PIGMY RACES.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 21 January 1926, Page 8

PIGMY RACES.

TRIBES IN DUTCH NEW GUINEA

WORK OF AMERICAN EXPEDITION

Hidden away iu the recesses of the forest-covered mountains oi Dutch New Guinea, mountais with tops that touch the clouds and are covered with perpetual snow, though they lie but a few degrees south of the Equator, aje tribes of tiny men, little fellows of whom the biggest look like childien when compared to the brawny 1 apuans who surround them (writes T. Dunbabm in the Sydney Sun). Living far inland and cut oft 'from the coast by vast, dense, tropical foiests inhabited by wild savages ol whom many are cannibals or head-hunteis, they have been seen by few white men When stories about these pigmies first began to filter through to the coasta. settlements many regarded them as myths or travellers’ tales, like the stop of men with tails which still persists m various parts of New Guinea. However, the existence of these pigmies is now well established. In 1910 the Wollaston expedition penetrated to some of the villages ot the Tapiro pigmies, oil the southern slopes of the Nassau Range, m Dutch New Guinea.' They did not catch even a o-limp.se of the women, who were hidden away among the mountains, out t.hev measured a number of the men, who averaged 4ft Sijin, as against the average of sft 6*in, for the neighbouiing Papuans. It .is probable that the true average of the pigmies is somewhat less, since only the bolder, and probably usually the bigger men submitted to the operation of measuring. These pigmies cultivate taro, sweet potatoes, a. few bananas, and tobacco, and build permnnet pile dwellings ot a rather better type than those constructed by their bigger neighbours. Ihe clearing at their‘village of Wambenini was over 100 acres in extent, lhe pigmies had one extremely small axe, with a head three inches long and 1J inches wide, made of soft iron, possibly a piece of old hoop-iron. For the rest they depended upon stone axes and knives ot ba mb AM e rig an expedition .

Xow all American scientific expedition is setting out to examine them. It proposes to use an aeroplane to overcome the difficulties of travel through the forests. How landing-places are to he found for the aeroplane .is not explained. There are patches ot grass country, but they are not always good landing-places. Should th e aborigines prove threateujn<r or too inquisitive tear-bombs are to bo used. It sounds a little rough on the aborigines. The existence of pigmy races is one of those beliefs of antiquity which, alter long being regarded as a fairy tale, has in our own days been proved to be a solid fact. Heredotus has softie thing to say of the pigmies of Africa, and their ‘ story of th e warfare with the cranes was old even in his day, neaily 2500 rears ago. . Pigmies from the region ot the Upper Nile are represented in Egyptian records, with the name Akka attached to them. These Nilotic pigmies, stil. bearing the same name, have been rediscovered within the last half-centry or so. . ~ , i These African .pignnes are widely distributed amongst the great forests of the Upper Congo basin. The average height of the men is about 4* feet, and that- of the women somewhat less. They do not cultivate the soil, but live bv hunting and by gathering wild fruit.

While the pigmies are in many respects a very primitive race, they are phvsicallv less akin to the anthropoid apes than most of the true negroes amongst their larger neighbours. They are not black, but light brown or yellowish, in colour. While the now almost extinct bushmen of South Africa were not true pigmies, they had many of the traits of the pigmies, though they were somewhat bigger. It has often been argued that the widespread belief in fairies, elves, gnomes and kindred beings, always represented as of small size, points back to the former existence of pigmies in regions where they now unknown. If this is so either the modern pigmies have degenerated in some respect or popular imagination has given the fairies qualities of grac e and beauty which their originals never had. Such beliefs are found over most or Europe where no pigmies have been known in historic times. The Lapps, the shortest race in Europe, are a good deal taller than the true pigmies, and much more heavily bui't. Over almost the whole of Asia, too, the pigmies, if they ever existed there, have vanished without leaving anything behind but legends. There are no pigmies in the Americas—for the Eskimos and the Eeugians, like the Lapps, are in no sense pigmies, though below the average height.. The same is true of Australia and of the Pacific Islands.

JNTE R ESTIN G R EHICS

Around the Indian Ocean, however, on the southern fringe of Asia and in the islands lietween Asia and Australia. including New Guinea, we do find very interesting relics and remains ol pigmy and semi-pigmy races. These seem to indicate that in past ages the pigmies occupied the .lands round the Indian Ocean, from most of which they have been driven by stronger races, surviving in the depths of some <4 the great forests and in a few remote islands.

Lingering remnants of a pigmy people arc said to exist even to-day amongst ihe mountains of Madagascar. Ouinlnerson, an acute French observer who visited the island in 17iO, mentions that he had seen one of these dwarf women. She 'was three 'feet seven inches in height, and was perfectly formed. FTor colour was the palest that had been seen amongst the natives of Madagascar. A traveller named Car l Liche, who was in Madagascar in 1878. states that he saw many of these dwarfs, whom he calls Mkodos. Tie alleges that the men seldom exceeded 56 inches for foilr feet eight inches, which make them

rather bigger than the African pigmies) m height. Liche appears to have had a vivid imagination, and his statements are not to b 0 accepted without reserve.

However, tlie existence in Madagascar, at least up to very recent times, of pigmies akin to the pigmies of Africa, and quite distinct from either the Malayan Hovas or the negroid inhabitants of Madagascar, seems to be we 1 1 established.

It is tempting to imagine the pigmies as the primitive inhabitants, of Goiulwannlantl or Lomurin, the vanished continent- which once, according to the geologists, stretched across the Indian Ocean. Whether even the pigmies go back to the times before I>emuria was lost owing to the foundering of the Indian Ocean is another matter.

STRANGE PRIMITIVE RACE

Away across the Indian Ocean the strangely primitive negrito race that inhabits' the Andaman Islands shows some of the traits of the pigmies. Like them, they are very short of stature.

Tlie Andaman Islanders, however, have not the light colour <4 the African pigmies. , , .. Negrito races, small people ol a very primitive type, utterly different from the populations of Malay or ldonesian ie, who dwel] around them, are found in the forests of the Malay Peninsula, in the Philippines, and in tlie interior of some of the larger islands of the Malay Archipelago, such as Celebes. Lastly, we have the dwarf tribes ol New Guinea. . This region is coming into the “movies.” Now Captain Hurley is makmg a picture at Merauke, in Diiteli New Guinea, not so far, as distances go. from the haunts ol the pigmies, though the country between offers the greatest obstacle to travel. Anothei filming expedition is going to the Sepik River. Perhaps it will find some pigmies. , ~ . New Guinea, lying on the threshold of Australia, is one of the least known regions of the world. It offers many problems, such as the great stone pestles and mortars, and the carved stone images found along the Sepik River and elsewhere, relics of a far higher ci\ilisation than any now existing in those parts. , Most interesting of all, perhaps, or. the strange pigmy folk living m a world of their own. a world far more primitive than anything of which we can easi'y conceive, on the slopes of the Snow Mountains.

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