11 
The South .lusiralian Nat uralist, 
LECTURE, ^TIGMY RACES OF THE WORLD,” BY 
DR. R. H. PULLEINE, SEPTEMBER 16, 192U— The lecturer 
described the ‘Tigmies” as little people with very primitive habits 
and forming separate communities, being found in many parts of 
Africa, in the Andaman Islands (in the Bay of Bengal), in the 
Phillipines, and as far south as New Guinea and the Solomons. 
The\- were mentioned in Egyptian records as having been kept at 
the Courts as curiosities, and were known to the Greeks as 
legendary people. Then for 2,000 years they were lost sight of, 
and Gibbon, in 1859. regarded the Pigmies as legendary. Du 
Chaillu was the lirst to record Equatorial Pigmies in 1867 in the 
Gaboon. He was followed by Schweinfurth, who found them in 
the Ituri forest in 1870. The beautiful belts worn by the “little 
men” were made from the skin of that remarkable animal, the 
okapi. The country inhabited by these people was very dilh- 
cult of access, consisting of an indescribably dense forest, with 
climbing plants, fallen trees, and animal pests. The Pigmies 
were a very primitive type, believed to be the survivals of an 
ancient aboriginal stock wliich had become isolated among races 
of a different origin. They could be roughly classed as African 
Pigmies and Eastern Pigmies. The Equatorial Pigmies were 
found in the whole watersheds of the Rivers Congo and Semliki. 
The Bushmen of Lake Ngami were an allied race. The Bush- 
men were formerl)^ widely distributed. Traces of an aboriginal 
Negrito-Pigmy race were also found in Madascar. Of the 
Eastern Pigmies there were found in the Andaman Islands the 
only isolated Pigmy race, comparable in this respect to the Tas- 
manians. 'Phe Semans occupied the mountains forming the back- 
bone of the Malay Peninsula. They were being graduallv ab- 
sorbed. In the Phillipines the Negrito Pigmies occupied the 
more inaccessible parts. YYllaston discovered the Tapiro Pig- 
mies in the mountains of Dutch New Guinea. Though of small 
dimensions (men, 4ft. 71n.; women, 4ft. 2in.), the Pigmies showed 
no marks of degeneration. They were sturdy and well built, 
but their clothing was reduced to a minimum. The various 
races were hunters, cultivation and pastoral pursuits being un- 
known. No game was too large for them to engage, and their 
whole life was founded on complete knowledge and accurate ob- 
servation of the plant and animal life In their region. Their 
weapons were the bow and arrow, very small among the African 
tribes. They poisoned their arrows with a deadly vegetable 
poison. Their food consisted of everything edible in the animal 
and the vegetable kingdom. These little people were purely 
nomadic, without villages or large dwellings. With the doubt- 
ful exception of the Tasmanians, the Andamanese were the only 
people on record who did not know how to make fire. They 
