The Country of the Dwarfs

After I had given them beads I took out a large looking-glass which I had hidden, and put it in front of them. Immediately they trembled with fright, and said, "Spirit, don't kill us!" and turned their heads from the looking-glass. Then the musical box was shown, and when I had set it playing the Dwarfs lay down on the ground, frightened by the brilliant, sparkling music of the mechanism, and by turns looked at me and at the box. Some of them ran away into their little huts. After their fears were allayed I showed them a string of six little bells, which I shook, whereat their little eyes brightened, and their joy was unbounded when I gave them the bells. One, of course, was for friend Misounda, who hung it by a cord to her waist, and shook her body in order to make it ring.

After this I ordered Igalo to bring me the meat, and taking from my sheath my big, bright, sharp hunting-knife, I cut it and distributed it among the Dwarfs. Then I gave them the plantains, and told them to eat. I wish you had seen the twisting of their mouths; it would have made you laugh. Immediately the little Dwarfs scattered round their fires, and roasted the food I had given them, and it was no sooner cooked than it was eaten, they seemed to be so fond of flesh.

When they had finished eating the Obongos seemed more sociable than I had ever seen them before. I seated myself on a dead limb of a tree, and they came round me and asked me to talk to them as the spirits talk. So I took my journal, and read to them in English what I had written the day before. After speaking to them in the language of the Oguizis, I said, "Now talk to me in the language of the Dwarfs;" and, pointing to my fingers, I gave them to understand that I wanted to know how they counted. So a Dwarf, taking hold of his hand, and then one finger after another, counted one, moï; two, beï; three, metato; four, djimabongo; five, djio; six, samouna; seven, nchima; eight, misamouno; nine, nchouma; ten, mbò-ta; and then raised his hands, intimating that he could not count beyond ten.

One of them asked me if I lived in the soungui (moon), then another if I lived in a niechi (star), another if I had been long in the forest. Did I make the fine things I gave them during the night?

"Now, Obongos," I said to them, "I want you to sing and to dance the Dwarf dance for me." An old Dwarf went out, and took out of his hut a ngoma (tam-tam), and began to beat it; then the people struck up a chant, and what queer singing it was! what shrill voices they had! After a while they got excited, and began to dance, all the while gesticulating wildly, leaping up, and kicking backwards and forwards, and shaking their heads.

Then I fired two guns, the noise of which seemed to stun them and fill them with fear. I gave them to understand that when I saw an elephant, a leopard, a gorilla, or any living thing, by making that noise I could kill them, and to show them I could do it I brought down a bird perched on a high tree near their settlement. How astonished they seemed to be!

"After all," I said to myself, "though low in the scale of intelligence, like their more civilized fellow-men, these little creatures can dance and sing."

"Now, Obongos, that you have asked me about the Oguizis," I said to them, "tell me about yourselves. Why do you not build villages as other people do?"

"Oh," said they, "we do not build villages, for we never like to remain long in the same place, for if we did we should soon starve. When we have gathered all the fruits, nuts, and berries around the place where we have been living for a time, and trapped all the game there is in the region, and food is becoming scarce, we move off to some other part of the forest. We love to move; we hate to tarry long at the same spot. We love to be free, like the antelopes and gazelles."

"Why don't you plant for food, as other people do?" I asked them.

"Why should we work," said they, "when there are plenty of fruits, berries, and nuts around us? when there is game in the woods, and fish in the rivers, and snakes, rats, and mice are plentiful? We love the berries, the nuts, and the fruits which grow wild much better than the fruits the big people raise on their plantations. And if we had villages," they said, "the strong and tall people who live in the country might come and make war upon us, kill us, and capture us."

"They do not desire to kill you," I said to them. "See how friendly they are with you! When you trap much game you exchange it for plantains with them. Why don't you wear clothing?"

"Why," said they, "the fire is our means of keeping warm, and then the big people give us their grass-cloth when they have done wearing it."

"Why don't you work iron, and make spears and battle-axes, so that you might be able to defend yourselves, and be not afraid of war?"

"We do not know how to work iron; it takes too much time; it is too hard work. We can make bows, and we make arrows with hard wood, and can poison them. We know how to make traps to trap game, and we trap game in far greater number than we can kill it when we go hunting; and we love to go hunting."

"Why don't you make bigger cabins?"

"We do not want to make bigger cabins; it would be too much trouble, and we do not know how. These are good enough for us; they keep the rain from us, and we build them so rapidly."

"Don't the leopards sometimes come and eat some of you?"

"Yes, they do!" they exclaimed. "Then we move off far away, several days' journey from where the leopards have come to eat some of us; and often we make traps to catch them. We hate the leopards!" the Obongos shouted with one voice.

"How do you make your fires? tell me;" and I could not help thinking that, however wild a man was, even though he might be apparently little above the chimpanzee, he had always a fire, and knew how to make it.

They showed me flint-stones, and a species of oakum coming from the palm-tree, and said they knocked these stones against each other, and the sparks gave them fire.

Then, to astonish them, I took a match from my match-box and lighted it. As soon as they saw the flame a wild shout rang through the settlement.

"Obongos, tell me," said I, "how you get your wives, for your settlements are far apart, and you have no paths leading through the forest from one to another. You never know how far the next settlement of the Dwarfs may be from yours."

"It is true," said they, "that sometimes we do not know where the next encampment of the Obongos may be, and we do not wish to know, for sometimes we fight among ourselves, and if we lived near together we should become too numerous, and find it difficult to procure berries and game. Our people never leave one settlement for another. Generation after generation we have lived among ourselves, and married among ourselves. It is but seldom we permit a stranger from another Obongo settlement to come among us."

"How far," said I, pointing to the east, "do you meet Obongos?"

"Far, far away," they answered, "toward where the sun rises, Obongos are found scattered in the great forest. We love the woods, for there we live, and if we were to live any where else we should starve."

"As you wander through the forest," I asked, "don't you sometimes come to prairies?"

"Yes," said they, and here an old Obongo addressed himself to my Ashango interpreter. "When I was a boy, we had our settlement for a long time in the forest not far from a big prairie, and farther off there was a big river. Since then," said the old Obongo, "as we moved we have turned our backs upon where the sun rises, and marched in the direction where the sun sets" (which meant that they had been migrating from the east toward the west).

"Did you not see," said I, continuing my questions, "birds with long legs and long beaks in those prairies?"

"Yes," said all the Obongos; "sometimes we kill them, for we love their flesh."

I could not but remember the description Homer gave of the cranes and the Pigmies, and I here give it to you in the translation of a man of whom every American should be proud as one of the greatest poets of the age. Mr. William Cullen Bryant's translation reads as follows:

"As when the cryOf cranes is in the air, that, flying southFrom winter and its mighty breadth of rain,Wing their way over ocean, and at dawnBring fearful battle to the Pigmy race,Bloodshed and death." —Iliad, iii., 3-8.

Of course our friend Homer, the grand old bard that will never die, did not see the Dwarfs, and only related what he had heard of them, and, like every thing that is transmitted from mouth to mouth, and from country to country, the story has become very much exaggerated.

Beyond a doubt, at certain seasons of every year the cranes left the country of which Homer spoke, for cranes are migratory, and their migration was toward the Nile; thence they winged their flight toward the Upper Nile, and spread all over the interior of Africa; and, as they came to the country of the Dwarfs, the Dwarfs came out to kill them, instead of their coming to kill the Dwarfs. The dwarfs of Homer's time killed them for food, as they still kill them in Equatorial Africa in certain seasons of the year.

I am now going to tell you what I wrote about these big cranes before I had even heard of the Country of the Dwarfs, or that such people as the Obongos ever existed:

"This account of Homer has been thought fabulous; for 'How,' it has been asked, 'could cranes attack a race of men?'

"Where were these pigmies to exist? I will try to show that Homer had some reason to say what he wrote. In the first book which I published (called 'Explorations in Equatorial Africa') I did not mention what Homer had written. I had heard of the Dwarfs, but I dismissed the account given to me by the Apingi as fabulous. In chap. xiv., p. 260, I say:

"'The dry season was now setting in in earnest, and I devoted the whole month of July to exploring the country along the sea-shore. It is curious that most of the birds which were so abundant during the rainy season had by this time taken their leave, and other birds in immense numbers flocked in to feed on the fish, which now leave the sea-shore and bars of the river mouth, and ascend the river to spawn.'

"In the four paragraphs in advance on the same page I said, 'Birds flocked in immense numbers on the prairies, whither they came to hatch their young.

"'The ugly marabouts, from whose tails our ladies get the splendid feathers for their bonnets, were there in thousands. Pelicans waded on the river's banks all day in prodigious swarms, gulping down the luckless fish which came in their way.'

"In the next paragraph, page 261, I continue:

"'And on the sandy point one morning I found great flocks of the Ibis religiosa (the sacred Ibis of the Egyptians), which had arrived overnight, whence I could not tell.

"'Ducks of various kinds built their nests in every creek and on every new islet that appeared with the receding waters. I used to hunt those until I got tired of duck-meat, fine as it is. Cranes, too, and numerous other water-fowl, flocked in every day, of different species. All came, by some strange instinct, to feed upon the vast shoals of fish which literally filled the river.

"'On the sea-shore I sometimes caught a bird, the Sula capensis, which had been driven ashore by the treacherous waves to which it had trusted itself, and could not, for some mysterious reason, get away again.

"'And, finally, every sand-bar is covered with gulls, whose shrill screams are heard from morning till night as they fly about greedily after their finny prey.'

"I terminated the description by saying, 'It is a splendid time now for sportsmen, and I thought of some of my New York friends who would have enjoyed the great plenty of game that was now here.'

"In chap. xiii. of the same book, p. 199, I wrote:

"'From Igalé to Aniambié was two hours' walk, through grass-fields, in which we found numerous birds, some of them new to me. One in particular, the Mycteria Senegalensis, had such legs that it fairly outwalked me. I tried to catch it, but, though it would not take to the wing, it kept so far ahead that I could not even get a fair shot at it.

"'These Mycteria Senegalenses are among the largest of cranes. They have a long neck, and a very powerful beak, from eight to ten inches in length, and I killed several of them, which I brought back. I had grand shooting with them, and many a time I gave up the chase; but when I killed one I took good care to see that the bird could not hurt me and was quite dead before I approached it.'

"Hence I conclude that the description of Homer is correct as regards the great number of cranes, and that he was right, for you see that they came in the dry season, and when the rains came they disappeared from the country.

"The dwarfish race of whom I speak are great hunters, and is it not probable that during the dry season, when the cranes came, there was rejoicing in the Pigmean race? for there would be food and meat for them; and they would fight also with the large crane, the Mycteria Senegalensis, which probably they could not kill at once, and hence it required on the part of the Dwarfs great dexterity to capture them. For myself, I was always careful in approaching the Mycteria Senegalensis, whose height is from four to five feet, as I have said, when quite clear. The natives, as I approached the first that I killed, shouted to me, 'Take care; he will send his beak into your eye.'"

CHAPTER XXVI

A MODERN TRAVELER'S ACCOUNT OF THE DWARFS AND THEIR HABITS. – WHERE AND HOW THEY BURY THEIR DEAD. – HUNTING FOR THE DWARFS. – HOW THEY MAKE THEIR HUTS

Now that I have told you what Herodotus and Homer wrote about the Dwarfs, let us come to a more modern account of them. We read the following in Rev. Dr. Krapf's "Travels and Missionary Labors in East Africa:"

"Noteworthy are the reports which in the year 1840 were communicated to me by a slave from Enarea, who, by order of the King of Shoa, was charged with the care of my house in Angolala during my residence in Onkobez. His name was Dilbo, and he was a native of Sabba, in Enarea. As a youth, he had made caravan journeys to Kaffa, and accompanied the slave-hunters from Kaffa to Tuffte, in a ten-days' expedition, where they crossed the Omo, some sixty feet wide, by means of a wooden bridge, reaching from thence to Kullu in seven days, which is but a few days' journey from the Dokos, a Pigmy race of whom Dilbo told almost fabulous stories" (p. 50).

Then Dr. Krapf gives an account of Dilbo, which does not bear on the subject, and then continues:

"He told me that to the south of Kaffa and Sura there is a very sultry and humid country, with many bamboo woods (meaning, no doubt, palm-trees), inhabited by the race called Dokos, who are no bigger than boys ten years old; that is, only four feet high. They have a dark olive-colored complexion, and live in a completely savage state, like the beasts, having neither houses, temples, nor holy trees, like the Gallas, yet possessing something like an idea of a higher being, called Yer, to whom, in moments of wretchedness and anxiety, they pray, not in an erect posture, but reversed, with the head on the ground, and the feet supported upright against a tree or stone. In prayer they say, 'Yer, if thou really dost exist, why dost thou allow us thus to be slain? We do not ask thee for food and clothing, for we live on serpents, ants, and mice. Thou hast made us, why dost thou permit us to be trodden under foot?' The Dokos have a chief, no laws, no weapons. They do not hunt nor till the ground, but live solely on fruits, roots, mice, serpents, ants, honey, and the like, climbing trees and gathering the fruits like monkeys, and both sexes go completely naked. They have thick protruding lips, flat noses, and small eyes. The hair is not woolly, and is worn by the women over the shoulders. The nails on the hands and feet are allowed to grow like the talons of vultures, and are used in digging for ants, and in tearing to pieces the serpents, which they devour raw, for they are unacquainted with fire. The spine of the snake is the only ornament worn around the neck, but they pierce the ears with a sharp-pointed piece of wood."

Then Dr. Krapf adds that they are never sold beyond Enarea, and continues as follows:

"Yet I can bear witness that I heard of these little people not only in Shoa, but also in Ukambani, two degrees to the south, and in Barava, a degree and a half to the north of the equator. In Barava a slave was shown to me who accorded completely with the description of Dilbo. He was four feet high, very thick set, dark complexioned, and lively, and the people of the place assured me that he was of the Pigmy race of the interior. It is not impossible, too, that circumstances, such as continual rains from May to January, and other means, may contribute to produce a diminutive people of stunted development in the interior of Africa. A priori, therefore, the reports collected from different and mutually independent points of Africa can not be directly contradicted, only care must be taken to examine with caution the fabulous element mixed up with what may be true by native reporters. In the Suali dialect 'dogo' means small, and in the language of Enarea 'doko' is indicative of an ignorant and stupid person."

Now I think, though Dr. Krapf was a long way from where I was, that his Dwarfs must be the same people as the Obongos, though they do not bear the same name; but you must remember that the Obongos are called by three different names by other tribes. It is true the Dwarf he saw was very black, but then there may be some Dwarfs much darker than others, just as some negroes are darker than others.

Then I said to the Ashango interpreter, "Ask the little Obongos where they bury their dead." I wanted to know, though I did not tell him why. I wanted the skeleton of an Obongo to bring home, and I would have been willing to give a thousand dollars for one.

"Don't ask such a question of the Obongos," said he.

"And why?" I inquired.

"Because," he answered, "they would be so frightened they would all run away. Even we ourselves, the Ashangos, who are their friends, know not where they bury their dead, and I will tell you why: they are afraid that the Ashangos would steal the skulls of the dead people for fetiches, and if they could procure but one they would always know where the Obongos were in the forest."

"Tell me," said I, "how they bury their dead."

"When an Obongo dies," said my Ashango friend, "there is great sorrow among the Dwarfs, and the men are sent into every part of the forest to find a tall tree which is hollow at the top. If they find one, they come back to the settlement and say, 'We have found a tree with a hollow.' Then the people travel into the forest, guided by the man who has found the hollow tree, and taking with them the body of the dead Obongo. When they have reached the spot, some of them ascend the tree, carrying with them creepers to be used as cords for drawing up the body, and the corpse is then drawn up and deposited in the hollow, which is immediately filled with earth, and dry leaves, and the twigs of trees."

"But," said I, "big hollow trees, such as you have been speaking of, are not found every day. If they do not find one, what then?"

"It is so, Oguizi. Sometimes they can not find a big hollow tree; then," said my Ashango guide, "they wander into the forest, far from paths and villages, in search of a little stream, which they turn from its natural bed, and then dig in it a big, deep hole, wherein they bury the body of the Obongo, after which they bring back the water to its own bed again, and the water forever and ever runs over the grave of the Obongo, and no one can ever tell where the grave of the Obongo is."

"Why," said I to myself, "this way of burying an Obongo reminds me of the burial of Attila."

This is all I know of the way the Obongos bury their dead, and this was told me by the Ashangos. The Obongos, who had seen me holding so long a talk with the Ashangos, began to appear frightened, and asked what we had been talking about. The Ashangos answered that we had been talking about hunting wild beasts. After a while we departed, apparently good friends with them, but not before promising the Obongos that I would come again and see them.

The next day I went hunting in order to kill meat and bring it to the Dwarfs, and their delight was great when I brought them five monkeys. A little while after I had put the monkeys on the ground I said, "Dwarfs, let us be good friends. Don't you see that I do not desire to kill you or capture you? I wish only to know you well. Every time I come to see you I bring you food and nice things." "That is so," said the Dwarfs, headed by my friend Misounda.

The hours passed away, and as evening approached I said, "Dwarfs, what do you say to my spending the night in your settlement, and going back to-morrow to Niembouai?" "Muiri! muiri!" said the Dwarfs, and immediately a little house was given me for the night. I was glad, for I wanted to be able to say when I came back home that I had slept in a house of the Dwarfs.

The little Dwarfs went into the woods to collect firewood for me, and to look after their traps. After a while they came back, and they, too, brought food. Misounda brought me a basket of wild berries, and the other Obongos presented me game, consisting of three beautiful fat rats, a nice little mouse, one squirrel, two fish, and a piece of snake. They laid these things before me. To please them, I ordered the squirrel to be cooked on a bright charcoal fire, and how delighted they were to see me eat it! how they shouted when they saw me take mouthful after mouthful!

The sun went down behind the trees, and soon after it was dark in the village of the Dwarfs. I could see that they were still afraid of me. They had an idea that probably I wanted to capture some of them. At last the time came for me to go to bed. I had some trouble to get through the door, and when I was inside I lay down on my bed made of sticks, and put my head on my revolvers as a pillow. I had a little fire lighted so that the smoke would drive the mosquitoes away, and before lying down I looked round to see if there were any snakes. You must always take that precaution in that part of the world. The Dwarfs kept awake all night outside of their huts, for they were not yet certain that I had not come to capture some of them.

Their little huts were of a low, oval shape, like gipsy tents. The lowest part, that nearest the entrance, was about four feet from the ground; the greatest breadth was also four feet. On each side were three or four sticks for the man and woman to sleep upon. The huts were made of flexible branches of trees, arched over and fixed into the ground, the longest branches being in the middle, and the others successively shorter, the whole being covered with large leaves.

The next morning the Ashangos and the Dwarfs went into the forest to look after the traps they had made to capture game.

As the time of our departure from Niembouai had arrived, I said to the Dwarfs that I must bid them good-by, for I was going away toward where the sun rises. "Now you see," said I, "you have always been afraid of me. Tell me, have I done harm to any one of you?" "No, no," they exclaimed; "no, no," said my friend Misounda. So I shook hands with them, and they said to me in parting, "You will see more little Dwarfs in the countries where you are going. Be kind to them, as you have been to us."

As I walked on through the jungle, my mind kept dwelling on the strange Obongos. "If you want one of them to take away with you," said my Ashango guide, "we will capture one for you, if you will give us beads and copper rings." "No, no," said I, "the Spirit does not want to capture people; he wants only to see people."

Now I must tell you what I think of these Obongos. I think that they are the very same people of whom Herodotus and Homer had heard; that they are closely allied to the Bushmen of South Africa, for the hair on their heads grows in the same way; only they are darker in color, and in that respect seem to be a shade between the negro and the Bushman. They are also a little shorter in stature than the Bushmen, and I have a strong belief that in times past they belonged probably to the same nation.

And now we must take leave of the Dwarfs, for I am to talk to you of the great negro tribes in whose country the little creatures live. If I should learn any thing more about the Dwarfs as I go forward, I will surely relate it to you.