Tribe of pygmies on earth 5 letters. How African pygmies live (24 photos). Testimonies and references
The first mention of pygmies was made in ancient Egyptian records dating back to the 3rd millennium BC. Later, ancient Greek historians wrote about the pygmies Herodotus, Strabo, Homer. The real existence of these African tribes was confirmed only in the 19th century by a German traveler. Georg Schweinfurt, Russian researcher Vasily Junker and others.
The growth of adult male pygmies is from 144-150 cm in height. Women - about 120 cm. They have short limbs, light brown skin, which serves as excellent camouflage in the forest. Hair dark, curly, lips thin.
Occupation
Pygmies live in the forests. The forest for them is the highest deity - the source of everything necessary for survival. The traditional occupation for most pygmies is hunting and gathering. They hunt elephants, antelopes and monkeys. They use shortbows and poisoned arrows for hunting. In addition to various meats, pygmies are very fond of wild bee honey. In order to get to their favorite delicacy, they have to climb 45-meter trees, after which they use ash and smoke to disperse the bees. Women collect nuts, berries, mushrooms and roots.
Pygmies live in small groups of at least 50 members. Each group has a special area for building huts. Marriages between members of different tribes are quite common here. Also, absolutely any member of the tribe, when he wishes, is free to leave and join another tribe. There are no formal leaders in the tribe. Issues and problems that have arisen are resolved through open negotiations.
Weapon
Weapons are a spear, a small bow, arrows (often poisoned). Pygmies barter iron for arrowheads from neighboring tribes. Various traps and traps are widely used.
Pygmies are the most famous dwarf tribes living in the forests of tropical Africa. The main areas of concentration of pygmies today: Zaire (165 thousand people), Rwanda (65 thousand people), Burundi (50 thousand people), Congo (30 thousand people), Cameroon (20 thousand people) and Gabon (5 thousand people).
Mbutis- a tribe of pygmies living in the Ituri forest in Zaire. Most scientists believe that they were most likely the first inhabitants of this region.
Twa (batwa)- a tribe of pygmies in equatorial Africa. They live both in the mountains and on the plains near Lake Kivu in Zaire, Burundi and Rwanda. They maintain close ties with neighboring pastoral tribes and know how to make pottery.
Tswa (batswa)- This large tribe lives near the swamp south of the Congo River. They, like the Twa tribe, live in cooperation with neighboring tribes, adopting their culture and language. Most of the Tswa hunt or fish.
Pygmies differ from other African tribes in their height, which ranges from 143 to 150 centimeters. The reason for such a small growth of pygmies is still a mystery to scientists, although some researchers believe that their growth is due to their adaptation to difficult living conditions in the rainforest.
Pygmies were sold to zoos!
The origin of the pygmies is still a mystery to scientists. No one knows who their distant ancestors were and how these little people ended up in the equatorial forests of Africa. There are no legends or myths to help answer these questions. There is an assumption that in ancient times the pygmies occupied the entire central part of the Black Continent, and were later driven out by other tribes into the rainforests. From Greek, the pygmies are translated as "people the size of a fist", the scientific definition interprets the pygmies as a group of undersized Negroid peoples living in the forests of Africa.
Pygmies are mentioned in ancient Egyptian sources of the III millennium BC. e., later Herodotus and Strabo wrote about them, Homer in his Iliad. Aristotle considered the pygmies to be a very real people, although a lot of fantastic things were written about them in ancient sources: for example, Strabo listed them along with big-headed, noseless, cyclops, pso-heads and other mythical creatures of the ancient period.
It is worth noting that because of their growth, the pygmies have long suffered many disasters and humiliations. The taller Africans drove them from the most favorable places and drove them into the green hell of the equatorial forests. Civilization also brought them some joy, especially at the beginning of contact with white people. Some travelers and colonial officials captured the pygmies and took them with them to Europe and the USA as a curiosity. It got to the point that pygmies, especially their children, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were sold as living exhibits to zoos in the West ...
It would seem that now this people can live much calmer and more confident in their future, but, alas, this is not so. It's hard to believe, but during the period 1998-2003 during the civil war in the Congo, it happened quite often that pygmies were caught and eaten like wild animals. A sect of “erasers” is still operating in the same parts, whose members are hired to clean up the territory from pygmies if mining is supposed to take place on it. Cultists kill pygmies and feed on their flesh. Enlightenment has not yet penetrated into the deep layers of the African population, so many inhabitants of the Black Continent believe that by eating a pygmy, they acquire some kind of magical power that protects them from witchcraft.
The presence of a considerable number of peculiar pygmy slaves will also seem incredible, although slavery is legally prohibited in all countries. Pygmies become slaves in the same Republic of the Congo, and they are even inherited; according to the tradition existing here, their owners are representatives of the Bantu people. No, pygmies do not walk in shackles, but their master can simply take away from the slaves the fruits and meat obtained in the forest, sometimes he still gives them some kind of provisions, tools and metal for arrowheads. Surprisingly, the pygmies do not arrange any uprisings against the slave owners: as some researchers say, without maintaining relations with the Bantu, they can only get worse,
Why are they so small?
The growth of pygmies ranges from 140 to 150 cm. The smallest people in the world are the pygmies of the Efe tribe, in which the average height of men does not exceed 143 cm, and for women - 130-132 cm. Of course, as soon as scientists learned about the existence of pygmies, they the question immediately arose - what is the reason for their such insignificant growth? If the small pygmies were only a small part of their tribe, their diminutiveness could be explained by a genetic failure. However, due to the general low growth, such an explanation had to be immediately discarded.
Another explanation, it would seem, lies right on the surface - the pygmies do not have good nutrition, and they are often malnourished, which is reflected in their growth. The study showed that the diet of African pygmies is almost the same as that of neighboring farmers (the same Bantu), but their daily food intake is very small. It is possible that this is why their bodies, and, accordingly, their height, decreased from generation to generation. It is clear that a smaller amount of food is enough for a small person to survive. Even a very curious experiment was carried out: for a long time a small group of pygmies were fed to satiety, but, alas, neither the pygmies themselves nor their offspring grew up because of this.
There is also a version about the effect of lack of sunlight on the growth of pygmies. Spending their whole lives under the canopy of a dense forest, the pygmies do not receive enough sunlight, which leads to a slight production of vitamin D by the body. The lack of this vitamin causes inhibition of bone growth, which results in a very miniature skeleton in the pygmies.
Some researchers believe that the diminutiveness of pygmies is caused by an evolutionary process that adapts them to life in dense thickets. It is clear that it is much easier for a small and nimble pygmy to make his way through a palisade of trees, fallen trunks, entangled in vines than a tall European. It is also known about the predilection of pygmies for collecting honey. Looking for honey, male pygmies spend about 9% of their lives in trees in search of habitats for wild bees. Of course, climbing trees is easier for a person with small stature and weighing up to 45 kilograms.
Of course, the pygmies have been carefully studied by doctors and geneticists, they have found that the concentration of growth hormone in their blood is not very different from the average indicators of an ordinary person. However, the level of insulin-like growth factor was below the norm by 3 times. According to the researchers, this explains the small growth of newborn pygmies. In addition, the low concentration of this hormone in the blood plasma prevents the onset of a period of active growth in pygmy adolescents, who completely stop growing at the age of 12-15 years. By the way, genetic studies made it possible to call the pygmies the descendants of the most ancient people that appeared on Earth about 70 thousand years ago. But scientists have not identified genetic mutations in them.
The small stature of the pygmies is also explained by their short life span. Alas, these little people live an average of only 16 to 24 years, those who have reached the age of 35-40 are already long-livers among them. Due to the short life cycle, pygmies experience early puberty, causing inhibition of body growth. Puberty in pygmies occurs as early as 12 years old, and the highest birth rate in women is noted at 15.
As you can see, there are many factors contributing to the small growth of pygmies. Perhaps one of them is the main one, or maybe they all work together. Yes, due to their short stature, some scientists are even ready to single out the pygmies as a separate race. It is curious that in addition to growth, the pygmies have other differences from the Negroid race - these are light brown skin and very thin lips.
"Lilliputians" from the rainforest
Now pygmy tribes can be found in the forests of Gabon, Cameroon, Congo, Rwanda, and the Central African Republic. The life of these little people is constantly connected with the forest, they spend the main part of their lives in it, get their own food, give birth to children and die. They are not engaged in agriculture, their main occupations are gathering and hunting. Pygmies lead a nomadic life, they leave their camp as soon as there is no game, no fruits, no edible plants, no honey around the camp. Resettlement takes place within the boundaries established with other groups, hunting on foreign land can become a reason for conflict.
There is another reason for moving. It happens when someone dies in a small pygmy village. Pygmies are very superstitious, they believe that since death has visited them, it means that the forest does not want them to continue to live in this place. The deceased is buried right in his hut, funeral dances take place at night, and in the morning, leaving their simple buildings, the pygmies move to another place.
The main occupation of male pygmies is hunting. Unlike "civilized" hunters who come to Africa to amuse their pride and get hunting trophies, pygmies never kill a living creature if there is no need for it. They hunt with bows with arrows poisoned with vegetable poison and spears with metal tips. Birds, monkeys, small antelopes and deer become their prey. Pygmies do not store meat for future use, they always share the prey fairly. Despite the usual luck of undersized hunters, mined meat makes up only 9% of their diet. By the way, pygmies often hunt with dogs, they are very hardy and, if necessary, are ready at the cost of their lives to protect the owner from the most ferocious beast.
A significant share in the diet of the pygmies is made up of honey and other gifts of the forest. Honey is mined by men who are ready to climb the highest trees for it, but the gifts of the forest are collected by women. Around the camp they look for fruits, wild roots, edible plants, they do not disdain worms, larvae, snails, frogs and snakes. All this goes to food. However, at least 50% of the diet of the pygmies is vegetables and fruits, which they exchange with farmers for honey and other gifts of the forest. In addition to food, through the exchange, the pygmies get the fabrics they need, pottery, iron and tobacco.
Every day, a part of the women remains in the village, making a kind of matter from the tree bark called “tana”, it is from it that the famous aprons of the pygmies are made. For men, such an apron is attached to a leather or fur belt, and they wear a bunch of leaves at the back. But women wear only aprons. However, settled pygmies that have already appeared often wear European clothes. Civilization is slowly but persistently penetrating into the life and life of the pygmies, their culture and traditions, perhaps in a few decades, will become a thing of the past.
And etc.; formerly presumably Pygmy languages
traditional beliefs
Negril type large black race
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Pygmies in mythology
Physical type
The Efe and Sua peoples living to the east of the tank initially give birth to small children - the growth limiter is turned on during fetal development. Bak children are born normal, but in the first two years of life, Bak children grow noticeably slower than Europeans.
Occupation
Pygmies are inhabitants of the forests, the forest for them is the source of everything necessary for life. The main occupations are hunting and gathering. Pygmies do not make stone tools, they did not know how to make fire before (they carried the source of fire with them). The hunting weapon is a bow with arrows with metal tips, and these tips are often poisoned. Iron barter from neighbors.
Language
Pygmies usually speak the languages of the peoples around them - efe, asua, bambuti, etc. There are some phonetic differences in the dialects of the pygmies, but with the exception of the Baka people, the pygmies have lost their native languages.
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Notes
Literature
- Putnam E. Eight Years Among the Pygmies / Ann Putnam; With preface and ed. B. I. Sharevskaya; Artist B. A. Diodorov. - M .: Publishing house of Eastern literature, 1961. - 184 p. - (Journey through the countries of the East). - 75,000 copies.(reg.)
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An excerpt characterizing the Pygmies
So he's just dressed up as a girl! Don't you understand?I shook my head. So far, I still didn’t understand almost anything here at all - neither about the royal escape, nor about the “bad people”, but I decided to just look further, without asking anything else.
“These bad people offended the king and queen and wanted to capture them. So they tried to run. Axel arranged everything for them... But when he was ordered to leave them, the carriage went slower, because the king was tired. He even got out of the carriage to "breathe the air"... and that's where they recognized him. Well, they got it, of course...
Pogrom at Versailles Arrest of the royal family
Fear of what is happening... Seeing Marie Antoinette to the Temple
Stella sighed... and again threw us into another "new episode" of this not so happy, but still beautiful story...
This time everything looked sinister and even frightening.
We found ourselves in some kind of dark, unpleasant room, as if it were a real evil prison. In a tiny, dirty, damp and stinking room, on a wooden couch with a straw mattress, sat exhausted by suffering, dressed in black, a thin, gray-haired woman in whom it was completely impossible to recognize that fabulously beautiful, always smiling miracle queen, whom young Axel most of all loved in the world...
Marie Antoinette at the Temple
He was in the same room, completely shocked by what he saw and, not noticing anything around, stood on his knees, pressing his lips to her still beautiful, white hand, unable to utter a word ... He came to her completely desperate, having tried everything in the world and having lost the last hope of saving her ... and yet, again, he offered his almost impossible help ... He was obsessed with the only desire: to save her, no matter what ... He simply could not let her to die ... Because without her, his life, already unnecessary to him, would end ...
They looked silently at each other, trying to hide the naughty tears that flowed down their cheeks in narrow paths ... Unable to take their eyes off each other, because they knew that if he failed to help her, this look could be the last for them .. .
The bald jailer looked at the heartbroken guest and, not intending to turn away, watched with interest the sad scene of someone else's sorrow unfolding before him ...
The vision disappeared and another appeared, no better than the previous one - a terrible, screaming, armed with pikes, knives and guns, a brutal crowd mercilessly destroyed the magnificent palace ...
Versailles...
Then Axel reappeared. Only this time he was standing at the window in some very beautiful, richly furnished room. And next to him stood the same "friend of his childhood" Margarita, whom we saw with him at the very beginning. Only this time, all her arrogant coldness evaporated somewhere, and her beautiful face literally breathed with participation and pain. Axel was deathly pale and, pressing his forehead against the window glass, watched with horror something happening on the street ... He heard the crowd rustling outside the window, and in a terrifying trance loudly repeated the same words:
– My soul, I never saved you... Forgive me, my poor... Help her, give her the strength to endure this, Lord!...
– Axel, please! .. You must pull yourself together for her sake. Well, please be reasonable! - with participation persuaded his old girlfriend.
– Prudence? What kind of prudence are you talking about, Margarita, when the whole world has gone crazy?! .. - Axel shouted. - What is it for? For what?.. What did she do to them?!.
Margarita unfolded some small piece of paper and, apparently not knowing how to calm him down, said:
- Calm down, dear Axel, now listen better:
“I love you, my friend... Don't worry about me. I miss only your letters. Perhaps we are not destined to meet again ... Farewell, the most beloved and most loving of people ... ".
This was the last letter from the Queen, which Axel had read thousands of times, but for some reason it sounded even more painful from someone else's lips...
- What is it? What is going on there? - I could not stand it.
– This beautiful queen is dying… She is being executed now. Stella replied sadly.
Why can't we see? I asked again.
“Oh, you don’t want to watch this, trust me. The little girl shook her head. - It's a pity, she's so unhappy... How unfair it is.
“I would still like to see…” I asked.
“Well, look…” Stella nodded sadly.
On a huge square, chock-full of “strung-up” people, a scaffold ominously towered in the middle ... A deathly-pale, very thin and exhausted woman dressed in white proudly climbed it along the small, crooked steps. Her short-cropped blond hair was almost completely hidden by a modest white cap, and in her tired eyes, reddened from tears or insomnia, deep hopeless sadness was reflected ...
Swaying a little, because, because of her tightly tied hands behind her back, it was difficult for her to keep her balance, the woman somehow climbed onto the platform, still, with her last strength, trying to stay straight and proud. She stood and looked into the crowd, not lowering her eyes and not showing how truly she was terribly scared ... And there was no one around whose friendly look could warm the last minutes of her life ... No one who warmth could help her endure this terrifying moment when her life had to leave her in such a cruel way ...
Do you know how the word "pygmies" is translated? Fist-sized people. This is the smallest people on the planet.
Most people understand the word "pygmies" as people of short stature living in Africa. Yes, this is partly true, but even African pygmies are not one people. Various nationalities live on the Black Continent: pygmies Batwa, Bakiga, Baka, Aka, Efe, Sua, and this is not the whole list. The height of an adult male usually does not exceed 145 centimeters, and women - 133 cm.
How do the smallest people on the planet live?
The life of the pygmies is not easy) They live in temporary villages in the forests. Why temporary, you ask? The smallest people have a nomadic lifestyle, they are constantly in search of food and look for places rich in fruits and honey. They also have ancient customs. So, if a person dies in a tribe, then they bury him under the roof of a hut and leave the settlement forever.
Near temporary villages, pygmies hunt deer, antelopes and monkeys. They also collect fruits and honey. With all this, meat makes up only 9% of their diet, and they exchange the bulk of the production for garden vegetables, metal, fabrics, and tobacco from people who keep farms near the forest.
Little people are considered excellent healers: they prepare medicinal and poisonous potions from plants. It is because of this that they are disliked by other tribes, as they are credited with magical powers.
For example, the pygmies have a curious way of catching fish: first, they poison the pond, which causes the fish to float to the surface. And that's it, fishing was a success, it remains only to collect the catch. No gatherings with fishing rods on the shore or harpoon fishing. After a few hours, the poison ceases to act and again the lively fish returns to its usual life.
The life expectancy of pygmies is very short: from 16 to 24 years. People who have lived to 40 years old are real centenarians. Accordingly, they also reach puberty much earlier: at the age of 12. Well, they acquire offspring at the age of fifteen.
Still in bondage
Africa is the most controversial continent. Slavery has long been banned around the world, but not here. So, for example, in the Republic of the Congo, according to the established tradition, pygmies are inherited from the Bantu people. And these are the real slave owners: the pygmies give them their prey from the forest. But, unfortunately, a small nation is forced to endure such treatment, as the "owners" give them the products and goods necessary for survival, without which it is unrealistic to live in the forest. Moreover, the pygmies go to tricks: they can be "enslaved" by several farmers at the same time in different villages. If one owner did not give food, then, perhaps, another will make happy.
Pygmy Genocide
The smallest people for many centuries have been under constant pressure from other tribes. And here we are talking not only about slavery, but even about ... cannibalism! And in our modern world, in the XXI century. So, during the civil war in the Congo (1998-2003), pygmies were simply caught and eaten. Or, for example, in one of the provinces of Africa, North Kivu, at one time a group was operating to prepare the territory for mining. And they killed and ate pygmies in the process of cleaning up. And some peoples of the Black Continent generally believe that the flesh of a pygmy will give magical power, and communication with a woman from some undersized tribes will relieve diseases. Therefore, rape happens here very often.
Of course, all this affects the life of a small people: there are no more than 280 thousand of them left, and this figure is decreasing every year.
Why such a small stature
In fact, the miniaturization of these peoples is explained by evolution. And in different peoples, the reasons are different, scientists came to this conclusion. So, genetic analyzes have shown that in some tribes (for example, among the pygmies Sua and Efa) already in the womb, the growth limiter of the child is turned on and babies are born very small. And in other peoples (baka), children are born normal, the same as those of representatives of European races, but in the first two years they grow very slowly. All these changes at the genetic level are provoked by various factors.
So, poor nutrition contributes to short stature: the body of the pygmies has decreased in the process of evolution. The fact is that they need much less food to survive than larger nations. It is also believed that the tropics also “helped” small growth: after all, body weight affects the amount of heat produced, so large nations have a much greater chance of overheating.
Well, another theory says that miniature makes life easier in the tropics, making the pygmies more nimble, because in impenetrable forests this is an excellent quality. This is how evolution helped little people adapt to lifestyle and climate.
Interesting Facts About Pygmies You Didn't Know Before
Fact #1. Many people believe that pygmies live in forests. However, this is not always the case: for example, the Twa pygmies live in deserts and swamps.
Fact #2. Moreover, some anthropologists classify dwarf peoples as pygmies, where a man’s height does not exceed 155 centimeters. In their opinion, pygmies live in different parts of the world: in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Bolivia and Brazil. Here, for example, Filipino pygmies:
Fact #3. Most of the words among the pygmies are associated with honey and plants. In general, they have lost their native language and now speak the languages of the peoples surrounding them.
Fact #4. Some researchers believe that the pygmies are representatives of an ancient people that existed more than 70 thousand years ago.
Fact #5. Pygmies were known in ancient Egypt. So, black dwarfs were brought as a gift to rich nobles.
Fact #6. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, pygmy children were sold to zoos and Europe as exhibits.
Fact #7. The smallest people in the world are the Efe and Zaire pygmies. The height of women does not exceed 132 cm, and men - 143 cm.
Fact #8. In Africa, not only the shortest people live, but also the tallest. In the Dinka tribe, the average height of a man is 190 cm, and that of a woman is 180 cm.
Fact #9. Pygmies still do not use the calendar today, so they do not know the exact age.
Fact #10. A Caucasoid child at the age of 2.5 years is about the same height as a five-year-old pygmy.
The shortest people on earth, whose average height does not exceed 141 cm, live in the Congo Basin in Central Africa. "The size of a fist" - so translated from the Greek pygmalios - the name of the pygmy tribe. There is an assumption that they once occupied the whole of Central Africa, but then they were forced out into the region of tropical forests.
The daily life of these wild people is devoid of romance and is associated with the daily struggle for survival, when the main task of men is to obtain food for the entire village. Pygmies are considered the most non-bloodthirsty hunters. And indeed it is. They never hunt for the sake of hunting, they never kill animals for the desire to kill, they never store meat for future use. They do not even bring a killed animal to the village, but butcher, cook and eat right on the spot, calling all the villagers to a meal. Hunting and everything connected with it is the main ritual in the life of the tribe, clearly expressed in folklore: songs about hunting heroes, dances that convey scenes of animal behavior, myths and legends. Before the hunt, men smear themselves and weapons with mud with the dung of the animal they are going to hunt, turn to the spear with a request to be accurate, and set off.
Everyday food of the pygmies is vegetable: nuts, edible herbs and roots, the core of the palm tree. Fishing is a seasonal activity. For fishing, pygmies use a special grass, from which the fish fall asleep, but do not die. Grass leaves are dissolved in the river, the catch is collected downstream. A particular danger for the pygmies is the jungle, full of a variety of wild animals. But the most dangerous is the python. If a pygmy accidentally steps on a python more than 4 meters, he is doomed. The snake instantly attacks, wraps around the body and strangles.
The origin of the pygmies is still not entirely clear. It is only known that the first Europeans quite recently penetrated into their world and were met rather belligerently. The exact number of representatives of the tribe is not known. According to various sources, there are about 280 thousand of them. The average life expectancy is no more than 45 years for men, women live a little longer. The first child is born at the age of 14-15, but there are no more than two children in the family. Pygmies roam in groups of 2-4 families. They live in low huts covered with grass, which can be done in a few hours. Boys 9-16 years old are circumcised and subjected to other rather cruel trials, accompanied by moral instructions. Only men take part in such ceremonies.
The tribe has lost its native language, so the dialects of neighboring tribes are most often used. Clothing consists of only a hip belt with an apron. But settled pygmies are increasingly wearing European clothes. The main deity is the forest spirit Tore, the owner of forest game, to whom hunters pray before hunting.
The culture and traditions of the pygmies are gradually disappearing. New life slowly penetrates into their life, dissolving in itself the lifestyle of the smallest people on the planet.
Watch interesting videos.
Unknown planet. Pygmies and Karamojongs. ch1.
Ritual dances of Baka pygmies.