A Missing Link

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 3, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 38.

A "Missing Link."—That is what a New York daily calls Ota Benga, the little African pygmy, now in New York City. We do not know why he is so called, unless it is that he is different from "civilized" people. For instance, New York with its great sky-scrapers did not greatly impress him. "Nothing wonderful," he said of the great structures, "if any one wanted to build them." He had seen bigger things—the mountains, the ocean, the sky. He is wanting in some of the habits of civilization. He abhors raw meat, likes tomatoes, and is disgusted with tobacco and liquors. He is very clean and dignified in his person and habits; he washes his own clothes. The whole animal show in Central Park Zoo was amusing to him; he had seen larger elephants and giraffes in his own land. He is said to have wonderful control over the animals, the baboons, apes, etc., by the sounds he utters, one of the divine marks of the primitive dominion given to man. He has learned the value of petty grafting in his constant demand for "tipping." Is this an evidence of the "missing link" nature?