None of the measurements taken of these Pygmies much exceeded four feet and ten inches, except in instances in which they were descended from the Monbuttoo by intermarriages. Dr. Schweinfurth secured one of these little men and made him his protégé, departing from an hitherto invariable rule, allowing Nsewue (this being the name of the little Akka), to be the companion of his meals, a privilege he never allowed to any other native African.
The race of dwarfs does not differ materially from surrounding tribes, except in size. They have a redder or brighter complexion, and reports of travellers vary in regard to the growth of the hair. The Niam-niam, however, uniformly represent the Pygmies as having long beards, and yet Schweinfurth never found this characteristic in any of the Akka who came under his notice.
The head of the Akka is disproportionately large and is balanced on a weak, thin neck. The upper portion of the body is long; the chest being flat and much contracted, widens out in the lower part, to support the huge belly. From behind, their bodies seem to form a curve that resembles the letter S. Turning their feet inward, unlike other Africans, who walk straight, they have a waddling gait. Nsewue could never carry a dish without spilling a part of its contents, as every step was a kind of lurch, and he was a good representative of the physical peculiarities of his race.
The structure of their hands is singularly delicate and handsome. The most marked peculiarity of these people is the shape of the skull and head. The prognathous character of the face is developed to a large degree, the facial angles in the two portraits that Schweinfurth gives, being 60° and 66° respectively. “The snout-like projection of the jaw, with an unprotruding chin and a wide, almost spherical skull and gaping lips, suggest a resemblance to the ape. In these peculiarities the Akka and Bushmen of South Africa exhibit undeniable resemblances. We conclude this account of the Pygmies with the summary into which their discoverer has briefly embodied his opinion in regard to the origin of the Akka and their relationship to other African peoples.
“Scarcely a doubt,” says he, “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 endeavoring to prove that all the tribes of Africa, whose proper characteristic is an abnormally low stature, belong to one and the self-same race.”
CHAPTER CLXIX.
AFRICA—Continued.
GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AFRICAN RACE.
BEADS AS CURRENCY — MOST POPULAR KINDS — MODE OF BECKONING — NATIVE SURGERY — RELIGION — IDOLS, REPRESENTING DECEASED KINDRED — COMMUNION WITH DEPARTED SPIRITS — THEIR RETURN TO AVENGE INJURIES — SINGULAR CUSTOMS — THE MILANDO — WOMEN THE PRINCIPAL CAUSE — THE DREAD OF RIDICULE — POLITENESS A TRAIT OF THE AFRICANS — MODES OF SALUTATION — THE NATURAL KINDNESS OF AFRICAN TRIBES — THEIR BARBARITY CAUSED BY WRONGS AGAINST THEM — THEIR KINDNESS TOWARD LIVINGSTONE — MISTAKE OF SPEKE — CHILD SELLING — EDUCATION OF THE WORLD — AFRICANS QUICK TO RECOGNIZE GOODNESS.
In concluding the description of the tribes of Eastern and Central Africa of which we have learned from the pages of Livingstone, Schweinfurth and Stanley, we present some general features and characteristics not confined merely to one tribe.
It is well-known to our readers that beads are a most important part of the currency throughout Africa; but it is not so well-known that great judgment must be exercised in the selection of them in regard to size and color. These are far from being matters of indifference to the natives, and fashions obtain among them as inexorable and fatal to the trader oftentimes as the fashions among civilized peoples. With few exceptions the beads used in Africa are manufactured in Venice. If not informed in regard to the prevalent fashion among a people whom the traveller is intending to visit, he will be likely to load himself with what cannot be exchanged at all, and will prove utterly valueless.