| A Village of Dwarfs. |
Du Chaillu started on his journey with ten Commi negroes, previous servitors, as his body-guard, and fifty porters in place of the hundred needed, thus making double trips necessary for a while. Following up the Fernand Vaz River to its tributary, the Rembo, he left this latter stream at Obindshi and travelled southeasterly to Olenda. Here a council was held by the local chief, who forbade him to enter the Apingi country, but allowed him to proceed to the Ashira region, where he was long delayed and robbed by the natives. In crossing the Ngunie River, on his way eastward to the Ishogo country, he was surprised to obtain ferriage in a large, flat-bottomed canoe, which carried baggage and party across in seven journeys.
Near the end of June, while traversing a tract of wild forest near Yangue, Du Chaillu came suddenly upon a cluster of most extraordinary and diminutive huts, which he was told were occupied by a tribe of dwarf negroes. In his previous journey in the Apingi country he had given no credence to exaggerated descriptions and reports that had often come to his ears concerning dwarf tribes, assuming the stories to be fables. Now, however, with these curious huts before him he pressed on eager to obtain personal information concerning these little folks, whose existence had been vouched for centuries before by Pomponius Mela, Herodotus, and Strabo, and who were described in a fairly accurate way, by Andrew Battell, in 1625. In answer to Du Chaillu’s inquiries the natives said that there were many such villages in the adjacent forests, and that the tiny men were called the Obongos.
He found the huts entirely deserted, but from scattered traces of recent household effects, it was quite evident that the Obongos, alarmed at the approach of strangers, had fled for safety to the dense jungle of the neighboring forest. He thus describes their habitations: “The huts were of a low, oval shape, like a gypsy tent; the highest part, that near the entrance, was about four feet from the ground; the greatest breadth was about four feet also. On each side were three or four sticks for the man and woman to sleep on. The huts were made of flexible branches of trees, arched over and fixed into the ground at each end, the longest branches being in the middle, and the others successively shorter, the whole being covered with heavy leaves.”
On June 26, 1864, Du Chaillu entered Niembouai, a large village in Ashango Land, in the vicinity of which, he learned with great joy, was situated an inhabited encampment of the Obongos, or hairy dwarfs, as he terms them. The Ashango natives offered to accompany him, at the same time intimating that it was likely the village would be found deserted; for, said they, the Obongos (the dwarfs) are shy and timid as the gazelle, and as wild as the antelope. To see them, you must take them by surprise. They are like to the beasts of the field. They feed on the serpents, rats, and mice, and on the berries and nuts of the forest.
| A Pigmy Warrior. |
Du Chaillu made his first visit to an Obongo encampment with three Ashango guides, and with great precaution they silently entered a village of twelve huts to find it long since deserted. Fortune was more favorable at the second village, where, however, no one was to be seen on entrance. The curling smoke, calabashes of fresh water, and a half-cooked snake on living coals indicated that the alarmed inhabitants had fled on their approach. A search of the huts resulted in disclosing the presence of three old women, a young man, and several children, who were almost paralyzed with fear at the sight of an unknown monster—a white man. By judicious distribution of bananas, and especially of beads, Du Chaillu succeeded in allaying their fears, and later made several visits, but confidence was never firmly established, and it was impossible to see the men except as they fled at his approach, or at a distance when they visited the Ashango village for purposes of barter.
During his several visits he carefully measured six dwarf women, whose average height proved to be four feet six and one-eighth inches; the shortest was four feet four and one-half inches, and the tallest five feet and one-quarter of an inch; the young man, possibly not full grown, measured four feet six inches in height.
Du Chaillu says: “The color of these people was a dirty yellow, and their eyes had an untamable wildness that struck me as very remarkable. In appearance, physique, and color they are totally unlike the Ashangos, who are very anxious to disown kinship with them. They declare that the Obongos intermarry among themselves, sisters with brothers. The smallness and isolation of their communities must necessitate close interbreeding; and I think it very possible this may cause the physical deterioration of their race.”