facts. The physical characteristics in which, broadly speaking, they all agree, are their small stature, their light-yellow or reddish-brown color, and the peculiar character of the hair, which is woolly, but, instead of being, as in the negro, evenly distributed over the scalp, grows in small tufts—"cheveux plantés en pinceaux de brosse," as Emin Pasha puts it in speaking of the Akkas.[1] This appearance, according to Prof. Virchow, is not due to the fact that the hair grows on some spots and not on others, but to a peculiarity in the texture of the hair itself, which causes it to roll naturally into closely curled spiral locks, leaving the intervening pieces of scalp bare. Be this as it may, this growth is the surest and most permanent characteristic of the Pygmy, or, as some prefer to call them, the Hottentot-Bushman race.[2]
The name of dwarfs, applied by some to these people, has be objected to as implying deformity or arrested growth, and therefore conveying a wrong impression. Nothing of the kind can be said of the African Pygmies, who, though of short stature, are well-shaped people of perfectly normal formation. It is true that the Hottentots and Bushmen show certain strange anatomical peculiarities; but these may be said to be more or less accidental, being, in part at least, the result of special and unfavorable conditions of life.
The Pygmies are nomadic in their habits,[3] and neither keep cattle nor till the ground, but live by hunting and snaring wild animals and birds, or, under the most unfavorable circumstances, on wild fruits, roots, and berries. Their weapons are always bows and arrows, the latter usually poisoned—the resource of the weak. They have no fixed abode, and, if they build shelters at all, only construct rude huts of branches. They have no government, nor do they form regular communities; they usually wander about, like our gypsies, in hordes composed of a few families each. This,
- ↑ Transactions of the Berlin Anthropological Society for 1886.
- ↑ Prof. Flower, however, thinks that differences between the Akkas and Bushnen are so radical as to preclude the possibility of regarding them as members of the same race. lie lays special stress on the yellow complexion and "peculiar oblong form of the skull." which is especially distinguished from that of the Akkas by the absence of prognathism; also on the "special anatomical characters" alluded to later on. But it seems to be the case that modern research tends to show that environment and conditions of fife act far more quickly in the production of racial peculiarities than was formerly supposed. There are instances, e. g., on record of the children of white, or at most tawny parents, born in a hot. damp locality (to which the latter had migrated from a dry one) being positively black. The Bushmen have been isolated to such a degree from their more northern congeners, and the struggle for existence has been in their case so severe that they may well have developed striking differences. It should be noted that their habitat is dry, while that of the Akkas is extremely hot and damp.
- ↑ Les Akkas ne forment point un peuple compact; il n'y a pas un pays aux Akkas; comme les volées des oiseaux, ils sont un peu partout.—Emin Pasha.
