Читать книгу Curious Creatures in Zoology - Ashton John - Страница 4

The antitheses of men – Dwarfs, and Giants – must not be overlooked, as they are abnormal, and yet have existed in all ages. Dwarfs are mentioned in the Bible, Leviticus xxi. 20, where following the injunction of “Let him not approach to offer the bread of his God” – are mentioned the “crookbackt or dwarf.” Dwarfs in all ages have been made the sport of Royalty, and the wealthy; but it is not of them I write, but of a race called the Pygmies, very small men who were descended from Pygmæus. They are noted in the earliest classics, for even Homer mentions them in his Iliad (B. 3, l. 3–6), which Pope translates: —

Homer also wrote a poem, “Pygmæogeranomachia,” about the Pygmies and Cranes. The accompanying illustration is from a fresco at Pompeii.

Aristotle says that they lived in holes under the earth, and came out in the harvest time with hatchets, to cut down the corn, as if to fell a forest, and went on goats and lambs of proportionable stature to themselves to make war against certain birds, called Cranes by some, which came there yearly from Scythia to plunder them. Pliny mentions them several times, but especially in B. 7, c. 2. “Beyond these people, and at the very extremity of the mountains, the Trispithami,18 and the Pygmies are said to exist; two races, which are but three spans in height, that is to say, twenty-seven inches only. They enjoy a salubrious atmosphere, and a perpetual spring, being sheltered by the mountains from the northern blasts; it is these people that Homer has mentioned as being waged war upon by Cranes. It is said that they are in the habit of going down every spring to the sea-shore, in a large body, seated on the backs of rams and goats, and armed with arrows, and there destroy the eggs and the young of those birds; that this expedition occupies them for the space of three months, and that otherwise it would be impossible for them to withstand the increasing multitudes of the Cranes. Their cabins, it is said, are built of mud, mixed with feathers and egg shells.”

Mandeville thus describes them. “When men passe from that citie of Chibens, they passe over a great river of freshe water, and it is nere iiii mile brode, & then men enter into the lande of the great Caan. This river goeth through the land of Pigmeens, and there men are of little stature, for they are but three span long, and they are right fayre, both men and women, though they bee little, and they live but viii19 yeare, and he that liveth viii yeare is holden right olde, and these small men are the best workemen in sylke, and of cotton, in all maner of thing that are in the worlde; and these smal men travail not, nor tyl land, but they have amonge them great men, as we are, to travaill for them, & they have great scorne of those great men, as we would have of giaunts, or, of them, if they were among us.”

Ser Marco Polo warns his readers against pseudo Pygmies. Says he: “I may tell you moreover that when people bring over pygmies which they allege to come from India, ’tis all a lie and a cheat. For those little men, as they call them, are manufactured on this Island (Sumatra), and I will tell you how. You see there is on the Island a kind of monkey which is very small, and has a face just like a man’s. They take these, and pluck out all the hair, except the hair of the beard, and on the breast, and then dry them, and stuff them, and daub them with saffron, and other things, until they look like men. But you see it is all a cheat; for nowhere in India, nor anywhere else in the world, were there ever men seen so small as these pretended pygmies.”

But there are much more modern mention of these small folk. Olaus Magnus not only reproduces the classical story, but tells of the Pygmies of Greenland – the modern Esquimaux. These are also mentioned in Purchas his Pilgrimage, as living in Iceland, “pigmies represent the most perfect shape of man; that they are hairy to the uttermost joynts of the fingers, and that the males have beards downe to the knees; but, although they have the shape of men, yet they have little sense or understanding, nor distinct speech, but make shew of a kinde of hissing, after the manner of geese.”

But to bring the history of pygmies down to modern times – I quote from “Giants and Dwarfs,” by E. J. Wood, 1868, and I am thus particular in giving my authority, as the news comes from America, whence, sometimes, fact is mixed with fiction (pp. 246, 247, 248). “It is alleged by contemporary newspapers, that in 1828 several burying-grounds, from half an acre to an acre and a half in extent, were discovered in the county of White, state of Tennessee, near the town of Sparta, wherein very small people had been deposited in tombs or coffins of stone. The greatest length of the skeletons was nineteen inches. The bones were strong and well set, and the whole frames were well formed. Some of the people appeared to have lived to a great age, their teeth being worn smooth and short, while others were full and long. The graves were about two feet deep; the coffins were of stone, and made by laying a flat stone at the bottom, one at each side, or each end, and one over the corpse. The dead were all buried with their heads toward the east, and in regular order, laid on their backs, and with their hands on their breasts. In the bend of the left arm was found a cruse, or vessel, that would hold nearly a pint, made of ground stone, or shell, of a grey colour, in which were found two or three shells. One of these skeletons had about its neck ninety-four pearl beads. Near one of these burying-places was the appearance of the site of an ancient town.

Webber, in his ‘Romance of Natural History,’ refers to the diminutive sarcophagi found in Kentucky and Tennessee; and he describes these receptacles to be about three feet in length, by eighteen inches deep, and constructed, bottom, sides, and top, of flat, unhewn stones. These he conjectures to be the places of sepulture of a pigmy race, that became extinct at a period beyond reach even of the tradition of the so-called Indian aborigines.

Newspapers for 1866 tell us that General Milroy, who had been spending much time in Smith County, Tennessee, attending to some mining business, discovered near Watertown in that county some remarkable graves, which were disclosed by the washing of a small creek in its passage through a low bottom. The graves were from eighteen inches to two feet in length, most of them being of the smaller size, and were formed by an excavation of about fifteen inches below the surface, in which were placed four undressed slabs of rock – one in the bottom of the pit, one on each side, and one on the top. Human skeletons, some with nearly an entire skull, and many with well-defined bones, were found in them. The teeth were very diminutive, but evidently those of adults. Earthen crocks were also found with the skeletons. General Milroy could not gain any satisfactory information respecting these pigmy graves. The oldest inhabitants of the vicinity knew nothing of their origin or history, except that there was a large number of similar graves near Statesville in the same county, and also a little burial-ground at the mouth of Stone River, near the city of Nashville. General Milroy deposited the bones found by him in the State Library at Nashville.”

That a race of dwarfs live in Central Africa, is now well known. Ronzo de Leo, who travelled in Africa, for many years with Dr. Livingstone, at one time almost stood alone in his assertion of this fact. But he was supported in his statement by G. Eugene Wolff, who had been in Central Africa with Stanley, and he maintained that, on the southern branches of the Congo, he had seen whole villages of Lilliputians, of whom the men were not over four and a half feet high, whilst the women were a great deal smaller. He described them as being both brave and cunning, expert with bow and arrow, with which they readily bring down the African bison, antelope, and even elephants. As trappers of small animals they are unsurpassed. In a close pinch they use the lance with astonishing dexterity, and an ordinary sling, in their hands, is wielded with wonderful skill.

These dwarfs collect the sap of the palm, with which they make soap. The men are smooth-faced, and of a rich mahogany colour, while the hair is short, and as black as night. Tens of thousands of them live on the south branch of the Congo.

Mr. Stanley in his expedition for the relief of Emin Pacha,20 encountered some tribes of these pigmies, but he does not agree with the account which Mr. Wolff gives of them, who describes them as an affable, kind-hearted people, of simple ways, and devoid of vicious tendencies to a greater degree than most semi-barbaric races. The women are industrious and amiable.

Stanley, on the contrary, found them very annoying, and had a lively recollection of their poisoned arrows – but, at the present writing, he not having returned, and we, having no record but his letters, had better suspend our judgment as to the habits and tempers of these small people.

Wolff says they stand in awe of their bigger neighbours, but are so brave and cunning that, with all the odds of physique against them, the pigmies are masters of the situation.