asia, have the remarkable 

 characteristics in common which we have noted above. 



