Georgic iii. 275.
(Facing the west on lofty rocks
All stand and sniff the buoyant breeze
And often—marvellous to tell—
Without conjunction with a sire,
Bear young engendered by the wind.)
CHAPTER XV
THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN
The tradition of the existence of dwarfs, not as isolated examples, but as a race with their own customs, government, and language is familiar among civilised people, and exists among scattered and remote savages. We have all heard of them in that treasury of primitive beliefs—the nursery. Therefore, the fact that there are at this moment in various parts of the world dwarf or pygmy tribes of men, living in proximity to but apart from those races which have a stature identical with our own, has a great fascination and interest. Some few races of men have an average height of an inch, or thereabouts, greater than that of the people of the British Islands, whilst some are shorter by as much as two or three inches. But, on the whole, it may be said that, putting aside the pygmy races, of which I am about to write, mankind generally does not show a very striking range of normal stature—the mass in any race or region of the globe varying from 5 ft. 4 in. to 5 ft. 8 in., and tending to the higher rather than the lower figure.
The pygmy races are sharply separated from normal mankind by as much as a foot, and even more, in average stature, ranging from 4 ft. to something less than 4 ft. 11 in. in height. They are, enumerating them in the order of their purity of race and completeness of their isolation: (1) The Mincopies, or Andaman Islanders; (2) the Congo pygmies (comprising the tribes known as the Akkas, or Tiki-Tikis, the Bambutis, the Watwas, the Obongos, and Bayagas); (3) the bushmen of South Africa; (4) the Aetas of the Philippine Islands; (5) the Samangs of Malacca, and very similar isolated pygmy tribes which have been observed in New Guinea, and also in the Solomon Islands and in Formosa. The Veddas of Ceylon, the Senois of Malacca, and the Toalas of Celebes are apparently races which have resulted from the "crossing" of true pygmies with other normal-statured races inhabiting the islands in which they are found. The Brahouis of Beloochistan and the "monkey-men," or Bandra-Loks, east of the Indus, appear also to belong to the pygmy race.
Next to their agreement in small size, the most interesting facts about the pygmies we have just enumerated is that, notwithstanding the wide area over which they are found in scattered, isolated communities—viz. from the Congo to South Africa on the one hand, and, on the other hand, from Central Africa to the Indian Ocean, and on to New Guinea, the Philippine Islands, and Formosa—yet they all have short, round skulls of full average brain capacity, and have their hair growing in tightly curled-up peppercorn-like tufts—two characters found combined in no other race. They usually have finely-developed, straight foreheads, and the jaws do not project strongly; the lips are usually fine and thin, and the nose, though very broad, is not always greatly flattened. They are well-shaped, well-proportioned little people, neither grotesque nor deformed. To a great extent their corporeal features suggest an infantile or child-like stage of development, and the same is true of their intellectual condition and of their productions. Their habitations are very primitive, either caves or low clay-made huts, of the shape of half an egg. They do not make pottery, 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 of human races separate the pygmies of Africa as "negrilloes" 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, Formosa 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. Their bodily and mental peculiarities certainly suggest, whether the suggestion can be verified or not, the former existence in the tropical regions of Africa and Asia of a widely spread pygmy race of uniform character, a race which has been, to a large extent, destroyed by other races of larger and more powerful individuals, but has also in many regions (especially on the Asiatic Continent) intermarried with the surrounding larger people, and given rise to hybrid races. At the same time, it seems that in other regions this race has, by isolation in forests and mountain ranges and by the exercise of special skill in the use of poisoned arrows and in the arts of concealment, evasion, and terrorising, succeeded in maintaining its existence and primitive independence dating from remote prehistoric times.