AFRICAN PYGMIES | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 5, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 39.

AFRICAN PYGMIES.

Some specimens of the little Pygmy race of Central Africa are on exhibition at St. Louis. They were brought over by Rev. S. P. Verner, a missionary of long experience. The venture was attended with considerable labor and expense. After securing permission from the chief to bring them to America, and the consent of a company to come, some of them backed out at the last moment. Then, when they arrived at the place on the Kongo where they were to take a steamer, others were afraid of the boat and would go no farther. Writing for the New York Independent, Mr. Verner says:—

“The impression which the Pygmies have received of this country has not been altogether gratifying. Since they have been here they have covered me with confusion over and over again, by referring to the fact that when I was in their country they met me with presents, with food and palm wine, and with everything that could be desired, and gave me a great welcome; but since they have come here the white people do nothing but stare at them and laugh at them. It would make them much happier, they say, if the white people would treat them with the same politeness with which they treated me.”

And indeed it is not very complimentary to the assumed superior culture of the boastful white race to be outdone in politeness by a despised race of little savages. A so-called “Christian” people, who for that reason ought to be a missionary people, should take the opportunity to show at least a spirit of kindness and respect to the representatives of a race to whom they presumably expect to send the Gospel of salvation. Instead, however, these Pygmies are learning, first of all, that the chief desire of the white race is money; and they are following the example by demanding a “nickel” for every request made of them.

Mr. Verner says of these little people that they measure from three feet nine inches to four feet ten inches in height; that the average is probably four feet and a half or less. He says the pure Batwa Pygmies live entirely by hunting, and raise no crops at all. They exchange their meat for the farinaceous food raised by the larger people, and also eat large quantities of roots and herbs found in the forests. They kill and eat the antelope, buffalo, elephant, python, panther, leopard, wildcat, lynx, wild boar, and hippopotamus, besides rats, locusts, grasshoppers, ants, wood-worms, and caterpillars, which they dry in the sun. Their principal weapon is a bow with bamboo arrows dipped in poison. They have also metal weapons—spears, knives, and metal-tipped arrows, which they obtain by barter from the other natives. Their houses are round huts with round tops, covered with brush or leaves, and are about five feet high and six feet in diameter.