Still more demonstrative than any reports about Matimbos and Bakke-bakke, as proving the identity of my Akka with the abnormally-formed folks previously named, is the evidence that is furnished by the natives of the Upper Shary districts. Escayrac de Lauture[38] was told of a Lake Koeidabo, which was said to be a two months’ journey to the S.S.E. of Masena, the capital of Baghirmy, and to unite the source-affluents of the Shary just at the spot where, according to the Monbuttoo, the Welle widens into a boundless expanse of water. Somewhat to the west of this lake, he was informed, were the dwellings of the Mala-gilageh (literally, men with tails), who were of small stature and reddish complexion, or, as the Africans expressed it, “white,” and covered with long hair. The fabulous tails must be supposed to be added by a kind of poetic licence, or as a concession to the belief in marvellous stories that were rife throughout the Soudan. It may with much probability be assumed that the same districts in Central Africa must be the homes of the Kenkob and Betsan, of whom Kölle,[39] residing in Sierra Leone, heard reports from those who professed to have actually seen them. In these reports the great lake was very often referred to. One of Kölle’s informants called it “Leeba,” and said that he had on one occasion personally accompanied an embassy that was commissioned to convey a present of salt to the king who governed over the territories by the shores of the lake; and he distinctly affirmed not only that the Kenkob lived in close proximity to the same lake, but that they were a people only three or four feet in height, but who nevertheless possessed great strength and were excellent hunters. Another witness informed Kölle that he only knew of “a river Reeba” in that part of the country; but it is extremely likely that in reality he was referring to the same Lake Leeba which, by repeated geographical investigation, has been proved to be a part of the Shary:[40] he went on to describe that by this river Reeba there dwelt a diminutive race called Betsan, varying from three feet to five feet in height, and stated that they had very long hair and very long beards, adding that they supported themselves entirely by the produce of the chase.
Both these witnesses agreed in describing the hair of the dwarfs as long; and I always found that the Niam-niam laid particular stress upon their having long beards; but I must confess I never observed this characteristic in any of the Akka who came under my notice.
Nor is east Tropical Africa without its representatives of people of this stunted growth. Of these I may especially mention the Doko, who are reported to dwell to the south of Enarea and Kaffa on the Upper Juba. Krapf, who has with much diligence compared the various accounts of many slaves who have been carried away from the district in question to Shoa, fixes the habitation of the Doko as being below the latitude of 3° north. Their height is compared with that of boys ten years of age. Even those who have seen them and (like A. d’Abbadie) deny that they are dwarfs, yet admit that they are under a medium stature. On the coast itself, in Zanzibar and at Brava, where, occasioned by the Mohammedan Somali, there is a considerable intercourse with the districts said to be populated by the Doko, stories of these dwarfs are in every one’s mouth, and they are termed the “Berikeemo,” i.e. people two feet high.
PYGMIES COMPARED WITH BUSHMEN.
This rapid summary of the dwarf races that are known in Africa would be incomplete without a passing reference to the Kimos of Madagascar, of whom, from the middle of the seventeenth century down to our own time the most contradictory reports have been in circulation. Any detailed accounts of these would of course be here entirely out of place. Madagascar, too, from its isolation, must ever be treated independently. The relation of its inhabitants to the inhabitants of Central Africa is very doubtful. It will now suffice to say generally that the evidence appears to lie open before us of there being a series of unestablished and imperfectly developed nations which, although they are now in their decline, extend from ocean to ocean across the entire equatorial zone of Africa.
Scarcely a doubt can exist but that all these people, like the Bushmen of South Africa, may be considered as the scattered remains of an aboriginal population now becoming extinct; and their isolated and sporadic existence bears out the hypothesis. For centuries after centuries Africa has been experiencing the effects of many immigrations: for thousands of years one nation has been driving out another, and as the result of repeated subjugations and interminglings of race with race, such manifold changes have been introduced into the conditions of existence that the succession of new phases, like the development in the world of plants, appears almost as it were to open a glimpse into the infinite.
Incidentally I have just referred to the Bushmen, those notorious natives of the South African forests, who owe their name to the likeness which the Dutch colonists conceived they bore to the ape, as the prototype of the human race. I may further remark that their resemblance to the equatorial Pygmies is in many points very striking. Gustav Fritsch, the author of a standard work upon the natives of South Africa, first drew my attention to the marked similarity between my portraits of the Akka and the general type of the Bushmen, and so satisfied did I become in my own mind that I feel quite justified (in my observations upon the Akka) in endeavouring to prove that all the tribes of Africa whose proper characteristic is an abnormally low stature belong to one and the self-same race.
According to Fritsch the average height of the genuine Bushmen is 1·44 metres, or about 4 feet 8½ inches; the height of the two Akka, whose portraits I have inserted, were 4 feet 1 inch and 4 feet 4 inches respectively; and, as I have said, I never saw any instance in which the height materially exceeded 4 feet 10 inches. The skin of the Akka is of a dull brown tint, something of the colour of partially roasted coffee. As far as I can remember, the colour would correspond nearly with Nos. 7 and 8 in the table of skin-tints in Plate 49 of Fritsch’s work, and these are the numbers by which he indicates the complexion of the Bushmen. It is somewhat difficult to discriminate between the complexion of the Akka and that of their neighbours the Monbuttoo, since the latter exhibit a variety of shades of the same tint; but I should be inclined to say that the distinction lies in the somewhat duller hue of the Akka, such as might be understood by comparing No. 2 with No. 8 in the table to which I have referred.
The hair and beard are but slightly developed. All the Akka that I saw wore the ordinary costume and cylindrical straw hat of the Monbuttoo; but, in consequence of their hair being short as well as woolly, they are unable to form a chignon like their neighbours. The colour of their hair corresponds with their complexion; in texture it may best be compared with the waste tow from old cordage. This absence of the beard is characteristic also of the Bushmen. The Nubians indeed used to tell me of the dwarfs about the courts of the Niam-niam princes being noted for long hair, and they affirmed that some of them, in the fashion of the West Africans, were in the habit of stiffening out their long pointed tufts of hair on their chin with pitch; no doubt, too, their common designation for this people (Shebber digintoo) has reference to this characteristic; but I could never succeed in getting any accurate or more definite information about dwarfs of this species. The Akka resemble the majority of the Monbuttoo in having brown hair, other nations of a reddish tone of complexion not sharing this peculiarity.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AKKA.