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THE PIGMIES OF CENTRAL AFRICA.

The visit of a company of pigmies from Centr<il Africa to London, where they have been on view at the Hippodrome, has led a. correspondent of ihe Standard to publish some interesting notes respecting their language and their recognition of Egyptian fciejog-l.yphics : — "Wben I .drew the oldest hieroglyphic

sign of Aro.su, they recognised it (writes the correspondent), and the chief smiled and asked one standing by him to tell me what it was. He pointed to his chief and spoke his na ne. That they recognise the most ancient sign for Amsu or Horus — I — is \ery important to Egyptologists and antiauanans, and especially to me, because in a work [ am writing I endeavour to show that this was the first sig-n used by primitive man as the 'Chief' or

' Great One' — and it was the sign of the ' Chief of the Nomcs." It is found de picted on the oldest Australian boomerangs and on the ivory tablets found in the tomb at Nequada, and 1 am showing how the , Australian aborigines came out of Egypt , ages ago, carrying jJI the ancient signs ! and Totemic ceremonies with them from this land. '• In Egypt the oldest g-od was Bes, as is well shown in Budgp's 'The Gods of the

Egyptians," vol. 11, p. 286. No one seeing this and the Pigmies, even if he were not an Egyptologist, would fail to identify the two in form, figure, and dress. Bes here has the same type of face as the Pigmies. The yellow plume of feathers is worn on the head, the Horus Lock, the green and yellow ' dress ' are also worn, and the tail of a leopard hangs down behind. In fact, the little men and women ha\e some of the principal features

of the earliest mythology of old Jiigypt, and no doubt Bes, who was at a later date made to represent a type of Horus, at first was their ' Chief of tne Nomes,' and it was from these Pigmies tnat their first mythology sprang ; and all has been brought on, added to, and made use of in the various types, from the earliest mvthos to astronomical, stellar, lunar, and solar mytholoo-v. and, finally, the eschatology, which we know so well.'

— R. Clark, photo

(Photoa by Muir and Moodie.)

Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19050920.2.191

Bibliographic details

Otago Witness, Issue 2688, 20 September 1905, Page 43

Word Count
384

THE PIGMIES OF CENTRAL AFRICA. Otago Witness, Issue 2688, 20 September 1905, Page 43

THE PIGMIES OF CENTRAL AFRICA. Otago Witness, Issue 2688, 20 September 1905, Page 43

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