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| Table of Contents | |
| Section | Page |
| Start of eBook | 1 |
| PREFATORY NOTE | 1 |
| INTRODUCTION | 1 |
| I. | 1 |
| OR, THE ANATOMY OF A PYGMIE | 2 |
| II. | 14 |
| III. | 18 |
| IV. | 30 |
| A PHILOLOGICAL ESSAY | 39 |
It is only necessary for me to state here, what I have mentioned in the Introduction, that my account of the habits of the Pigmy races of legend and myth makes no pretence of being in any sense a complete or exhaustive account of the literature of this subject. I have contented myself with bringing forward such tales as seemed of value for the purpose of establishing the points upon which I desire to lay emphasis.
I have elsewhere expressed my obligations to M. De Quatrefage’s book on Pigmies, obligations which will be at once recognised by those familiar with that monograph. To his observations I have endeavoured to add such other published facts as I have been able to gather in relation to these peoples.
I have to thank Professors Sir William Turner, Haddon, Schlegel, Brinton, and Topinard for their kindness in supplying me with information in response to my inquiries on several points.
Finally, I have to acknowledge my indebtedness to Professor Alexander Macalister, President of the Anthropological Institute, and to Mr. E. Sidney Hartland, for their kindness in reading through, the former the first two sections, and the latter the last two sections of the Introduction, and for the valuable suggestions which both have made. These gentlemen have laid me under obligations which I can acknowledge, but cannot repay.
Bertram C. A. Windle.
Mason College,
Birmingham, 1894.
Edward Tyson, the author of the Essay with which this book is concerned, was, on the authority of Monk’s Roll of the Royal College of Physicians, born, according to some accounts, at Bristol, according to others, at Clevedon, co. Somerset, but was descended from a family which had long settled in Cumberland. He was educated at Magdalene Hall, Oxford, as a member of which he proceeded Bachelor of Arts on the 8th of February 1670, and Master of Arts on the 4th of November 1673. His degree of Doctor of Medicine he took at Cambridge in 1678 as a member of Corpus Christi College. Dr. Tyson was admitted a candidate of the College of Physicians on the 30th of September 1680, and a Fellow in April 1683. He was Censor of the College in 1694, and held the appointments of Physician to the Hospitals of Bridewell and Bethlem, and of Anatomical Reader at Surgeons’ Hall. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and contributed several papers to the “Philosophical Transactions.” Besides a number of anatomical works, he published in 1699 “A Philosophical Essay concerning the Rhymes of the Ancients,” and in the same year the work by which his name is still known, in which the Philological Essay which is here reprinted finds a place. Tyson died on the 1st of August 1708, in the fifty-eighth year of his age, and is buried at St. Dionis Backchurch. He was the original of the Carus not very flatteringly described in Garth’s “Dispensary.”
The title-page of the work above alluded to runs as follows:—
Orang-Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris:
Compared with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man.
To which is added, A philological essay Concerning the Pygmies, the Cynocephali, the Satyrs, and Sphinges of the ancients.
Wherein it will appear that they are all either APES or MONKEYS, and not MEN, as formerly pretended.
By EDWARD TYSON M.D.
Fellow of the Colledge of Physicians, and the Royal Society: Physician to the Hospital of Bethlem, and Reader of Anatomy at Chirurgeons-Hall.
LONDON:
Printed for Thomas Bennet at the Half-Moon in St. Paul’s Church-yard; and Daniel Brown at the Black Swan and Bible without Temple-Bar and are to be had of Mr. Hunt at the Repository in Gresham-Colledge. M DC XCIX.
It bears the authority of the Royal Society:—
17 deg. Die Maij, 1699.
Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus, Orang-Outang, sive
Homo Sylvestris, &c.
Authore Edvardo Tyson, M.D. R.S.S.
JOHN HOSKINS, V.P.R.S.
The Pygmy described in this work was, as a matter of fact, a chimpanzee, and its skeleton is at this present moment in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. Tyson’s granddaughter married a Dr. Allardyce, who was a physician of good standing in Cheltenham. The “Pygmie” formed a somewhat remarkable item of her dowry. Her husband presented it to the Cheltenham Museum, where it was fortunately carefully preserved until, quite recently, it was transferred to its present position.
At the conclusion of the purely scientific part of the work the author added four Philological Essays, as will have appeared from his title-page. The first of these is both the longest and the most interesting, and has alone been selected for republication in this volume.
This is not the place to deal with the scientific merit of the main body of Tyson’s work, but it may at least be said that it was the first attempt which had been made to deal with the anatomy of any of the anthropoid apes, and that its execution shows very conspicuous ability on the part of its author.
Tyson, however, was not satisfied with the honour of being the author of an important morphological work; he desired to round off his subject by considering its bearing upon the, to him, wild and fabulous tales concerning pigmy races. The various allusions to these races met with in the pages of the older writers, and discussed in his, were to him what fairy tales are to us. Like modern folk-lorists, he wished to explain, even to euhemerise them, and bring
Tall 5 ft. 8 in. and upwards.
Above the average 5 ft. 6 in. to 5 ft. 8 in.
Below the average 5 ft. 4 in. to 5 ft. 6 in.
Short Below 5 ft. 4 in.
Thus amongst ordinary peoples there is no very striking difference of height, so far as the average is concerned. It would, however, be a great mistake to suppose that all races reaching a lower average height than five feet four inches are, in any accurate sense of the word, to be looked upon as pigmies. We have to descend to a considerably lower figure before that appellation can be correctly employed. The stature must fall considerably below five feet before we can speak of the race as one of dwarfs or pigmies. Anthropometrical authorities have not as yet agreed upon any upward limit for such a class, but for our present purposes it may be convenient to say that any race in which the average male stature does not exceed four feet nine inches—that is, the average height of a boy of about twelve years of age—may fairly be described as pigmy. It is most important to bear this matter of inches in mind in connection with points which will have to be considered in a later section.
Pigmy races still exist in considerable numbers in Asia and the adjacent islands, and as it was in that continent that, so far as our present knowledge goes, they had in former days their greatest extension, and, if De Quatrefages be correct, their place of origin, it will be well to deal first with the tribes of that quarter of the globe. “The Negrito” (i.e., pigmy black) “type,” says the authority whom I have just quoted, and to whom I shall have to be still further indebted,[A] “was first placed in South Asia, which it without doubt occupied alone during an indeterminate period. It is thence that its diverse representatives have radiated, and, some going east, some west, have given rise to the black populations of Melanesia and Africa. In particular, India and Indo-China first belonged to the blacks. Invasions and infiltrations of different yellow or white races have split up these Negrito populations, which formerly occupied a continuous area, and mixing with them, have profoundly altered them. The present condition of things is the final result of strifes and mixtures, the most ancient of which may be referred back to prehistoric times.” The invasions above mentioned having in the past driven many of the races from the mainland to the islands, and those which remained on the continent having undergone greater modification by crossing with taller and alien races, we may expect to find the purest Negritos amongst the tribes inhabiting the various archipelagoes situated south and east of the mainland. Amongst these, the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands offer a convenient starting-point. The knowledge which we possess of these little blacks is extensive, thanks to the labours in particular of Mr. Man[B] and Dr. Dobson,[C] which may be found in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, and summarised in De Quatrefages’ work. The average stature of the males of this race is four feet six inches, the height of a boy of ten years of age. Like children, the head is relatively large in comparison with the stature, since it is contained seven times therein, instead of seven and a half times, as is the rule amongst most average-sized peoples. Whilst speaking of the head, it may be well to mention that these Negritos, and in greater or less measure other Negritos and Negrillos (i.e., pigmy blacks, Asiatic or African), differ in this part of the body in a most important respect from the ordinary African negro. Like him, they are black, often intensely so: like him, too, they have woolly hair arranged in tufts, but, unlike him, they have round (brachycephalic) heads instead of long (dolichocephalic); and the purer the race, the more marked is this distinction. The Mincopie has a singularly short life; for though he attains puberty at much the same age as ourselves, the twenty-second year brings him to middle life, and the fiftieth, if reached, is a period of extreme senility. Pure in race, ancient in history, and carefully studied, this race deserves some further attention here than can be extended to others with which I have to deal. The moral side of the Mincopies seems to be highly developed; the modesty of the young girls is most strict; monogamy is the rule, and—
“Their list of forbidden degrees
An extensive morality shows,”
since even the marriage of cousins-german is considered highly immoral. “Men and women,” says Man, “are models of constancy.” They believe in a Supreme Deity, respecting whom they say, that “although He resembles fire, He is invisible; that He was never born, and is immortal; that He created the world and all animate and inanimate objects, save only the powers of evil. During the day He knows everything, even the thoughts of the mind; He is angry when certain sins are committed, and full of pity for the unfortunate and miserable, whom He sometimes condescends to assist. He judges souls after death, and pronounces on each a sentence which sends them to paradise or condemns them to a kind of purgatory. The hope of escaping the torments of this latter place influences their conduct. Puluga, this Deity, inhabits a house of stone; when it rains, He descends upon the earth in search of food; during the dry weather He is asleep.” Besides this Deity, they believe in numerous evil spirits, the chief of whom is the Demon of the Woods. These spirits have created themselves, and have existed ab immemorabili. The sun, which is a female, and the moon, her husband, are secondary deities.
[Footnote A: The quotations from this author are taken from his work Les Pygmees. Paris, J.B. Bailliere et Fils, 1887.]
[Footnote B: Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vii.]
[Footnote C: Ibid., iv.]
South of the Andaman Islands are the Nicobars, the aborigines of which, the Shom Pen,[A] now inhabit the mountains, where, like so many of their brethren, they have been driven by the Malays. They are of small, but not pigmy stature (five feet two inches), a fact which may be due to crossing.
[Footnote A: Man, Jour. Anthrop. Inst., xviii. p. 354.]
Following the Negritos east amongst the islands, we find in Luzon the Aetas or Inagtas, a group of which is known in Mindanao as Manamouas. The Aetas live side by side with the Tagals, who are of Malay origin. They were called Negritos del Monte by the Spaniards who first colonised these islands. Their average stature, according to Wallace, ranges from four feet six inches to four feet eight inches. In New Guinea, the Karons, a similar race, occupy a chain of mountains parallel to the north coast of the great north-western peninsula. At Port Moresby, in the same island, the Koiari appear to represent the most south-easterly group; but my friend Professor Haddon, who has investigated this district, tells me that he finds traces of a former existence of Negritos at Torres Straits and in North Queensland, as shown by the shape of the skulls of the inhabitants of these regions.
The Malay Peninsula contains in Perak hill tribes called “savages” by the Sakays. These tribes have not been seen by Europeans, but are stated to be pigmy in stature, troglodytic, and still in the Stone Age. Farther south are the Semangs of Kedah, with an average stature of four feet ten inches, and the Jakuns of Singapore, rising to five feet. The Annamites admit that they are not autochthonous, a distinction which they confer upon the Mois, of whom little is known, but whose existence and pigmy Negrito characteristics are considered by De Quatrefages as established.
China no longer, so far as we know, contains any representatives of this type, but Professor Lacouperie[A] has recently shown that they formerly existed in that part of Asia. According to the annals of the Bamboo Books, “In the twenty-ninth year of the Emperor Yao, in spring, the chief of the Tsiao-Yao, or dark pigmies, came to court and offered as tribute feathers from the Mot.” The Professor continues, “As shown by this entry, we begin with the semi-historic times as recorded in the ’Annals of the Bamboo Books,’ and the date about 2048 B.C. The so-called feathers were simply some sort of marine plant or seaweed with which the immigrant Chinese, still an inland people, were yet unacquainted. The Mot water or river, says the Shan-hai-king, or canonical book of hills and seas, was situated in the south-east of the Tai-shan in Shan-tung. This gives a clue to the localisation of the pigmies, and this localisation agrees with the positive knowledge we possess of the small area which the Chinese dominion covered at this time. Thus the Negritos were part of the native population of China when, in the twenty-third century B.C., the civilised Bak tribes came into the land.” In Japan we have also evidence of their existence. This country, now inhabited by the Niphonians, or Japanese, as we have come to call them, was previously the home of the Ainu, a white, hairy under-sized race, possibly, even probably, emigrants from Europe, and now gradually dying out in Yezo and the Kurile Islands. Prior to the Ainu was a Negrito race, whose connection with the former is a matter of much dispute, whose remains in the shape of pit-dwellings, stone arrow-heads, pottery, and other implements still exist, and will be found fully described by Mr. Savage Landor in a recent most interesting work.[B] In the Shan-hai-king, as Professor Schlegel[C] points out, their country is spoken of as the Siao-jin-Kouo, or land of little men, in distinction, be it noted, to the Peh-min-Kouo, or land of white people, identified by him with the Ainu. These little men are spoken of by the Ainu as Koro-puk-guru, i.e., according to Milne, men occupying excavations, or pit-dwellers. According to Chamberlain, the name means dwellers under burdocks, and is associated with the following legend. Before the time of the Ainu, Yezo was inhabited by a race of dwarfs, said by some to be two to three feet, by others only one inch in height. When an enemy approached, they hid themselves under the great leaves of the burdock (koro), for which reason they are called Koro-puk-guru, i.e., the men under the burdocks. When they were exterminated by the wooden clubs of the Ainu, they raised their eyes to heaven, and, weeping, cried aloud to the gods, “Why were we made so small?” It should be said that Professor Schlegel and Mr. Savage Landor both seem to prefer the former etymology.
[Footnote A: Babylonian and Oriental Record, vol. v.]
[Footnote B: Alone with the Hairy Ainu.]
[Footnote C: Problemes Geographiques. Les Peuples Etrangers chez les Historiens Chinois. Extrait du T’oung-pao, vol. iv. No. 4. Leide, E.J. Brill.]
Passing to the north-west of the Andamans, we find in India a problem of considerable difficulty. That there were at one period numerous Negrito tribes inhabiting that part of Asia is indubitable; that some of them persist to this day in a state of approximate purity is no less true, but the influence of crossing has here been most potent. Races of lighter hue and taller stature have invaded the territory of the Negritos, to a certain extent intermarried with them, and thus have originated the various Dravidian tribes. These tribes, therefore, afford us a valuable clue as to the position occupied in former days by their ancestors, the Negritos.
In some of the early Indian legends, De Quatrefages thinks that he finds traces of these prehistoric connections between the indigenous Negrito tribes and their invaders. The account of the services rendered to Rama by Hanuman and his monkey-people may, he thinks, easily be explained by supposing the latter to be a Negrito tribe. Another tale points to unions of a closer nature between the alien races. Bhimasena, after having conquered and slain Hidimba, at first resisted the solicitations of the sister of this monster, who, having become enamoured of him, presented herself under the guise of a lovely woman. But at the wish of his elder brother, Youdhichshira, the king of justice, and with the consent of his mother, he yielded, and passed some time in the dwelling of this Negrito or Dravidian Armida.
It will now be necessary to consider some of these races more or less crossed with alien blood.
In the centre of India, amongst the Vindyah Mountains, live the Djangals or Bandra-Lokhs, the latter name signifying man-monkey, and thus associating itself with the tale of Rama, above alluded to. Like most of the Dravidian tribes, they live in great misery, and show every sign of their condition in their attenuated figures. One of this tribe measured by Rousselet was five feet in height. It may here be remarked that the stature of the Dravidian races exceeds that of the purer Negritos, a fact due, no doubt, to the influence of crossing. Farther south, in the Nilgherry Hills, and in the neighbourhood of the Todas and Badagas, dwell the Kurumbas. and Irulas (children of darkness). Both are weak and dwarfish, the latter especially so. They inhabit, says Walhouse,[A] the most secluded, densely wooded fastnesses of the mountain slopes. They are by popular tradition connected with the aboriginal builders of the rude stone monuments of the district, though, according to the above-mentioned authority, without any claim to such distinction. They, however, worship at these cromlechs from time to time, and are associated with them in another interesting manner. “The Kurumbas of Nulli,” says Walhouse, “one
[Footnote A: Jour. Anthrop. Inst., vii. 21.]
[Footnote B: Ethnology and Folk-Lore, p. 46; The Village Community, p. 105.]
Farther south, in Ceylon, the Veddahs live, whom Bailey[A] considers to be identical with the hill-tribes of the mainland, though, if this be true, some at least must have undergone a large amount of crossing, judging from the wavy nature of their hair. The author just quoted says, “The tallest Veddah I ever saw, a man so towering above his fellows that, till I measured him, I believed him to be not merely comparatively a tall man, was only five feet three inches in height. The shortest man I have measured was four feet one inch. I should say that of males the ordinary height is from four feet six inches to five feet one inch, and of females from four feet four inches to four feet eight inches.”
[Footnote A: Trans. Ethn. Soc., ii. 278.]
In the east the Santals inhabit the basin of the Ganges, and in the west the Jats belong to the Punjab, and especially to the district of the Indus. The Kols inhabit the delta of the Indus and the neighbourhood of Gujerat, and stretch almost across Central India into Behar and the eastern extremities of the Vindhya Mountains. Other Dravidian tribes are the Oraons, Jouangs, Buihers, and Gounds. All these races have a stature of about five feet, and, though much crossed, present more or less marked Negrito characteristics. Passing farther west, the Brahouis of Beluchistan, a Dravidian race, who regard themselves as the aboriginal inhabitants, live side by side with the Belutchis. Finally, in this direction, there seem to have been near Lake Zerrah, in Persia, Negrito tribes who are probably aboriginal, and may have formed the historic black guard of the ancient kings of Susiana.
An examination of the present localisation of these remnants of the Negrito inhabitants shows how they have been split up, amalgamated with, or driven to the islands by the conquering invaders. An example of what has taken place may be found in the case of Borneo, where Negritos still exist in the centre of the island. The Dyaks chase them like wild beasts, and shoot down the children, who take refuge in the trees. This will not seem in the least surprising to those who have studied the history of the relation between autochthonous races and their invaders. It is the same story that has been told of the Anglo-Saxon race in its dealings with aborigines in America, and notably, in our case, in Tasmania.
Turning from Asia to a continent more closely associated, at least in popular estimation, with pigmy races, we find in Africa several races of dwarf men, of great antiquity and surpassing interest. The discoveries of Stanley, Schweinfurth, Miani, and others have now placed at our disposal very complete information respecting the pigmies of the central part of the continent, with whom it will, therefore, be convenient to make a commencement. These pigmies appear to be divided into two tribes, which, though similar in stature, and alike distinguished by the characteristic of attaching themselves to some larger race of natives, yet present considerable points of difference, so much so as to cause Mr. Stanley to say that they are as unlike as a Scandinavian is to a Turk. “Scattered,” says the same authority,[A] “among the Balesse, between Ipoto and Mount Pisgah, and inhabiting the land between the Ngaiyu and Ituri rivers, a region equal in area to about two-thirds of Scotland, are the Wambutti, variously called Batwa, Akka, and Bazungu. These people are under-sized nomads, dwarfs or pigmies, who live in the uncleared virgin forest, and support themselves on game, which they are very expert in catching. They vary in height from three feet to four feet six inches. A full-grown adult may weigh ninety pounds. They plant their village camps three miles around a tribe of agricultural aborigines, the majority of whom are fine stalwart people. They use poisoned arrows, with which they kill elephants, and they capture other kinds of game by the use of traps.”
[Footnote A: In Darkest Africa, vol. ii. p. 92.]
The two groups are respectively called Batwa and Wambutti. The former inhabit the northern parts of the above-mentioned district, the latter the southern. The former have longish heads, long narrow faces, and small reddish eyes set close together, whilst the latter have round faces and open foreheads, gazelle-like eyes, set far apart, and rich yellow ivory complexion. Their bodies are covered with stiffish grey short hair. Two further quotations from the same source may be given to convey an idea to those ignorant of the original work, if such there be, of the appearances of these dwarfs. Speaking of the queen of a tribe of pigmies,
[Footnote A: In Darkest Africa, vol. i. p. 345.]
[Footnote B: Ibid., ii. 40.]
Jephson states[A] that he found continual traces of them from 270 30’ E. long., a few miles above the Equator, up to the edge of the great forest, five days’ march from Lake Albert. He also says that they are a hardy daring race, always ready for war, and are much feared by their neighbours. As soon as a party of dwarfs makes its appearance near a village, the chief hastens to propitiate them by presents of corn and such vegetables as he possesses. They never exceed four feet one inch in height, he informs us, and adds a characteristic which has not been mentioned by Stanley, one, too, which is very remarkable when it is remembered how scanty is the facial hair of the Negros and Negritos—the men have often very long beards. The southern parts of the continent are occupied by the Bushmen, who are vigorous and agile, of a stature ranging from four feet six inches to four feet nine inches, and sufficiently well known to permit me to pass over them without further description. The smallest woman of this race who has been measured was only three feet three inches in height, and Barrow examined one, who was the mother of several children, with a stature of three feet eight inches. The Akoas of the Gaboon district were a race of pigmies who, now apparently extinct, formerly dwelt on the north of the Nazareth River. A male of this tribe was photographed and measured by the French Admiral Fleuriot de l’Angle. His age was about forty and his stature four feet six inches.
[Footnote A: Emm Pasha, p. 367, et seq.]
Flower[A] says that “another tribe, the M’Boulous, inhabiting the coast north of the Gaboon River, have been described by M. Marche as probably the primitive race of the country. They live in little villages, keeping entirely to themselves, though surrounded by the larger Negro tribes, M’Pongos and Bakalais, who are encroaching upon them so closely that their numbers are rapidly diminishing. In 1860 they were not more than 3000; in 1879 they were much less numerous. They are of an earthy-brown colour, and rarely exceed five feet three inches in height. Another group living between the Gaboon and the Congo, in Ashangoland, a male of which measured four feet six inches, has been described by Du Chaillu.”
In Loango there is a tribe called Babonko, which was described by Battell in 1625, in the work entitled “Purchas his Pilgrimes,” in the following terms:—“To the north-east of Mani-Kesock are a kind of little people called Matimbas; which are no bigger than boyes of twelve yeares old, but very thicke, and live only upon flesh, which they kill in the woods with their bows and darts. They pay tribute to Mani-Kesock, and bring all their elephants’ teeth and tayles to him. They will not enter into any of the Maramba’s houses, nor will suffer any one to come where they dwell. And if by chance any Maramba or people of Longo pass where they dwell, they will forsake that place and go to another. The women carry bows and arrows as well as the men. And one of these will walk in the woods alone and kill the Pongos with their poysoned arrows.” It is somewhat surprising that Tyson, who gives in his essay (p. 80) the account of the same people published at a later date (1686) by Dapper, should have missed his fellow-countryman’s narrative. The existence of this tribe has been established by a German expedition, one of the members of which, Dr. Falkenstein, photographed and measured an adult male whose stature was four feet six inches.
Krapf[A] states that in the south of Schoa, in a part of Abyssinia as yet unworked, the Dokos live, who are not taller than four feet. According to his account, they are of a dark olive colour, with thick prominent lips, flat noses, small eyes, and long flowing hair. They have no dwellings, temples, holy trees, chiefs, or weapons, live on roots and fruit, and are ignorant of fire. Another group was described by Mollieu in 1818 as inhabiting Tenda-Maie, near the Rio Grande, but very little is known about them. In a work entitled “The Dwarfs of Mount Atlas,” Halliburton[B] has brought forward a number of statements to prove that a tribe of dwarfs, named like those of Central Africa, Akkas, of a reddish complexion and with short woolly hair, live in the district adjoining Soos. These dwarfs have been alluded to by Harris and Doennenburg,[C] but Mr. Harold Crichton Browne,[D] who has explored neighbouring districts, is of opinion that there is no such tribe, and that the accounts of them have been based upon the examination of sporadic examples of dwarfishness met with in that as in other parts of the world.
[Footnote A: Morgenblatt, 1853 (quoted by Schaafhausen, Arch. f. Anth., 1866, p. 166).]
[Footnote B: London, Nutt, 1891.]
[Footnote C: Nature, 1892, ii. 616.]
[Footnote A: Nature, 1892, i. 269.]
Finally, in Madagascar it is possible that there may be a dwarf race. Oliver[A] states that “the Vazimbas are supposed to have been the first occupants of Ankova. They are described by Rochon, under the name of Kunios, as a nation of dwarfs averaging three feet six inches in stature, of a lighter colour than the Negroes, with very long arms and woolly hair. As they were only described by natives of the coast, and have never been seen, it is natural to suppose that these peculiarities have been exaggerated; but it is stated that people of diminutive size still exist on the banks of a certain river to the south-west.” There are many tumuli of rude work and made of rough stones throughout the country, which are supposed to be their tombs. In idolatrous days, says Mullens,[B] the Malagasy deified the Vazimba, and their so-called tombs were the most sacred objects in the country. In this account may be found further evidence in favour of Mr. Gomme’s theory, to which attention has already been called.
[Footnote A: Anthrop. Memoirs, iii. 1.]
[Footnote B: Jour. Anthrop. Inst., v. 181.]
In the great continent of America there does not appear to have ever been, so far as our present knowledge teaches, any pigmy race. Dr. Brinton, the distinguished American ethnologist, to whom I applied for information on this point, has been good enough to write to me that, in his opinion, there is no evidence of any pigmy race in America. The “little people” of the “stone graves” in Tennessee, often supposed to be such, were children, as the bones testify. The German explorer Hassler has alleged the existence of a pigmy race in Brazil, but testimony is wanting to support such allegation. There are two tribes of very short but not pigmy stature in America, the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego and the Utes of Colorado, but both of these average over five feet.
Leaving aside for the moment the Lapps, to whom I shall return, there does not appear to have been at any time a really pigmy race in Europe, so far as any discoveries which have been made up to the present time show. Professor Topinard, whose authority upon this point cannot be gainsaid, informs me that the smallest race known to him in Central Europe is that of the pre-historic people of the Lozere, who were Neolithic troglodytes, and are represented probably at the present day by some of the peoples of South Italy and Sardinia. Their average stature was about five feet two inches. This closely corresponds with what is known of the stature of the Platycnemic race of Denbighshire, the Perthi-Chwareu. Busk[A] says of them that they were of low stature, the mean height, deduced from the lengths of the long bones,
[Footnote A: Jour. Ethn. Soc., 1869-70, p. 455.]
[Footnote B: Since these pages were printed, Prof. Kollmann, of Basle, has described a group of Neolithic pigmies as having existed at Schaffhausen. The adult interments consisted of the remains of full-grown European types and of small-sized people. These two races were found interred side by side under precisely similar conditions, from which he concludes that they lived peaceably together, notwithstanding racial difference. Their stature (about three feet six inches) may be compared with that of the Veddahs in Ceylon. Prof. Kollmann believes that they were a distinct species of mankind.]
Dr. Rahon,[A] who has recently made a careful study of the bones of pre-historic and proto-historic races, with special reference to their stature, states that the skeletons attributed to the most ancient and to the Neolithic races are of a stature below the middle height, the average being a little over five feet three inches. The peoples who constructed the Megalithic remains of Roknia and of the Caucasus, were of a stature similar to our own. The diverse proto-historic populations, Gauls, Franks, Burgundians, and Merovingians, considered together, present a stature slightly superior to that of the French of the present day, but not so much so as the accounts of the historians would have led us to believe.
[Footnote A: Recherches sur les Ossements Humaines, Anciens et Prehistonques. Mem. de la Soc. d’Anthrop. de Paris, Ser, ii. tom. iv. 403.]
It remains now to deal with two races whose physical characters are of considerable importance in connection with certain points which will be dealt with in subsequent pages, I mean the Lapps and the Innuit or Eskimo.
The Lapps, according to Karonzine,[A] one of their most recent describers, are divisible into two groups, Scandinavian and Russian, the former being purer than the latter race. The average male stature is five feet, a figure which corresponds closely with that obtained by Mantegazza and quoted by Topinard. The extremes obtained by this observer amongst men were, on the one hand, five feet eight inches, and on the other four feet four inches. As, however, in a matter of this kind we have to deal with averages and not with extremes, we must conclude that the Lapps, though a stunted race, are not pigmies, in the sense in which the word is scientifically employed.
[Footnote A: L’Anthropologie, ii. 80.]
The Innuit or Eskimo were called by the original Norse explorers “Skraelingjar,” or dwarfs, a name now converted by the Innuit into “karalit,” which is the nearest approach that they are able to make phonetically to the former term. They are certainly, on the average, a people of less than middle stature, yet they can in no sense be described as Pigmies. Their mean height is five feet three inches. Nansen[A] says of them, “It is a common error amongst us in Europe to think of the Eskimo as a diminutive race. Though no doubt smaller than the Scandinavian peoples, they must be reckoned amongst the middle-sized races, and I even found amongst those of purest breeding men of nearly six feet in height.”
[Footnote A: Eskimo Life, p. 20.]
The raison d’etre of Tyson’s essay was to explain away the accounts of the older writers relating to Pigmy races, on the ground that, as no such races existed, an explanation of some kind was necessary in order to account for so many and such detailed descriptions as were to be found in their works. Having now seen not merely that there are such things as Pigmy races, but that they have a wide distribution throughout the world, it may be well to consider to which of the existing or extinct races, the above-mentioned accounts may be supposed to have referred. In this task I am much aided in several instances by the labours of De Quatrefages, and as his book is easily accessible, it will be unnecessary for me to repeat the arguments in favour of his decisions which he has there given.
Starting with Asia, we have in the first place the statement of Pliny, that “immediately after the nation of the Prusians, in the mountains where it is said are pigmies, is found the Indus.” These Pigmies may be identified with the Brahouis, now Dravidian, but still possessing the habit, attributed to them by Pliny, of changing their dwellings twice a year, in summer and winter, migrations rendered necessary by the search for food for their flocks. The same author’s allusion to the “Spithamaei Pygmaei” of the mountains in the neighbourhood of the Ganges may apply to the Santals or some allied tribe, though Pliny’s stature for them of two feet four inches is exaggeratedly diminutive, and he has confused them with Homer’s Pigmies, who were, as will be seen, a totally different people.
Ctesias[A] tells us that “Middle India has black men, who are called Pygmies, using the same language as the other Indians; they are, however, very little; that the greatest do not exceed the height of two cubits, and the most part only of one cubit and a half. But they nourish the longest hair, hanging down unto the knees, and even below; moreover, they carry a beard more at length than any other men; but, what is more, after this promised beard is risen to them, they never after use any clothing, but send down, truly, the hairs from the back much below the knees,
[Footnote A: The quotation is taken from Ritson, Fairy Tales, P. 4.]
De Quatrefages also thinks that an allusion to the ancestors of the Jats, who would then have been less altered by crossing than now, may be found in Herodotus’ account of the army of Xerxes when he says, “The Eastern Ethiopians serve with the Indians. They resemble the other Ethiopians, from whom they only differ in language and hair. The Eastern Ethiopians have straight hair, while those of Lybia are more woolly than all other men.”
Writing of isles in the neighbourhood of Java, Maundeville says,[A] “In another yle, ther ben litylle folk, as dwerghes; and thei ben to so meche as the Pygmeyes, and thei han no mouthe, but in stede of hire mouthe, thei han a lytylle round hole; and whan thei schulle eten or drynken, thei taken thorghe a pipe or a penne or suche a thing, and sowken it in, for thei han no tongue, and therefore thei speke not, but thei maken a maner of hissynge, as a Neddre dothe, and thei maken signes on to another, as monkes don, be the whiche every of hem undirstondethe the other.”
[Footnote A: Ed. Halliwell, p. 205.]
Strip this statement of the characteristic Maundevillian touches with regard to the mouth and tongue, and it may refer to some of the insular races which exist or existed in the district of which he is treating.
A much fuller account[A] by the same author relates to Pigmies in the neighbourhood of a river, stated by a commentator[B] to be the Yangtze-Kiang, “a gret ryvere, that men clepen Dalay, and that is the grettest ryvere of fressche water that is in the world. For there, as it is most narow, it is more than 4 myle of brede. And thanne entren men azen in to the lond of the great Chane. That ryvere gothe thorge the lond of Pigmaus, where that the folk ben of litylle stature, that ben but 3 span long, and thei ben right faire and gentylle, aftre here quantytees, bothe the men and the women. And thei maryen hem, whan thei ben half zere of age and getten children. And thei lyven not, but 6 zeer or 7 at the moste. And he that lyveth 8 zeer, men holden him there righte
[Footnote A: Maundeville, p. 211.]
[Footnote B: Quart. Rev., 172, p. 431.]
The continent of Africa yielded its share of Pigmies to the same writers. The most celebrated of all are those alluded to by Aristotle in his classical passage, “They (the Cranes) come out of Scythia to the Lakes above Egypt whence the Nile flows. This is the place whereabouts the Pigmies dwell. For this is no fable but a truth. Both they and the horses, as ’tis said, are of a small kind. They are Troglodytes and live in caves.”
Leaving aside the crane part of the tale, which it has been suggested may really have referred to ostriches, Aristotle’s Pigmy race may, from their situation, be fairly identified with the Akkas described by Stanley and others. That this race is an exceedingly ancient one is proved by the fact that Marriette Bey has discovered on a tomb of the ancient Empire of Egypt a figure of a dwarf with the name Akka inscribed by it. This race is also supposed to have been that which, alluded to by Homer, has become confused with other dwarf tribes in different parts of the world.
“So when inclement winters vex the
plain
With piercing frosts or thick-descending
rain,
To warmer seas the cranes embodied fly,
With noise and order, through the midway
sky;
To Pigmy nations wounds and death they
bring,
And all the war descends upon the wing.”
Attention may here be drawn to Tyson’s quotation (p. 78) from Vossius as to the trade driven by the Pigmies in elephants’ tusks, since, as we have seen, this corresponds with what we now know as to the habits of the Akkas.
The account which Herodotus gives of the expedition of the Nasamonians is well known. Five men, chosen by lot from amongst their fellows, crossed the desert of Lybia, and, having marched several days in deep sand, perceived trees growing in the midst of the plain. They approached and commenced to eat the fruit which they bore. Scarcely had they begun to taste it, when they were surprised by a great number of men of a stature much inferior to the middle height, who seized them and carried them off. They were eventually taken to a city, the inhabitants of which were black. Near this city ran a considerable river whose course was from west to east, and in which crocodiles were found. In his account of the Akkas, Mr. Stanley believed that he had discovered the representatives of the Pigmies mentioned in this history. Speaking of one of these, he says,[A] “Twenty-six centuries ago his ancestors captured the five young Nasamonian explorers, and made merry with them at their villages on the banks of the Niger.” It may be correct to say that, at the period alluded to, the dwarf races of Africa were in more continuous occupancy of the land than is now the case, but such an identification as that just mentioned gives a false idea of the position of the Pigmies of Herodotus. De Quatrefages, after a most careful examination of the question in all its aspects, finds himself obliged to conclude, either that the Pigmy race seen by the Nasamonians still exists on the north of the Niger, which has been identified with the river alluded to by Herodotus, but has not, up to the present, been discovered; or that it has disappeared from those regions.
[Footnote A: Op. supra cit., ii. 40.]
Pomponius Mela has also his account of African Pigmies. Beyond the Arabian Gulf, and at the bottom of an indentation of the Red Sea, he places the Panchaeans, also called Ophiophagi, on account of the fact that they fed upon serpents. More within the Arabian bay than the Panchaeans are the Pigmies, a minute race, which became exterminated in the wars which it was compelled to wage with the Cranes for the preservation of its fruits. The region indicated somewhat corresponds with that which is assigned to the Dokos by their describer. In this district, too, other dwarf races have been reported. The French writer whom I have so often cited says, “The tradition of Eastern African Pigmies has never been lost by the Arabs. At
Tyson (p. 29) quotes the following passage from Photius:—“That Nonnosus sailing from Pharsa, when he came to the farthermost of the islands, a thing very strange to be heard of happened to him; for he lighted on some (animals) in shape and appearance like men, but little of stature, and of a black colour, and thick covered with hair all over their bodies. The women, who were of the same stature, followed the men. They were all naked, only the elder of them, both men and women, covered their privy parts with a small skin. They seemed not at all fierce or wild; they had a human voice, but their dialect was altogether unknown to everybody that lived about them, much more to those that were with Nonnosus. They lived upon sea-oysters and fish that were cast out of the sea upon the island. They had no courage for seeing our men; they were frighted, as we are at the sight of the greatest wild beast.” It is not easy to identify this race with any existing tribe of Pigmies, but the hairiness of their bodies, and above all their method of clothing themselves, leave no doubt that in this account we have a genuine story of some group of small-statured blacks.
From the foregoing account it will be seen that it is possible with more or less accuracy and certainty to identify most of those races which, described by the older writers, had been rejected by their successors. Time has brought their revenge to Aristotle and Pliny by showing that they were right, where Tyson, and even Buffon, were wrong.
The little people of story and legend have a much wider area of distribution than those of real life, and it is the object of this section to give some idea of their localities and dwellings. Imperfect as such an account must necessarily be, it will yet suffice I trust in some measure to show that, like the England of Arthurian times, all the world is “fulfilled of faery.”
In dealing with this part of the subject, it would be possible, following the example of Keightley, to treat the little folk of each country separately. But a better idea of their nature, and certainly one which for my purpose will be more satisfactory, can, I think, be obtained by classifying them according to the nature of their habitations, and mentioning incidentally such other points concerning them as it may seem advisable to bring out.
1. In the first place, then, fairies are found dwelling in mounds of different kinds, or in the interior of hills. This form of habitation is so frequently met with in Scotch and Irish accounts of the fairies, that it will not be necessary for me to burden these pages with instances, especially since I shall have to allude to them in a further section in greater detail. Suffice it to say, that many instances of such an association in the former country will be found in the pages of Mr. MacRitchie’s works, whilst as to the latter, I shall content myself by quoting Sir William Wilde’s statement, that every green “rath” in that country is consecrated to the “good people.” In England there are numerous instances of a similar kind. Gervase of Tilbury in the thirteenth century mentions such a spot in Gloucestershire: “There is in the county of Gloucester a forest abounding in boars, stags, and every species of game that England produces. In a grovy lawn of this forest there is a little mount, rising in a point to the height of a man.” With this mount he associates the familiar story of the offering of refreshment to travellers by its unseen inhabitants. In Warwickshire, the mound upon which Kenilworth Castle is built was formerly a fairy habitation.[A] Ritson[B] mentions that the “fairies frequented many parts of the Bishopric of Durham.” There is a hillock or tumulus near Bishopton, and a large hill near Billingham, both of which used in former time to be “haunted by fairies.” Even Ferry-hill, a well-known stage between Darlington and Durham, is evidently a corruption of “Fairy-hill.” In Yorkshire a similar story attaches to the sepulchral barrow of Willey How,[C] and in Sussex to a green mound called the Mount in the parish of Pulborough.[D] The fairies formerly frequented Bussers Hill in St. Mary’s Isle, one of the Scilly group.[E] The Bryn-yr-Ellyllon,[F] or Fairy-hill, near Mold, may be cited as a similar instance in Wales, which must again be referred to.
[Footnote A: Testimony of Tradition, p. 142.]
[Footnote B: Op. cit., p. 56.]
[Footnote C: Folk Lore, ii. 115.]
[Footnote D: Folk Lore Record, i. 16 and 28.]
[Footnote E: Ritson, p. 62.]
[Footnote F: Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, p. 433.]
The pages of Keightley’s work contain instances of hill-inhabiting fairies in Scandinavia, Denmark, the Isle of Rugen, Iceland, Germany, and Switzerland. It is not only in Europe, however, that this form of habitation is to be met with; we find it also in America. The Sioux have a curious superstition respecting a mound near the mouth of the Whitestone River, which they call the Mountain of Little People or Little Spirits; they believe that it is the abode of little devils in the human form, of about eighteen inches high and with remarkably large heads; they are armed with sharp arrows, in the use of which they are very skilful. These little spirits are always on the watch to kill those who should have the hardihood to approach their residence. The tradition is that many have suffered from their malice, and that, among others, three Maha Indians fell a sacrifice to them a few years since. This has inspired all the neighbouring nations, Sioux, Mahas, and Ottoes, with such terror, that no consideration could tempt them to visit the hill.[A]
[Footnote A: Lewis and Clarke, Travels to the Source of the Missouri River. Quoted in Flint Chips, p. 346. The tale is also given in Folk Lore, Oriental and American (Gibbings & Co.), p. 45.]
The mounds or hills inhabited by the fairies are, however, of very diverse kinds, as we discover when we attempt to analyse their actual nature. In some cases they are undoubtedly natural elevations. Speaking of the exploration of the Isle of Unst, Hunt[A] says that the term “Fairy Knowe” is applied alike to artificial and to natural mounds. “We visited,” he states, “two ‘Fairy Knowes’ in the side of the hill near the turning of the road from Reay Wick to Safester, and found that these wonderful relics were merely natural formations. The workmen were soon convinced of this, and our digging had the effect of proving to them that the fairies had nothing to do with at least two of these hillocks.” The same may surely be said of that favourite and important fairy haunt Tomnahurich, near Inverness, though Mr. MacRitchie seems to think that an investigation, were such possible, of its interior, might lead to a different explanation.
[Footnote A: Anthrop. Mems., ii. 294.]
In other cases, and these are of great importance in coming to a conclusion as to the origin of fairy tales, the mounds inhabited by the little people are of a sepulchral nature. This is the case in the instance of Willey How, which, when explored by Canon Greenwell, was found, in spite of its size and the enormous care evidently bestowed upon its construction, to be merely a cenotaph. A grave there was, sunk more than twelve feet deep in the chalk rock; but no corporeal tenant had ever occupied it.
This fact is still more clearly shown in the remarkable case mentioned by Professor Boyd Dawkins. A barrow called Bryn-yr-Ellyllon (Fairy-hill), near Mold, was said to be haunted by a ghost clad in golden armour which had been seen to enter it. The barrow was opened in the year 1832, and was found to contain the skeleton of a man wearing a golden corselet of Etruscan workmanship.
The same may be said respecting that famous fairy-hill in Ireland, the Brugh of the Boyne, though Mr. MacRitchie seems to regard it as having been a dwelling-place. Mr. Coffey in a most careful study appears to me to have finally settled the question.[A] He speaks of the remains as those of probably the most remarkable of the pre-Christian cemeteries of Ireland. Of the stone basins, whose nature Mr. MacRitchie regards as doubtful, he says, “There can be hardly any doubt but that they served the purpose of some rude form of sarcophagus, or of a receptacle for urns.” Mr. Coffey quotes the account from the Leadhar na huidri respecting cemeteries, in which Brugh is mentioned as amongst the chief of those existing before the faith (i.e. before the introduction of Christianity). “The nobles of the Tuatha de Danann were used to bury at Brugh (i.e. the Dagda with his three sons; also Lugaidh, and Oe, and Ollam, and Ogma, and Etan the Poetess, and Corpre, the son of Etan), and Cremthain followed them, because his wife Nar was of the Tuatha Dea, and it was she solicited him that he should adopt Brugh as a burial-place for himself and his descendants, and this was the cause that they did not bury at Cruachan.” Mr. Coffey also quotes O’Hartagain’s poem, which seems to bear in Mr. MacRitchie’s favour:—
“Behold the sidhe before your eyes:
It is manifest to you that it is a king’s
mansion,
Which was built by the firm Dagda;
It was a wonder, a court, a wonderful
hill.”
[Footnote A: Tumuli at New Grange. Trans. Roy. Irish Academy, XXX. 1.]
But certain of the expressions in this are evidently to be taken figuratively, since Mr. Coffey states, in connection with this and other quotations, that their importance consists in that they establish the existence at a very early date of a tradition associating Brugh na Boinne, the burial-place of the kings of Tara, with the tumuli on the Boyne. The association of particular monuments with the Dagda and other divinities and heroes of Irish mythology implies that the actual persons for whom they were erected had been forgotten, the pagan traditions being probably broken by the introduction of Christianity. The mythological ancestors of the heroes and kings interred at Brugh, who probably were even contemporarily associated with the cemetery, no doubt subsequently overshadowed in tradition the actual persons interred there.
Finally, it seems that the fairy hills may have been actual dwelling-places, fortified or not, of prehistoric peoples. Such were no doubt some of the Picts’ houses so fully dealt with by Mr. MacRitchie, though Petrie[A] seems to have considered that many of these were sepulchral in their nature. Such were also the Raths of Ireland and fortified hills, like the White Cater Thun of Forfarshire.
[Footnote A: Anthrop. Mems., ii. 216.]
The interior of the mound-dwellings, as described in the stories, is a point to which allusion should be made. Sometimes the mound contains a splendid palace, adorned with gold and silver and precious stones, like the palace of the King of Elfland in the tale of “Childe Rowland.” In the Scandinavian mound-stories we find a curious incident, for they are described as being capable of being raised upon red pillars, and as being so raised when the occupants gave a feast to their neighbours. “There are three hills on the lands of Bubbelgaard in Funen, which are to this day called the Dance-hills, from the following occurrence. A lad named Hans was at service in Bubbelgaard, and as he was coming one evening past the hills, he saw one of them raised on red pillars, and great dancing and much merriment underneath."[A] This feature is met with in several of the stories collected by Keightley, and is made use of in Cruikshank’s picture, which forms the frontispiece to that volume. Lastly, in a number of cases there is not merely a habitation, but a vast country underneath the mound. An instance of this occurs in the tale of John Dietrich from the Isle of Ruegen. Under the Nine-hills he found “that there were in that place the most beautiful walks, in which he might ramble along for miles in all directions, without ever finding an end of them, so immensely large was the hill that the little people lived in, and yet outwardly it seemed but a little hill, with a few bushes and trees growing on it."[B]
[Footnote A: Quoted by Keightley (p. 9), from Thiele, i. 118.]
[Footnote B: Keightley, 178.]
2. The haunts of the fairies may be in caves, and examples of this form of dwelling-place are to be met with in different parts of the world. The Scandinavian hill people live in caves or small hills, and the Elves or dwarfs of La Romagna “dwell in lonely places, far away in the mountains, deep in them, in caves or among old ruins and rocks,” as Mr. Leland,[A] who gives a tale respecting these little people, tells us. A Lithuanian tale[B] tells “how the hero, Martin, went into a forest to hunt, accompanied by a smith and a tailor. Finding an empty hut, they took possession of it; the tailor remained in it to cook the dinner, and the others went forth to the chase. When the dinner was almost ready, there came to the hut a very little old man with a very long beard, who piteously begged for food. After receiving it, he sprang on the tailor’s neck and beat him almost to death. When the hunters returned, they found their comrade groaning on his couch, complaining of illness, but saying nothing about the bearded dwarf. Next day the smith suffered in a similar way; but when it came to Martin’s turn, he proved too many and too strong for the dwarf, whom he overcame, and whom he fastened by the beard to the stump of a tree. But the dwarf tore himself loose before the hunters came back from the forest and escaped into a cavern. Tracing him by the drops of blood which had fallen from him, the three companions came to the mouth of the cavern, and Martin was lowered into it by the two others. Within it he found three princesses, who had been stolen by three dragons. These dragons he slew, and the princesses and their property he took to the spot above which his comrades kept watch, who hoisted them out of the cavern, but left Martin in it to die. As he wandered about disconsolately, he found the bearded dwarf, whom he slew. And soon afterwards he was conveyed out of the cavern by a flying serpent, and was able to punish his treacherous friends, and to recover the princesses, all three of whom he simultaneously married.”
[Footnote A: Etrusco Roman Remains, p. 222.]
[Footnote B: Folk Lore Record, i. 85. Mr. Hartland points out to me that this tale, being a Marchen, does not afford quite such good evidence of belief as actually or recently existing as a saga.]
Amongst the Magyars,[A] also, in some localities caves are pointed out as the haunts of fairies, such as the caves in the side of the rock named Budvar, the cave Borza-vara, near the castle of Dame Rapson; another haunt of the fairies is the cave near Almas, and the cold wind known as the “Nemere” is said to blow when the fairy in Almas cave feels cold. On one occasion the plague was raging in this neighbourhood; the people ascribed it to the cold blast emanating from the cave; so they hung shirts before the mouth of the cave and the plague ceased.
[Footnote A: Jones and Kropf, Folk Tales of the Magyars, pp. xxxvi. et seq.]
In a widely distant part of the world, the Battaks-Karo,[A] of the high ground north of Lake Toba in Sumatra, believe in three classes of mysterious beings, one of which closely corresponds with the fairies of Europe. The first group are called Hantous; they are giants and dead Begous (i.e. definitely dead souls), who inhabit Mount Sampouran together with the second group. These are called Omangs; they are dwarfs who marry and reproduce their species, live generally in mountains, and have their feet placed transversely. They must be propitiated, and those making the ascent of Mount Sebayak sacrifice a white hen to them, or otherwise the Omangs would throw stones at them. They carry off men and women, and often keep them for years. They love to dwell amongst stones, and the Roumah Omang, which is one of their favourite habitations, is a cavern. The third group, or Orangs Boumans, resemble ordinary beings, but have the power of making themselves invisible. They come down from the mountains to buy supplies, but have not been seen for some time. Westenberg, from whom this information is quoted, regards the last class as being proscribed Battaks, who have fled for refuge to the mountains. Passing to another continent, the Iroquois[B] have several stories about Pigmies, one of whom, by name Go-ga-ah, lives in a little cave.
[Footnote A: L’Anthropologie, iv. 83.]
[Footnote B: Smith, Myths of the Iroquois. American Bureau of Ethnology, ii. 65.]
3. The little people may occupy a castle or house, or the hill upon which such a building is erected, or a cave under it. Without dwelling upon the Brownies and other similar distinctly household spirits, there are certain classes which must be mentioned in this connection. The Magyar fairies live in castles on lofty mountain peaks. They build them themselves, or inherit them from giants. Kozma enumerates the names of about twenty-three castles which belonged to fairies, and which still exist. Although they have disappeared from earth, they continue to live, even in our days, in caves under their castles, in which caves their treasures lie hidden. The iron gates of Zeta Castle, which have subsided into the ground and disappeared from the surface, open once in every seven years. On one occasion a man went in there, and met two beautiful fairies whom he addressed thus, “How long will you still linger here, my little sisters?” and they replied, “As long as the cows will give warm milk.”
Like the interior of some of the mound-dwellings already mentioned, these fairy caves are splendid habitations. “Their subterranean habitations are not less splendid and glittering than were their castles of yore on the mountain peaks. The one at Firtos is a palace resting on solid gold columns. The palace at Tartod and the gorgeous one of Dame Rapson are lighted by three diamond balls, as big as human heads, which hang from golden chains. The treasure which is heaped up in the latter place consists of immense gold bars, golden lions with carbuncle eyes, a golden hen with her brood, and golden casks, filled with gold coin. The treasures of Fairy Helen are kept in a cellar under Kovaszna Castle, the gates of the cellar being guarded by a magic cock. This bird only goes to sleep once in seven years, and anybody who could guess the right moment would be able to scrape no end of diamond crystals from the walls and bring them out with him. The fairies who guard the treasures of the Poganyvar (Pagan Castle) in Marosszek even nowadays come on moonlight nights to bathe in the lake below."[A] In Brittany, “a number of little men, not more than a foot high, dwell under the castle of Morlaix. They live in holes in the ground, whither they may often be seen going, and beating on basins. They possess great treasures, which they sometimes bring out; and if any one pass by at the time, allow him to take one handful, but no more. Should any one attempt to fill his pockets, the money vanishes, and he is instantly assailed by a shower of boxes on the ear from invisible hands."[B] In the Netherlands, the “Gypnissen,” “queer little women,” lived in a castle which had been reared in a single night.[C] The Ainu have tales of the Poiyaumbe, a name which means literally “little beings residing on the soil” (Mr. Batchelor says that “little” is probably meant to express endearment or admiration, but one may be allowed to doubt this). The Ainu, who is the hero of the story, “comes to a tall mountain with a beautiful house built on its summit. Descending, for his path had always been through the air, by the side of the house, and looking through the chinks of the door, he saw a little man and a little woman sitting beside the fireplace."[D]
[Footnote A: Folk Tales of the Magyars, p. xxxviii.]
[Footnote B: Grimm, apud Keightley, 441.]
[Footnote C: Testimony of Tradition, p. 86.]
[Footnote D: Folk Lore Journal, vi. 195.]
4. The little people or fairies occupy rude stone monuments or are connected with their building. In Brittany they are associated with several of the megalithic remains.[A] “At Carnac, near Quiberon,” says M. De Cambry, “in the department of Morbihan, on the sea-shore, is the Temple of Carnac, called in Breton ‘Ti Goriquet’ (House of the Gories), one of the most remarkable Celtic monuments extant. It is composed of more than four thousand large stones, standing erect in an arid plain, where neither tree
[Footnote A: Keightley, 440.]
In India megalithic remains are also associated with little people. “Dwarfs hold a distinct place in Hindu mythology; they appear sculptured on all temples. Siva is accompanied by a body-guard of dwarfs, one of whom, the three-legged Bhringi, dances nimbly. But coming nearer to Northern legend, the cromlechs and kistvaens which abound over Southern India are believed to have been built by a dwarf race, a cubit high, who could, nevertheless, move and handle the huge stones easily. The villagers call them Pandayar."[A]
[Footnote A: Folk Lore, iv. 401.]
Mr. Meadows Taylor, speaking of cromlechs in India, says, “Wherever I found them, the same tradition was attached to them, that they were Morie humu, or Mories’ houses; these Mories having been dwarfs who inhabited the country before the present race of men.” Again, speaking of the cromlechs of Koodilghee, he states, “Tradition says that former Governments caused dwellings of the description alluded to to be erected for a species of human beings called ‘Mohories,’ whose dwarfish stature is said not to have exceeded a span when standing, and a fist high when in a sitting posture, who were endowed with strength sufficient to roll off large stones with a touch of their thumb.” There are, he also tells us, similar traditions attaching to other places, where the dwarfs are sometimes spoken of as Gujaries.[A]
[Footnote A: Jour. Ethnol. Soc., 1868-69, p. 157.]
Of stone structures built by fairies or little people for the use of others, may be mentioned the churches built by dwarfs in Scotland and Brittany, and described by Mr. MacRitchie, as also the two following instances, taken from widely distant parts of the globe. In Brittany, the dolmen of Manne-er Hrock (Montaigne de la Fee), at Locmariaquer, is said to have been built by a fairy, in order that a mother might stand upon it and look out for her son’s ship.[A] In Fiji the following tale is told about the Nanga or sacred stone enclosure:—“This is the word of our fathers concerning the Nanga. Long ago their fathers were ignorant of it; but one day two strangers were found sitting in the Rara (public square), and they said they had come up from the sea to give them the Nanga. They were little men, and very dark-skinned, and one of them had his face and bust painted red, while the other was painted black. Whether these were gods or men our fathers did not tell us, but it was they who taught our people the Nanga. This was in the old times, when our fathers were living in another land—not in this place, for we are strangers here."[B] It is worthy of note that the term “Nanga” applies not merely to the enclosure, but also to the secret society which held its meetings therein.[C]
[Footnote A: Flint Chips, p. 104.]
[Footnote B: Fison, Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xiv, 14.]
[Footnote C: Joske, Internat. Arch. f. Ethnographie, viii. 254.]
5. The little people make their dwellings either in the interior of a stone or amongst stones. I am not here alluding to the stones on the sides of mountains which are the doorways to fairy dwellings, but to a closer connection, which will be better understood from some of the following instances than from any lengthy explanation. The Duergas of the Scandinavian Eddas had their dwelling-places in stones, as we are told in the story of Thorston, who “came one day to an open part of the wood, where he saw a great rock, and out a little way from it a dwarf, who was horridly ugly."[A] In Ireland, in Innisbofin, co. Galway, Professor Haddon relates that the men who were quarrying a rock in the neighbourhood of the harbour refused to work at it any longer, as it was so full of “good people” as to be hot.[B] In England the Pixy-house of Devon is in a stone, and a large stone is also connected with the story of the Frensham caldron, though it is not clear that the fairies lived in the rock itself.[C] Oseberrow or Osebury (vulgo Rosebury) Rock, in Lulsey, Worcestershire, was, according to tradition, a favourite haunt of the fairies.[D] In another part of Worcestershire, on the side of the Cotswolds, there is, in a little spinney, a large flat stone, much worn on its under surface, which is called the White Lady’s Table. This personage is supposed to take her meals with the fairies at this rock, but what the exact relation of the little people to it as a dwelling-place may be, I have not been able to learn.
[Footnote A: Keightley, 70.]
[Footnote B: Folklore, iv. 49.]
[Footnote C: Ritson, 106, quoting Aubrey’s Natural History of Surrey, iii. 366.]
[Footnote D: Allies, Antiquities and Folk-Lore of Worcestershire, p.443.]
There is an Iroquois tale of dwarfs, in which the summons to the Pigmies was given by knocking upon a large stone.[A] The little people of Melanesia seem also to be associated in some measure with stones. Speaking of these beings, Mr. Codrington says,[B] “There are certain Vuis having rather the nature of fairies. The accounts of them are vague, but it is argued that they had never left the islands before the introduction of Christianity, and indeed have been seen since. Not long ago there was a woman living at Mota who was the child of one, and a very few years ago a female Vui with a child was seen in Saddle Island. Some of these were called Nopitu, which come invisibly, or possess those with whom they associate themselves. The possessed are called Nopitu. Such persons would lift a cocoa-nut to drink, and native shell money would run out instead of the juice and rattle against their teeth; they would vomit up money, or scratch and shake themselves on a mat, when money would pour from their fingers. This was often seen, and believed to be the doing of a Nopitu. In another manner of manifestation, a Nopitu would make himself known as a party were sitting round an evening fire. A man would hear a voice in his thigh, ‘Here am I, give me food.’ He would roast a little red yam, and fold it in the corner of his mat. He would soon find it gone, and the Nopitu would begin a song. Its voice was so small and clear and sweet, that once heard it never could be forgotten; but it sang the ordinary Mota songs. Such spirits as these, if seen or found, would disappear beside a stone; they were smaller than the native people, darker, and with long straight hair. But they were mostly unseen, or seen only by those to whom they took a fancy. They were the friendly Trolls or Robin Goodfellows of the islands; a man would find a fine red yam put for him on the seat beside the door, or the money which he paid away returned within his purse. A woman working in her garden heard a voice from the fruit of a gourd asking for some food, and when she pulled up an arum or dug out a yam, another still remained; but when she listened to another spirit’s panpipes, the first in his jealousy conveyed away garden and all.” Amongst the Australians also supernatural beings dwell amongst the rocks, and the Annamites and Arabians know of fairies living amongst the rocks and hills.[C]
[Footnote A: Smith, Myths of Iroquois, ut supra.]
[Footnote B: Journ. Anthrop. Inst., x. 261.]
[Footnote C: Hartland, Science of Fairy Tales, p. 351.]
6. The little people may have their habitation in forests or trees. Such were the Skovtrolde, or Wood-Trolls of Thorlacius,[A] who made their home on the earth in great thick woods, and the beings in South Germany who resemble the dwarfs, and are called Wild, Wood, Timber and Moss People.[B] “These generally live together in society, but they sometimes appear singly. They are small in stature, yet somewhat larger than the Elf, being the size of children of three years, grey and old-looking, hairy and clad in moss. Their lives are attached, like those of the Hamadryads, to the trees, and if any one causes by friction the inner bark to loosen, a Wood-woman dies.” In Scandinavia there is also a similarity between certain of the Elves and Hamadryads. The Elves “not only frequent trees, but they make an interchange of form with them. In the churchyard of Store Heddinge, in Zeeland, there are the remains of an oak-wood. These, say the common people, are the Elle King’s soldiers; by day they are trees, by night valiant soldiers. In the wood of Rugaard, in the same island, is a tree which by night becomes a whole Elle-people, and goes about all alive. It has no leaves upon it, yet it would be very unsafe to go to break or fell it, for the underground people frequently hold their meetings under its branches. There is, in another place, an elder-tree growing in a farmyard, which frequently takes a walk in the twilight about the yard, and peeps in through the window at the children when they are alone. The linden or lime-tree is the favourite haunt of the Elves and cognate beings, and it is not safe to be near it after sunset."[C] In England, the fairies also in some cases frequent the woods, as is their custom in the Isle of Man, and in Wales, where there was formerly, in the park of Sir Robert Vaughan, a celebrated old oak-tree, named Crwben-yr-Ellyl, or the Elf’s Hollow Tree. In Formosa[D] there is also a tale of little people inhabiting a wood. “A young Botan became too ardent in his devotion to a young lady of the tribe, and was slain by her relatives, while, as a warning as to the necessity for love’s fervour being kept within bounds, his seven brothers were banished by the chief. The exiles went forth into the depths of the forest, and in their wanderings after a new land they crossed a small clearing, in which a little girl, about a span in height, was seated peeling potatoes. ‘Little sister,’ they queried, ’how come you here? where is your home?’ ‘I am not of homes nor parents,’ she replied. Leaving her, they went still farther into the forest, and had not gone far when they saw a little man cutting canes, and farther on to the right a curious-looking house, in front of which sat two diminutive women combing their hair. Things looked so queer that the travellers hesitated about approaching nearer, but, eager to find a way out of the forest, they determined in their extremity to question the strange people. The two women, when interrogated, turned sharply round,
[Footnote A: Quoted by Keightley, p. 62.]
[Footnote B: Grimm ap. Keightley, p. 230.]
[Footnote C: Keightley, p. 92, quoting from Thiele.]
[Footnote D: Folk Lore Journal, v. 143.]
[Footnote E: Tregear, Journ. Anth. Inst., xix. 121.]
7. The association of little people with water as a home is a widespread notion. The Sea-Trows of the Shetlanders inhabit a region of their own at the bottom of the sea. They here respire a peculiar atmosphere, and live in habitations constructed of the choicest submarine productions. They are, however, not always small, but may be of diverse statures, like the Scandinavian Necks. In Germany the Water-Dwarfs are also known. At Seewenheiher, in the Black Forest, a little water-man (Seemaennlein) used to come and join the people, work the whole day along with them, and in the evening go back into the lakes.[A] The size of the Breton Korrigs or Korrigan, if we may believe Villemarque in his account of this folk, does not exceed two feet, but their proportions are most exact, and they have long flowing hair, which they comb out with great care. Their only dress is a long white veil, which they wind round their body. Seen at night or in the dusk of the evening, their beauty is great; but in the daylight their eyes appear red, their hair is white, and their faces wrinkled; hence they rarely let themselves be seen by day. They are fond of music, and have fine voices, but are not much given to dancing. Their favourite haunts are the springs, by which they sit and comb their hair.[B] The Maories also have their Water-Pigmies, the Ponaturi, who are, according to Mr. Tregear, elves, little tiny people, mostly dwellers in water, coming ashore to sleep.[C] “The spirits most commonly met with in African mythology,” says Mr. Macdonald, “are water or river spirits, inhabiting deep pools where there are strong eddies and under-currents. Whether they are all even seen now-a-days it is difficult to determine, but they must at one time have either shown themselves willingly, or been dragged from their hiding-places by some powerful magician, for they are one and all described. They are dwarfs, and correspond to the Scottish conception of kelpies or fairies. They are wicked and malevolent beings, and are never credited with a good or generous action. Whatever they possess they keep, and greedily seize upon any one who comes within their reach. ’One of them, the Incanti, corresponds to the Greek Python, and another, called Hiti, appears in the form of a small and very ugly man, and is exceedingly malevolent’ (Brownlee). It is certain death to see an Incanti, and no one but the magicians sees them except in dreams, and in that case the magicians are consulted, and advise and direct what is to be done."[D]
[Footnote A: Grimm ap. Keightley, p. 261.]
[Footnote B: Villemarque, ibid., 431.]
[Footnote C: Tregear, ut supra.]
[Footnote D: Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xx. 124.]
Dr. Nansen, speaking of the Ignerssuit (plural of Ignersuak, which means “great fire"), says that they are for the most part good spirits, inclined to help men. The entrance to their dwellings is on the sea-shore. According to the Eskimo legend, “The first earth which came into existence had neither seas nor mountains, but was quite smooth. When the One above was displeased with the people upon it, He destroyed the world. It burst open, and the people fell down into the rifts and became Ignerssuit and the water poured over everything."[A] The spirits here alluded to appear to be the same as those described by Mr. Boas as Uissuit in his monograph on the Central Eskimo. He describes them as “a strange people that live in the sea. They are dwarfs, and are frequently seen between Iglulik and Netchillik, where the Anganidjen live, an Innuit tribe whose women are in the habit of tracing rings around their eyes. There are men and women among the Uissuit, and they live in deep water, never coming to the surface. When the Innuit wish to see them, they go in their boats to a place where they cannot see the bottom, and try to catch them with hooks which they slowly move up and down. As soon as they get a bite they draw in the line. The Uissuit are thus drawn up; but no sooner do they approach the surface than they dive down headlong again, only their legs having emerged from the water. The Innuit have never succeeded in getting one out of the water."[A]
[Footnote A: Nansen, ut supra, p. 259.]
[Footnote A: American Bureau of Ethnology, vi. 612.]
8. Amongst habitations not coming under any of the above categories may be mentioned the moors and open places affected by the Cornish fairies, and lastly the curious residences of the Kirkonwaki or Church-folk of the Finns. “It is an article of faith with the Finns that there dwell under the altar in every church little misshapen beings which they call Kirkonwaki, i.e., Church-folk. When the wives of these little people have a difficult labour, they are relieved if a Christian woman visits them and lays her hand upon them. Such service is always rewarded by a gift of gold and silver."[A] These folk evidently correspond to the Kirkgrims of Scandinavian countries, and the traditions respecting both are probably referable to the practice of foundation sacrifices.
[Footnote A: Grimm ap. Keightley, p. 488.]
The subject of Pigmy races and fairy tales cannot be considered to have been in any sense fully treated without some consideration of a theory which, put forward by various writers and in connection with the legends of diverse countries, has recently been formulated by Mr. MacRitchie in a number of most interesting and suggestive books and papers. An early statement of this theory is to be found in a paper by Mr. J.F. Campbell, in which he stated, “It is somewhat remarkable that traditions still survive in the Highlands of Scotland which seem to be derived from the habits of Scotch tribes like the Lapps in our day. Stories are told in Sutherlandshire about a ‘witch’ who milked deer; a ‘ghost’ once became acquainted with a forester, and at his suggestion packed all her plenishing on a herd of deer, when forced to flit by another and a bigger ‘ghost;’ the green mounds in which ‘fairies’ are supposed to dwell closely resemble the outside of Lapp huts. The fairies themselves are not represented as airy creatures in gauze wings and spangles, but they appear in tradition as small cunning people, eating and drinking, living close at hand in their green mound, stealing children and cattle, milk and food, from their bigger neighbours. They are uncanny, but so are the Lapps. My own opinion is that these Scotch traditions relate to the tribes who made kitchen-middens and lake-dwellings in Scotland, and that they were allied to Lapps."[A] Such in essence is Mr. MacRitchie’s theory, which has been so admirably summarised by Mr. Jacobs in the first of that series of fairy-tale books which has added a new joy to life, that I shall do myself the pleasure of quoting his statement in this place. He says: “Briefly put, Mr. MacRitchie’s view is that the elves, trolls, and fairies represented in popular tradition are really the mound-dwellers, whose remains have been discovered in some abundance in the form of green hillocks, which have been artificially raised over a long and low passage leading to a central chamber open to the sky. Mr. MacRitchie shows that in several instances traditions about trolls or ‘good people’ have attached themselves to mounds which long afterwards, on investigation, turned out to be evidently the former residence of men of smaller build than the mortals of to-day. He goes on further to identify these with the Picts— fairies are called ‘Pechs’ in Scotland—and other early races, but with these ethnological equations we need not much concern ourselves. It is otherwise with the mound traditions and their relation, if not to fairy tales in general, to tales about fairies, trolls, elves, &c. These are very few in number, and generally bear the character of anecdotes. The fairies, &c., steal a child; they help a wanderer to a drink and then disappear into a green hill; they help cottagers with their work at night, but disappear if their presence is noticed; human midwives are asked to help fairy mothers; fairy maidens marry ordinary
[Footnote A: Journ. Ethnol. Soc., 1869-70, p. 325.]
[Footnote B: English Fairy Tales, p. 241.]
[Footnote C: Folk Lore, ii. 126.]
Mr. MacRitchie has, in another paper,[A] collected a number of instances of the use of the word Sith in connection with hillocks and tumuli, which are the resort of the fairies. Here also he discusses the possible connection of that word with that of Tshud, the title of the vanished supernatural inhabitants of the land amongst the Finns and other “Altaic” Turanian tribes of Russia, as in other places he has endeavoured to trace a connection between the Finns and the Feinne. Into these etymological questions I have no intention to enter, since I am not qualified to do so, nor is it necessary, as they have been fully dealt with by Mr. Nutt, whose opinion on this point is worthy of all attention.[B] But it may be permitted to me to inquire how far Mr. MacRitchie’s views tally with the facts mentioned in the foregoing section. I shall therefore allude to a few points which appear to me to show that the origin of the belief in fairies cannot be settled in so simple a manner as has been suggested, but is a question of much greater complexity—one in which, as Mr. Tylor says, more than one mythic element combines to make up the whole.
[Footnote A: Journ. Roy. Soc. Antiq. Ireland, iii. 367.]
[Footnote A: Folk and Hero Tales from Argyleshire, p. 420.]
(1.) In the first place, then, it seems clear, so far as our present knowledge teaches us, that there never was a really Pigmy race inhabiting the northern parts of Scotland.
The scanty evidence which we have on this point, so far as it goes, proves the truth of this assertion. Mr. Carter Blake found in the Muckle Heog of the Island of Unst, one of the Shetlands, together with stone vessels, human interments of persons of considerable stature and of great muscular strength. Speaking of the Keiss skeletons, Professor Huxley says that the males are, the one somewhat above, and the other probably about the average stature; while the females
[Footnote A: Laing, Prehistoric Remains of Caithness, p. 101.]
[Footnote B: Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xiii. 60.]
(2.) The mounds with which the tales of little people are associated have not, in many cases, been habitations, but were natural or sepulchral in their nature. It may, of course, be argued that the story having once arisen in connection with one kind of mound, may, by a process easy to understand, have been transferred to other hillocks similar in appearance, though diverse in nature. It is difficult to see, however, how this could have occurred in Yorkshire and other parts of England, where it is not argued that the stunted inhabitants of the North ever penetrated. It is still more difficult to explain how similar legends can have originated in America in connection with mounds, since there never were Pigmy races in that continent.
(3.) The rude and simple arrangements of the interior of these mound dwellings might have, in the process of time, become altered into the gorgeous halls, decked with gold and silver and precious stones, as we find them in the stories; they might even, though this is much more difficult to understand, have become possessed of the capacity for being raised upon red pillars. But there is one pitch to which, I think, they could never have attained, and that is the importance which they assume when they become the external covering of a large and extensive tract of underground country. Here we are brought face to face with a totally different explanation, to which I shall recur in due course.
(4.) The little people are not by any means associated entirely with mounds, as the foregoing section is largely intended to show. Their habitations may be in or amongst stones, in caves, under the water, in trees, or amongst the glades of a forest; they may dwell on mountains, on moors, or even under the altars of churches. We may freely grant that some of these habitations fall into line with Mr. MacRitchie’s theory, but they are not all susceptible of such an explanation.
(5.) The association of giants and dwarfs in certain places, even the confusion of the two races, seems somewhat difficult of explanation by this theory. In Ireland the distinction between the two classes is sharper than in other places, since, as Sir William Wilde pointed out, whilst every green rath in that island is consecrated to the fairies or “good people,” the remains attributed to the giants are of a different character and probably of a later date. In some places, however, a mound similar to those often connected with fairies is associated with a giant, as is the case at Sessay parish, near Thirsk,[A] and at Fyfield in Wiltshire. The chambered tumulus at Luckington is spoken of as the Giant’s Caves, and that at Nempnet in Somersetshire as the Fairy’s Toot. In Denmark, tumuli seem to be described indifferently as Zettestuer (Giants’ Chambers) or Troldestuer (Fairies’ Chambers).[B] In “Beowulf” a chambered tumulus is described, in the recesses of which were treasures watched over for three hundred years by a dragon. This barrow was of stone, and the work of giants.
Seah on enta geweorc, Looked on the giant’s work, hu etha stan-bogan, how the stone arches, stapulinn-faeste, on pillars fast, ece eoreth-reced the eternal earth-house innan healde. held within.
[Footnote A: Folk Lore, i. 130.]
[Footnote B: Flint Chips, p. 412.]
The mounds have sometimes been made by giants and afterwards inhabited by dwarfs, as in the case of the Nine-hills, already alluded to. In others, they are at the same time inhabited by giants, dwarfs, and others, as in the story of the Dwarf’s Banquet,[A] and still more markedly in the Wunderberg. “The celebrated Wunderberg, or Underberg, on the great moor near Salzburg, is the chief haunt of the Wild-women. The Wunderberg is said to be quite hollow, and supplied with stately palaces, churches, monasteries, gardens, and springs of gold and silver. Its inhabitants, beside the Wild-women, are little men, who have charge of the treasures it contains, and who at midnight repair to Salzburg to perform their devotions in the cathedral; giants, who used to come to the church of Groedich and exhort the people to lead a godly and pious life; and the great Emperor Charles V., with golden crown and sceptre, attended by knights and lords. His grey beard has twice encompassed the table at which he sits, and when it has the third time grown round it, the end of the world and the appearance of the Antichrist will take place."[B]
[Footnote A: Grimm ap. Keightley, 130.]
[Footnote B: Grimm ap. Keightley, 234.]
In the folk-tales of the Magyars we meet with a still more remarkable confusion between these two classes of beings. Some of the castles described in these stories are inhabited by giants, others by fairies. Again, the giants marry; their wives are fairies, so are their daughters. They had no male issue, as their race was doomed to extermination. They fall in love, and are fond of courting. Near Bikkfalva, in Haromszek, the people still point out the “Lover’s Bench” on a rock where the amorous giant of Csigavar used to meet his sweetheart, the “fairy of Veczeltetoe."[A]
[Footnote A: Folk Tales of the Magyars, p. xxix.]
(6.) Tales of little people are to be found in countries where there never were any Pigmy races. Not to deal with other, and perhaps more debatable districts, we find an excellent example of this in North America. Besides the instances mentioned in the foregoing section, the following may be mentioned. Mr. Leland, speaking of the Un-a-games-suk, or Indian spirits of the rocks and streams, says that these beings enter far more largely, deeply, and socially into the life and faith of the Indians than elves or fairies ever did into those of the Aryan race.[A] In his Algonquin Legends the same author also alludes to small people.
[Footnote A: Memoirs, i. 34.]
Dr. Brinton tells me that the Micmacs have tales of similar Pigmies, whom they call Wig[)u]l[)a]d[)u]mooch, who tie people with cords during their sleep, &c. Mr. L.L. Frost, of Susanville, Lassen County, California, tells us how, when he requested an Indian to gather and bring in all the arrow-points he could find, the Indian declared them to be “no good,” that they had been made by the lizards. Whereupon Mr. Frost drew from him the following lizard-story. “There was a time when the lizards were little men, and the arrow-points which are now found were shot by them at the grizzly bear. The bears could talk then, and would eat the little men whenever they could catch them. The arrows of the little men were so small that they would not kill the bears when shot into them, and only served to enrage them.” The Indian could not tell how the little men became transformed into lizards.[A] Again, the Shoshones of California dread their infants being changed by Ninumbees or dwarfs.[B]
[Footnote A: Folk Lore Journal, vii. 24.]
[Footnote B: Hartland, ut supra, p. 351.]
Finally, every one has read about the Pukwudjies, “the envious little people, the fairies, the pigmies,” in the pages of Longfellow’s “Hiawatha."[A] It ought to be mentioned that Mr. Leland states that the red-capped, scanty-shirted elf of the Algonquins was obtained from the Norsemen; but if, as he says, the idea of little people has sunk so deeply into the Indian mind, it cannot in any large measure have been derived from this source.[B]
[Footnote A: xviii.]
[Footnote B: Etrusco Roman Remains, p. 162.]
(7.) The stunted races whom Mr. MacRitchie considers to have formed the subjects of the fairy legend have themselves tales of little people. This is true especially of the Eskimo, as will have been already noticed, a fact to which my attention was called by Mr. Hartland.
For the reasons just enumerated, I am unable to accept Mr. MacRitchie’s theory as a complete explanation of the fairy question, but I am far from desirous of under-estimating the value and significance of his work. Mr. Tylor, as I have already mentioned, states, in a sentence which may yet serve as a motto for a work on the whole question of the origin of the fairy myth, that “various different facts have given rise to stories of giants and dwarfs, more than one mythic element perhaps combining to form a single legend—a result perplexing in the extreme to the mythological interpreter."[A] And I think it may be granted that Mr. MacRitchie has gone far to show that one of these mythic elements, one strand in the twisted cord of fairy mythology, is the half-forgotten memory of skulking aborigines, or, as Mr. Nutt well puts it, the “distorted recollections of alien and inimical races.” But it is not the only one. It is far from being my intention to endeavour to deal exhaustively with the difficult question of the origin of fairy tales. Knowledge and the space permissible in an introduction such as this would alike fail me in such a task. It may, however, be permissible to mention a few points which seem to impress themselves upon one in making a study of the stories with which I have been dealing. In the first place, one can scarcely fail to notice how much in common there is between the tales of the little people and the accounts of that underground world, which, with so many races, is the habitation of the souls of the departed. Dr. Callaway has already drawn attention to this point in connection with the ancestor-worship of the Amazulu.[B] He says, “It may be worth while to note the curious coincidence of thought among the Amazulu regarding the Amatongo or Abapansi, and that of the Scotch and Irish regarding the fairies or ‘good people.’ For instance, the ‘good people’ of the Irish have assigned to them, in many respects the same motives and actions as the Amatongo. They call the living to join them, that is, by death; they cause disease which common doctors cannot understand nor cure; they have their feelings, interests, partialities, and antipathies, and contend with each other about the living. The common people call them their friends or people, which is equivalent to the term abakubo given to the Amatongo. They reveal themselves in the form of the dead, and it appears to be supposed that the dead become ‘good people,’ as the dead among the Amazulu become Amatongo; and in funeral processions of the ‘good people’ which some have professed to see, are recognised the forms of those who have just died, as Umkatshana saw his relatives amongst the Abapansi. The power of holding communion with the ‘good people’ is consequent on an illness, just as the power to divine amongst the natives of this country. So also in the Highland tales, a boy who had been carried away by the fairies, on his return to his own home speaks of them as ’our folks,’ which is
[Footnote A: Primitive Culture, i. 388.]
[Footnote B: Religious System of the Amazulu, p. 226.]
[Footnote C: Nansen, ut supra, p. 227.]
[Footnote D: Tylor, ut supra, i. 431.]
[Footnote E: Tylor, ut supra, ii. 80.]
It is impossible not to see a connection between such conceptions as these and the underground habitations of the little people entered by the green mound which covered the bones of the dead. But the underground world was not only associated with the shades of the departed; it was in many parts of the world the place whence races had their origin, and here also we meet in at least one instance known to me with the conception of a little folk. A very widespread legend in Europe, and especially in Scandinavia, according to Dr. Nansen, tells how the underground or invisible people came into existence. “The Lord one day paid a visit to Eve as she was busy washing her children. All those who were not yet washed she hurriedly hid in cellars and corners and under big vessels, and presented the others to the Visitor. The Lord asked if these were all, and she answered ‘Yes;’ whereupon He replied, ’Then those which are dulde (hidden) shall remain hulde (concealed, invisible). And from them the huldre-folk are sprung."[A] There is also the widespread story of an origin underground, as amongst the Wasabe, a sub-gens of the Omahas, who believe that their ancestors were made under the earth and subsequently came to the surface.[B] There is a similar story amongst the Z[=u]nis of Western New Mexico. In journeying to their present place of habitation, they passed through four worlds, all in the interior of this, the passage way from darkness to light being through a large reed. From the inner world they were led by the two little war-gods, Ah-ai-[=u]-ta and M[=a]-[=a]-s[=e]-we, twin brothers, sons of the Sun, who were sent by the Sun to bring this people to his presence.[C] From these stories it would appear that the underground world, whether looked upon as the habitation of the dead or the place of origination of nations, is connected with the conception of little races and people. That it is thus responsible for some portion of the conception of fairies seems to me to be more than probable.
[Footnote A: Nansen, ut supra, p. 262.]
[Footnote B: Dorset, Omaha Sociology. American Bureau of Ethnology, iii. 211.]
[Footnote C: Stevenson, Religious Life of Zuni Child. American Bureau of Ethnology, v. 539.]
It is hardly necessary to allude to those spirits which animistic ideas have attached amongst other objects and places, to trees and wells. They are fully dealt with in Dr. Tylor’s pages, and must not be forgotten in connection with the present question.
To sum up, then, it appears as if the idea, so widely diffused, of little, invisible, or only sometimes visible, people, is of the most complex nature. From the darkness which shrouds it, however, it is possible to discern some rays of light. That the souls of the departed, and the underground world which they inhabit, are largely responsible for it, is, I hope, rendered probable by the facts which I have brought forward. That animistic ideas have
Concerning the PYGMIES, THE CYNOCEPHALI, THE SATYRS and SPHINGES OF THE ANCIENTS,
Wherein it will appear that they were all either APES
or MONKEYS; and not
MEN, as formerly pretended.
By Edward Tyson M.D.
A Philological Essay Concerning the PYGMIES OF THE ANCIENTS.
Having had the Opportunity of Dissecting this remarkable Creature, which not only in the outward shape of the Body, but likewise in the structure of many of the Inward Parts, so nearly resembles a Man, as plainly appears by the Anatomy I have here given of it, it suggested the Thought to me, whether this sort of Animal, might not give the Foundation to the Stories of the Pygmies and afford an occasion not only to the Poets, but Historians too, of inventing the many Fables and wonderful and merry Relations, that are transmitted down to us concerning them? I must confess, I could never before entertain any other Opinion about them, but that the whole was a Fiction: and as the first Account we have of them, was from a Poet, so that they were only a Creature of the Brain, produced by a warm and wanton Imagination, and that they never had any Existence or Habitation elsewhere.
In this Opinion I was the more confirmed, because the most diligent Enquiries of late into all the Parts of the inhabited World, could never discover any such Puny diminutive Race of Mankind. That they should be totally destroyed by the Cranes, their Enemies, and not a Straggler here and there left remaining, was a Fate, that even those Animals that are constantly preyed upon by others, never undergo. Nothing therefore appeared to me more Fabulous and Romantick, than their History, and the Relations about them, that Antiquity has delivered to us. And not only Strabo of old, but our greatest Men of Learning of late, have wholly exploded them, as a mere figment; invented only to amuse, and divert the Reader with the Comical Narration of their Atchievements, believing that there were never any such Creatures in Nature.
This opinion had so fully obtained with me, that I never thought it worth the Enquiry, how they came to invent such Extravagant Stories: Nor should I now, but upon the Occasion of Dissecting this Animal: For observing that ’tis call’d even to this day in the Indian or Malabar Language, Orang-Outang, i.e. a Man of the Woods, or Wild-men; and being brought from Africa, that part of the World, where the Pygmies are said to inhabit; and it’s present Stature likewise tallying so well with that of the Pygmies of the Ancients; these Considerations put me upon the search, to inform my self farther about them, and to examine, whether I could meet with any thing that might illustrate their History. For I thought it strange, that if the whole was but a meer Fiction, that so many succeeding Generations should be so fond of preserving a Story, that had no Foundation at all in Nature; and that the Ancients should trouble themselves so much about them. If therefore I can make out in this Essay, that there were such Animals as Pygmies; and that they were not a Race of Men, but Apes; and can discover the Authors, who have forged all, or most of the idle Stories concerning them; and shew how the Cheat in after Ages has been carried on, by embalming the Bodies of Apes, then exposing them for the Men of the Country, from whence they brought them: If I can do this, I shall think my time not wholly lost, nor the trouble altogether useless, that I have had in this Enquiry.
My Design is not to justifie all the Relations that have been given of this Animal, even by Authors of reputed Credit; but, as far as I can, to distinguish Truth from Fable; and herein, if what I assert amounts to a Probability, ’tis all I pretend to. I shall accordingly endeavour to make it appear, that not only the Pygmies of the Ancients, but also the Cynocephali, and Satyrs and Sphinges were only Apes or Monkeys, not Men, as they have been represented. But the Story of the Pygmies being the greatest Imposture, I shall chiefly concern my self about them, and shall be more concise on the others, since they will not need so strict an Examination.
We will begin with the Poet Homer, who is generally owned as the first Inventor of the Fable of the Pygmies, if it be a Fable, and not a true Story, as I believe will appear in the Account I shall give of them. Now Homer only mentions them in a Simile, wherein he compares the Shouts that the Trojans made, when they were going to joyn Battle with the Graecians, to the great Noise of the Cranes, going to fight the Pygmies: he saith,[A]
[Greek: Ai t’ epei oun cheimona phygon, kai athesphaton ombron Klangae tai ge petontai ep’ okeanoio rhoaon ’Andrasi pygmaioisi phonon kai kaera pherousai.] i.e.
Quae simul ac fugere Imbres, Hyememque Nivalem Cum magno Oceani clangore ferantur ad undas Pygmaeis pugnamque Viris, caedesque ferentes.
[Footnote A: Homer. Iliad. lib. 3. ver. 4.]
Or as Helius Eobanus Hessus paraphrases the whole.[A]
Postquam sub Ducibus digesta per agmina stabant
Quaeque fuis, Equitum turmae, Peditumque Cohortes,
Obvia torquentes Danais vestigia Troes
Ibant, sublato Campum clamore replentes:
Non secus ac cuneata Gruum sublime volantum
Agmina, dum fugiunt Imbres, ac frigora Brumae,
Per Coelum matutino clangore feruntur,
Oceanumque petunt, mortem exitiumque cruentum
Irrita Pigmaeis moturis arma ferentes.
[Footnote A: Homeri Ilias Latino Carmine reddita ab Helio Eobano Hesso.]
By [Greek: andrasi pygmaioisi] therefore, which is the Passage upon which they have grounded all their fabulous Relations of the Pygmies, why may not Homer mean only Pygmies or Apes like Men. Such an Expression is very allowable in a Poet, and is elegant and significant, especially since there is so good a Foundation in Nature for him to use it, as we have already seen, in the Anatomy of the Orang-Outang. Nor is a Poet tied to that strictness of Expression, as an Historian or Philosopher; he has the liberty of pleasing the Reader’s Phancy, by Pictures and Representations of his own. If there be a becoming likeness, ’tis all that he is accountable for. I might therefore here make the same Apology for him, as Strabo[A] do’s on another account for his Geography, [Greek: ou gar kat’ agnoian ton topikon legetai, all’ haedonaes kai terpseos charin]. That he said it, not thro’ Ignorance, but to please and delight: Or, as in another place he expresses himself,[B] [Greek: ou gar kat’ agnoian taes istorias hypolaepteon genesthai touto, alla tragodias charin]. Homer did not make this slip thro’ Ignorance of the true History, but for the Beauty of his Poem. So that tho’ he calls them Men Pygmies, yet he may mean no more by it, than that they were like Men. As to his Purpose, ’twill serve altogether as well, whether this bloody Battle be fought between the Cranes and Pygmaean Men, or the Cranes and Apes, which from their Stature he calls Pygmies, and from their shape Men; provided that when the Cranes go to engage, they make a mighty terrible noise, and clang enough to fright these little Wights their mortal Enemies. To have called them only Apes, had been flat and low, and lessened the grandieur of the Battle. But this Periphrasis of them, [Greek: andres pygmaioi], raises the Reader’s Phancy, and surprises him, and is more becoming the Language of an Heroic Poem.
[Footnote A: Strabo Geograph. lib. 1. p.m. 25.]
[Footnote B: Strabo ibid. p.m. 30.]
But how came the Cranes and Pygmies to fall out? What may be the Cause of this Mortal Feud, and constant War between them? For Brutes, like Men, don’t war upon one another, to raise and encrease their Glory, or to enlarge their Empire. Unless I can acquit my self herein, and assign some probable Cause hereof, I may incur the same Censure as Strabo[A] passed on several of the Indian Historians, [Greek: enekainisan de kai taen ’Omaerikaen ton Pygmaion geranomachin trispithameis eipontes], for reviewing the Homerical Fight of the Cranes and Pygmies, which he looks upon only as a fiction of the Poet. But this had been very unbecoming Homer to take a Simile (which is designed for illustration) from what had no Foundation in Nature. His Betrachomyomachia, ’tis true, was a meer Invention, and never otherwise esteemed: But his Geranomachia hath all the likelyhood of a true Story. And therefore I shall enquire now what may be the just Occasion of this Quarrel.
[Footnote A: Strabo Geograph. lib. 2. p.m. 48.]
Athenaeus[A] out of Philochorus, and so likewise AElian[B], tell us a Story, That in the Nation of the Pygmies the Male-line failing, one Gerana was the Queen; a Woman of an admired Beauty, and whom the Citizens worshipped as a Goddess; but she became so vain and proud, as to prefer her own, before the Beauty of all the other Goddesses, at which they grew enraged; and to punish her for her Insolence, Athenaeus tells us that it was Diana, but AElian saith ’twas Juno that transformed her into a Crane, and made her an Enemy to the Pygmies that worshipped her before. But since they are not agreed which Goddess ’twas, I shall let this pass.
[Footnote A: Athenaei Deipnosoph. lib. 9 p.m. 393.]
[Footnote B: AElian. Hist. Animal. lib. 15. cap. 29.]
Pomponius Mela will have it, and I think some others, that these cruel Engagements use to happen, upon the Cranes coming to devour the Corn the Pygmies had sowed; and that at last they became so victorious, as not only to destroy their Corn, but them also: For he tells us,[A] Fuere interius Pygmaei, minutum genus, & quod pro satis frugibus contra Grues dimicando, defecit. This may seem a reasonable Cause of a Quarrel; but it not being certain that the Pygmies used to sow Corn, I will not insist on this neither.
[Footnote A: Pomp. Mela de situ Orbis, lib. 3. cap. 8.]
Now what seems most likely to me, is the account that Pliny out of Megasthenes, and Strabo from Onesicritus give us; and, provided I be not obliged to believe or justifie all that they say, I could rest satisfied in great part of their Relation: For Pliny[B] tells us, Veris tempore universo agmine ad mare descendere, & Ova, Pullosque earum Alitum consumere: That in the Spring-time the whole drove of the Pygmies go down to the Sea side, to devour the Cranes Eggs and their young Ones. So likewise Onesicritus,[B] [Greek: Pros de tous trispithamous polemon einai tais Geranois (hon kai Homaeron daeloun) kai tois Perdixin, ous chaenomegetheis einai; toutous d’ eklegein auton ta oa, kai phtheirein; ekei gar ootokein tas Geranous; dioper maedamou maed’ oa euriskesthai Geranon, maet’ oun neottia;] i.e. That there is a fight between the Pygmies and the Cranes (as Homer relates) and the Partridges which are as big as Geese; for these Pygmies gather up their Eggs, and destroy them; the Cranes laying their Eggs there; and neither their Eggs, nor their Nests, being to be found any where else. ’Tis plain therefore from them, that the Quarrel is not out of any Antipathy the Pygmies have to the Cranes, but out of love to their own Bellies. But the Cranes finding their Nests to be robb’d, and their young Ones prey’d on by these Invaders, no wonder that they should so sharply engage them; and the least they could do, was to fight to the utmost so mortal an Enemy. Hence, no doubt, many a bloody Battle happens, with various success to the Combatants; sometimes with great slaughter of the long-necked Squadron; sometimes with great effusion of Pygmaean blood. And this may well enough, in a Poet’s phancy, be magnified, and represented as a dreadful War; and no doubt of it, were one a Spectator of it, ’twould be diverting enough.
[Footnote A: Plinij. Hist. Nat. lib. 7. cap. 2. p.m. 13.]
[Footnote B: Strab. Geograph. lib. 15. pag. 489.]
-----Si videas hoc Gentibus in nostris, risu quatiere: sed illic, Quanquam eadem assidue spectantur Praelia, ridet Nemo, ubi tota cohors pede non est altior uno.[A]
[Footnote A: Juvenal. Satyr. 13 vers. 170.]
This Account therefore of these Campaigns renewed every year on this Provocation between the Cranes and the Pygmies, contains nothing but what a cautious Man may believe; and Homer’s Simile in likening the great shouts of the Trojans to the Noise of the Cranes, and the Silence of the Greeks to that of the Pygmies, is very admirable and delightful. For Aristotle[B] tells us, That the Cranes, to avoid the hardships of the Winter, take a Flight out of Scythia to the Lakes about the Nile, where the
[Footnote B: Aristotle. Hist. Animal. lib. 8. cap. 15. Edit. Scalig.]
‘Tis not therefore the Poet that is to be blamed, tho’ they would father it all on him; but the fabulous Historians in after Ages, who have so odly drest up this Story by their fantastical Inventions, that there is no knowing the truth, till one hath pull’d off those Masks and Visages, wherewith they have disguised it. For tho’ I can believe Homer, that there is a fight between the Cranes and Pygmies, yet I think I am no ways obliged to imagine, that when the Pygmies go to these Campaigns to fight the Cranes, that they ride upon Partridges, as Athenaeas from Basilis an Indian Historian tells us; for, saith he,[A] [Greek: Basilis de en toi deuteroi ton Indikon, oi mikroi, phaesin, andres oi tais Geranois diapolemountes Perdixin ochaemati chrontai;]. For presently afterwards he tells us from Menecles, that the Pygmies not only fight the Cranes, but the Partridges too, [Greek: Meneklaes de en protae taes synagogaes oi pygmaioi, phaesi, tois perdixi, kai tais Geranois polemousi]. This I could more readily agree to, because Onesicritus, as I have quoted him already confirms it; and gives us the same reason for this as for fighting the Cranes, because they rob their Nests. But whether these Partridges are as big as Geese, I leave as a Quaere.
[Footnote A: Athenaei Deipnesoph. lib. p. 9. m. 390.]
Megasthenes methinks in Pliny mounts the Pygmies for this expedition much better, for he sets them not on a Pegasus or Partridges, but on Rams and Goats: Fama est (saith Pliny[A]) insedentes Arietum Caprarumque dorsis, armatis sagittis, veris tempore universo agmine ad mare descendere. And Onesicritus in Strabo tells us, That a Crane has been often observed to fly from those parts with a brass Sword fixt in him, [Greek: pleistakis d’ ekpiptein geranon chalkaen echousan akida apo ton ekeithen plaegmaton.][B] But whether the Pygmies do wear Swords, may be doubted. ’Tis true, Ctesias tells us,[C] That the King of India every fifth year sends fifty Thousand Swords, besides abundance
[Footnote A: Plinij. Nat. Hist. lib. 7. cap. 2. p. 13.]
[Footnote B: Strabo Geograph. lib. 15. p. 489.]
[Footnote C: Vide Photij. Biblioth.]
These, and a hundred such ridiculous Fables, have the Historians invented of the Pygmies, that I can’t but be of Strabo’s mind,[A] [Greek: Rhadion d’ an tis Haesiodio, kai Homaeroi pisteuseien haeroologousi, kai tois tragikois poiaetais, hae Ktaesiai te kai Haerodotoi, kai Hellanikoi, kai allois toioutois;] i.e. That one may sooner believe Hesiod, and Homer, and the Tragick Poets speaking of their Hero’s, than Ctesias and Herodotus and Hellanicus and such like. So ill an Opinion had Strabo of the Indian Historians in general, that he censures them all as fabulous;[B] [Greek: Hapantes men toinun hoi peri taes Indikaes grapsantes hos epi to poly pseudologoi gegonasi kath’ hyperbolaen de Daeimachos; ta de deutera legei Megasthenaes, Onaesikritos te kai Nearchos, kai alloi toioutoi;] i.e. All who have wrote of India for the most part, are fabulous, but in the highest degree Daimachus; then Megasthenes, Onesicritus, and Nearchus, and such like. And as if it had been their greatest Ambition to excel herein, Strabo[C] brings in Theopompus, as bragging, [Greek: Hoti kai mythous en tais Historiais erei kreitton, ae hos Haerodotos, kai Ktaesias, kai Hellanikos, kai hoi ta Hindika syngrapsantes;] That he could foist in Fables into History, better than Herodotus and Ctesias and Hellanicus, and all that have wrote of India. The Satyrist therefore had reason to say,
-----Et quicquid Graecia mendax Audet in Historia.[D]
[Footnote A: Strabo Geograph. lib. 11. p.m. 350.]
[Footnote B: Strabo ibid. lib. 2. p.m. 48.]
[Footnote C: Strabo ibid. lib. 1 p.m. 29.]
[Footnote D: Juvenal. Satyr. X. vers. 174.]
Aristotle,[A] ’tis true, tells us, [Greek: Holos de ta men agria agriotera en tae Asia, andreiotera de panta ta en taei Europaei, polymorphotata de ta en taei libyaei; kai legetai de tis paroimia, hoti aei pherei ti libyae kainon;] i.e. That generally the Beasts are wilder in Asia, stronger in Europe, and of greater variety of shapes in Africa; for as the Proverb saith, Africa always produces something new. Pliny[B] indeed ascribes it to the Heat of the Climate, Animalium, Hominumque effigies monstriferas, circa extremitates ejus gigni, minime mirum, artifici ad formanda Corpora, effigiesque caelandas mobilitate ignea. But Nature never formed a whole Species of Monsters; and ’tis not the heat of the Country, but the warm and fertile Imagination of these Historians, that has been more productive of them, than Africa it self; as will farther appear by what I shall produce out of them, and particularly from the Relation that Ctesias makes of the Pygmies.
[Footnote A: Aristotle Hist. Animal, lib. 8. cap. 28.]
[Footnote B: Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. 6. cap. 30. p.m. 741.]
I am the more willing to instance in Ctesias, because he tells his Story roundly; he no ways minces it; his Invention is strong and fruitful; and that you may not in the least mistrust him, he pawns his word, that all that he writes, is certainly true: And so successful he has been, how Romantick soever his Stories may appear, that they have been handed down to us by a great many other Authors, and of Note too; tho’ some at the same time have looked upon them as mere Fables. So that for the present, till I am better informed, and I am not over curious in it, I shall make Ctesias, and the other Indian Historians, the Inventors of the extravagant Relations we at present have of the Pygmies, and not old Homer. He calls them, ’tis true, from something of Resemblance of their shape, [Greek: andres]: But these Historians make them to speak the Indian Language; to use the same Laws; and to be so considerable a Nation, and so valiant, as that the King of India makes choice of them for his Corps de Guards; which utterly spoils Homer’s Simile, in making them so little, as only to fight Cranes.
Ctesias’s Account therefore of the Pygmies (as I find it in Photius’s Bibliotheca,[A] and at the latter end of some Editions of Herodotus) is this:
[Footnote A: Photij. Bibliothec. Cod. 72. p.m. 145.]
[Greek: Hoti en mesae tae Indikae anthropoi eisi melanes, kai kalountai pygmaioi, tois allois homoglossoi Indois. mikroi de eisi lian; hoi makrotatoi auton paecheon duo, hoi de pleistoi, henos haemiseos paecheos, komaen de echousi makrotataen, mechri kai hepi ta gonata, kai eti katoteron, kai pogona megiston panton anthropon; epeidan oun ton pogona mega physosin, ouketi amphiennyntai ouden emation: alla tas trichas, tas men ek taes kephalaes, opisthen kathientai poly kato ton gonaton; tas de ek tou po gonos, emprosthen mechri podon elkomenas. Hepeita peripykasamenoi tas trichas peri apan to soma, zonnyntai, chromenoi autais anti himatiou, aidoion de mega echousin, hoste psauein ton sphyron auton, kai pachy. autoite simoi te kai aischroi. ta de probata auton, hos andres. kai hai boes kai hoi onoi, schedon hoson krioi? kai hoi hippoi auton kai hoi aemionoi, kai ta alla panta zoa, ouden maezo krion; hepontai de toi basilei ton Indon, touton ton pygmaion andres trischilioi. sphodra gar eisi toxotai; dikaiotatoi de eisi kai nomoisi chrontai osper kai hoi Indoi. Dagoous te kai alopekas thaereuousin, ou tois kysin, alla koraxi kai iktisi kai koronais kai aetois.]
Narrat praeter ista, in media India homines reperiri nigros, qui Pygmaei appellentur. Eadem hos, qua Inda reliqui, lingua uti, sed valde esse parvos, ut maximi duorum cubitorum, & plerique unius duntaxat cubiti cum dimidio altitudinem non excedant. Comam alere longissimam, ad ipsa usque genua demissam, atque etiam infra, cum barba longiore, quam, apud ullos hominum. Quae quidem ubi illis promissior esse caeperit, nulla deinceps veste uti: sed capillos multo infra genua a tergo demissos, barbamque praeter pectus ad pedes usque defluentem, per totum corpus in orbem constipare & cingere, atque ita pilos ipsis suos vestimenti loco esse. Veretrum illis esse crassum ac longum, quod ad ipsos quoque pedum malleolos pertingat. Pygmeos hosce simis esse naribus, & deformes. Ipsorum item oves agnorem nostrotum instar esse; boves & asinos, arietum fere magnitudine, equos item multosque & caetera jumenta omnia nihilo esse nostris arietibus majora. Tria horum Pygmaeorum millia Indorum regem in suo comitatu habere, quod sagittarij sint peritissimi. Summos esse justitiae cultores iisdemque quibus Indi reliqui, legibus parere. Venari quoque lepores vulpesque, non canibus, sed corvis, milvis, cornicibus, aquilis adhibitis.
In the middle of India (saith Ctesias) there are black Men, they are call’d Pygmies, using the same Language, as the other Indians; they are very little, the tallest of them being but two Cubits, and most of them but a Cubit and a half high. They have very long hair, reaching down to their Knees and lower; and a Beard larger than any Man’s. After their Beards are grown long, they wear no Cloaths, but the Hair of their Head falls behind a great deal below their Hams; and that of their Beards before comes down to their Feet: then
Well, if they are so good Sports-men, as to kill Hares and Foxes with Ravens, Kites, Crows and Eagles, I can’t see how I can bring off Homer, for making them fight the Cranes themselves. Why did they not fly their Eagles against them? these would make greater Slaughter and Execution, without hazarding themselves. The only excuse I have is, that Homer’s Pygmies were real Apes like Men; but those of Ctesias were neither Men nor Pygmies; only a Creature begot in his own Brain, and to be found no where else.
Ctesias was Physician to Artaxerxes Mnemon
as Diodorus Siculus[A] and Strabo[B]
inform us. He was contemporary with Xenophon,
a little later than Herodotus; and Helvicus
in his Chronology places him three hundred
eighty three years before Christ: He is
an ancient Author, ’tis true, and it may be
upon that score valued by some. We are beholden
to him, not only for his Improvements on the Story
of the Pygmies, but for his Remarks likewise
on several other parts of Natural History;
which for the most part are all of the same stamp,
very wonderful and incredible; as his Mantichora,
his Gryphins, the horrible Indian Worm,
a Fountain of Liquid Gold, a Fountain of Honey,
a Fountain whose Water will make a Man confess all
that ever he did, a Root he calls [Greek: paraebon],
that will attract Lambs and Birds, as the Loadstone
does filings of Steel; and a great many other Wonders
he tells us: all of which are copied from him
by AElian, Pliny, Solinus, Mela, Philostratus,
and others. And Photius concludes Ctesias’s
Account of India with this passage; [Greek:
Tauta graphon kai mythologon Ktaesias. legei t’
alaethestata graphein; epagon hos ta men autos idon
graphei, ta de par auton mathon ton eidoton. polla
de touton kai alla thaumasiotera paralipein, dia to
mae doxai tois mae tauta theasamenois apista syngraphein;]
i.e. These things (saith he) Ctesias writes
and feigns, but he himself says all he has wrote is
very true. Adding, that some things which he
describes, he had seen himself; and the others he had
learn’d from those that had seen them: That
Page 49
he had omitted a great many other things more wonderful,
because he would not seem to those that have not seen
them, to write incredibilities. But notwithstanding
all this, Lucian[C] will not believe a word
he saith; for he tells us that Ctesias has
wrote of India, [Greek: A maete autos eide,
maete allou eipontos aekousen], What he neither
saw himself, nor ever heard from any Body else.
And Aristotle tells us plainly, he is not fit
to be believed: [Greek: En de taei Indikaei
hos phaesi Ktaesias, ouk on axiopistos.][D] And the
same opinion A. Gellius[E] seems to have
of him, as he had likewise of several other old Greek
Historians which happened to fall into his hands
at Brundusium, in his return from Greece
into Italy; he gives this Character of them
and their performance: Erant autem isti omnes
libri Graeci, miraculorum fabularumque pleni:
res inauditae, incredulae, Scriptores veteres non
parvae authoritatis, Aristeas Proconnesius, &
Isagonus, & Nicaeensis, & Ctesias, & Onesicritus, &
Polystephanus, & Hegesias. Not that I think all
that Ctesias has wrote is fabulous; For tho’
I cannot believe his speaking Pygmies, yet what
he writes of the Bird he calls [Greek:
Bittakos], that it would speak Greek and the
Indian Language, no doubt is very true; and
as H. Stephens[F] observes in his Apology
for Ctesias, such a Relation would seem very
surprising to one, that had never seen nor heard of
a Parrot.
[Footnote A: Diodor. Siculi Bibliothec. lib. 2. p.m. 118.]
[Footnote B: Strabo Geograph. lib. 14. p. 451.]
[Footnote C: Lucian lib 1. verae Histor. p.m. 373.]
[Footnote D: Arist. Hist. Animal. lib. 8. cap. 28.]
[Footnote E: A. Gellij. Noctes. Attic. lib. 9. cap. 4.]
[Footnote F: Henr. Stephani de Ctesia Historico antiquissimo disquisitio, ad finem Herodoti.]
But this Story of Ctesias’s speaking Pygmies, seems to be confirm’d by the Account that Nonnosus, the Emperour Justinian’s Ambassador into AEthiopia, gives of his Travels. I will transcribe the Passage, as I find it in Photius,[A] and ’tis as follows:
[Footnote A: Photij. Bibliothec. cod. 3. p.m. 7.]
[Greek: Hoti apo taes pharsan pleonti toi Nonnosoi, epi taen eschataen ton naeson kataentaekoti toion de ti synebae, thauma kai akousai. enetuche gar tisi morphaen men kai idean echousin anthropinaen, brachytatois de to megethos, kai melasi taen chroan. hypo de trichon dedasysmenois dia pantos tou somatos. heiponto de tois andrasi kai gynaikes paraplaesiai kai paidaria eti brachytera, ton par autois andron. gymnoi de aesan hapantes; plaen dermati tini mikroi taen aido periekalypron, hoi probebaekotes homoios andres te kai gynaikes. agrion de ouden eped eiknynto oude anaemeron; alla kai phonaen eichon men anthropinaen, agnoston de pantapasi taen dialekton tois te perioikois hapasi, kai polloi pleon tois peri taen Nonnoson, diezon de ek thalattion ostreion, kai ichthyon, ton apo taes thalassaes eis taen naeson aporrhiptomenon; tharsos de eichon ouden. alla kai horontes tous kath’ haemas anthropous hypeptaesan, hosper haemeis ta meiso ton thaerion.]
Naviganti a Pharsa Nonoso, & ad extremam usque insularum delato, tale quid occurrit, vel ipso auditu admirandum. Incidit enim in quosdam forma quidem & figura humana, sed brevissimos, & cutem nigros, totumque pilosos corpus. Sequebantur viros aequales foeminae, & pueri adhuc breviores. Nudi omnes agunt, pelle tantum brevi adultiores verenda tecti, viri pariter ac foeminae: agreste nihil, neque efferum quid prae se ferentes. Quin & vox illis humana, sed omnibus, etiam accolis, prorsus ignota lingua, multoque amplius Nonosi sociis. Vivunt marinis ostreis, & piscibus e mari ad insulam projectis. Audaces minime sunt, ut nostris conspectis hominibus, quemadmodum nos visa ingenti fera, metu perculsi fuerint.
’That Nonnosus sailing from Pharsa, when he came to the farthermost of the Islands, a thing, very strange to be heard of, happened to him; for he lighted on some (Animals) in shape and appearance like Men, but little of stature, and of a black colour, and thick covered with hair all over their Bodies. The Women, who were of the same stature, followed the Men: They were all naked, only the Elder of them, both Men and Women, covered their Privy Parts with a small Skin. They seemed not at all fierce or wild; they had a Humane Voice, but their Dialect was altogether unknown to every Body that lived about them; much more to those that were with Nonnosus. They liv’d upon Sea Oysters, and Fish that were cast out of the Sea, upon the Island. They had no Courage; for seeing our Men, they were frighted, as we are at the sight of the greatest wild Beast.’
[Greek: phonaen eichon men anthropinaen] I render here, they had a Humane Voice, not Speech: for had they spoke any Language, tho’ their Dialect might be somewhat different, yet no doubt but some of the Neighbourhood would have understood something of it, and not have been such utter Strangers to it. Now ’twas observed of the Orang-Outang, that it’s Voice was like the Humane, and it would make a Noise like a Child, but never was observed to speak, tho’ it had the Organs of Speech exactly formed as they are in Man; and no Account that ever has been given of this Animal do’s pretend that ever it did. I should rather agree to what Pliny[A] mentions, Quibusdam pro Sermone nutus motusque Membrorum est; and that they had no more a Speech than Ctesias his Cynocephali which could only bark, as the same Pliny[B] remarks; where he saith, In multis autem Montibus Genus Hominum Capitibus Caninis, ferarum pellibus velari, pro voce latratum edere, unguibus armatum venatu & Aucupio vesci, horum supra Centum viginti Millia fuisse prodente se Ctesias scribit. But in Photius I find, that Ctesias’s Cynocephali did speak the Indian Language as well as the Pygmies. Those therefore in Nonnosus since they did not speak the Indian, I doubt, spoke no Language at all; or at least, no more than other Brutes do.
[Footnote A: Plinij Nat. Hist. lib. 6. cap. 30. p.m. 741.]
[Footnote B: Plinij. Nat. Hist. lib. 7. cap. 2. p.m. 11.]
Ctesias I find is the only Author that ever understood what Language ’twas that the Pygmies spake: For Herodotus[A] owns that they use a sort of Tongue like to no other, but screech like Bats. He saith, [Greek: Hoi Garamantes outoi tous troglodytas Aithiopas thaereuousi toisi tetrippoisi. Hoi gar Troglodytai aithiopes podas tachistoi anthropon panton eisi, ton hymeis peri logous apopheromenous akouomen. Siteontai de hoi Troglodytai ophis, kai Saurous, kai ta toiauta ton Herpeton. Glossan de oudemiaei allaei paromoiaen nenomikasi, alla tetrygasi kathaper hai nukterides;] i.e. These Garamantes hunt the Troglodyte AEthiopians in Chariots with four Horses. The Troglodyte AEthiopians are the swiftest of foot of all Men that ever he heard of by any Report. The Troglodytes eat Serpents and Lizards, and such sort of Reptiles. They use a Language like to no other Tongue, but screech like Bats.
[Footnote A: Herodot. in Melpomene. pag. 283.]
Now that the Pygmies are Troglodytes, or do live in Caves, is plain from Aristotle,[A] who saith, [Greek: Troglodytai de’ eisi ton bion]. And so Philostratus,[B] [Greek: Tous de pygmaious oikein men hypogeious]. And methinks Le Compte’s Relation concerning the wild or savage Man in Borneo, agrees so well with this, that I shall transcribe it: for he tells us,[C] That in Borneo this wild or savage Man is indued with extraordinary strength; and not withstanding he walks but upon two Legs, yet he is so swift of foot, that they have much ado to outrun him. People of Quality course him, as we do Stags here: and this sort of hunting is the King’s usual divertisement. And Gassendus in the Life of Peiresky, tells us they commonly hunt them too in Angola in Africa, as I have already mentioned. So that very likely Herodotus’s Troglodyte AEthiopians may be no other than our Orang-Outang or wild Man. And the rather, because I fancy their Language is much the same: for an Ape will chatter, and make a noise like a Bat, as his Troglodytes did: And they undergo to this day the same Fate of being hunted, as formerly the Troglodytes used to be by the Garamantes.
[Footnote A: Arist. Hist. Animal., lib. 8. cap. 15. p.m. 913.]
[Footnote B: Philostrat. in vita Appollon. Tyanaei, lib. 3. cap. 14. p.m. 152.]
[Footnote C: Lewis le Compte Memoirs and Observations on China, p.m. 510.]
Whether those [Greek: andras mikrous metrion elassonas andron] which the Nasamones met with (as Herodotus[A] relates) in their Travels to discover Libya, were the Pygmies; I will not determine: It seems that Nasamones neither understood their Language, nor they that of the Nasamones. However, they were so kind to the Nasamones as to be their Guides along the Lakes, and afterwards brought them to a City, [Greek: en taei pantas einai toisi agousi to megethos isous, chroma de melanas], i.e. in which all were of the same stature with the Guides, and black. Now since they were all little black Men, and their Language could not be understood, I do suspect they may be a Colony of the Pygmies: And that they were no farther Guides to the Nasamones, than that being frighted at the sight of them, they ran home, and the Nasamones followed them.
[Footnote A: Herodotus in Euterpe seu lib. 2. p.m. 102.]
I do not find therefore any good Authority, unless you will reckon Ctesias as such, that the Pygmies ever used a Language or Speech, any more than other Brutes of the same Species do among themselves, and that we know nothing of, whatever Democritus and Melampodes in Pliny,[A] or Apollonius Tyanaeus in Porphyry[B] might formerly have done. Had the Pygmies ever spoke any Language intelligible by Mankind, this might have furnished our Historians with notable Subjects for their Novels; and no doubt but we should have had plenty of them.
[Footnote A: Plinij Nat. Hist. lib. 10. cap. 49.]
[Footnote B: Porphyrius de Abstinentia, lib. 3. pag. m. 103.]
But Albertus Magnus, who was so lucky as to guess that the Pygmies were a sort of Apes; that he should afterwards make these Apes to speak, was very unfortunate, and spoiled all; and he do’s it, methinks, so very awkwardly, that it is as difficult almost to understand his Language as his Apes; if the Reader has a mind to attempt it, he will find it in the Margin.[A]
[Footnote A: Si qui Homines sunt Silvestres, sicut Pygmeus, non secundum unam rationem nobiscum dicti sunt Homines, sed aliquod habent Hominis in quadam deliberatione & Loquela, &c. A little after adds, Voces quaedam (sc. Animalia) formant ad diversos conceptus quos habent, sicut Homo & Pygmaeus; & quaedam non faciunt hoc, sicut multitudo fere tota aliorum Animalium. Adhuc autem eorum quae ex ratione cogitativa formant voces, quaedam sunt succumbentia, quaedam autem non succumbentia. Dico autem succumbentia, a conceptu Animae cadentia & mota ad Naturae Instinctum, sicut Pygmeus, qui non, sequitur rationem Loquelae sed Naturae Instinctum; Homo autem non succumbit sed sequitur rationem. Albert. Magn. de Animal. lib. 1. cap. 3. p.m. 3.]
Had Albertus only asserted, that the Pygmies were a sort of Apes, his Opinion possibly might have obtained with less difficulty, unless he could have produced some Body that had heard them talk. But Ulysses Aldrovandus[A] is so far from believing his Ape Pygmies ever spoke, that he utterly denies, that there were ever any such Creatures in being, as the Pygmies, at all; or that they ever fought the Cranes. Cum itaque Pygmaeos (saith he) dari negemus, Grues etiam cum iis Bellum gerere, ut fabulantur, negabimus, & tam pertinaciter id negabimus, ut ne jurantibus credemus.
[Footnote A: Ulys. Aldrovandi Ornitholog. lib. 20. p.m. 344.]
I find a great many very Learned Men are of this Opinion: And in the first place, Strabo[A] is very positive; [Greek: Heorakos men gar oudeis exaegeitai ton pisteos axion andron;] i.e. No Man worthy of belief did ever see them. And upon all occasions he declares the same. So Julius Caesar Scaliger[B] makes them to be only a Fiction of the Ancients, At haec omnia (saith he) Antiquorum figmenta & merae Nugae, si exstarent, reperirentur. At cum universus Orbis nunc nobis cognitus sit, nullibi haec Naturae Excrementa reperiri certissimum est. And Isaac Casaubon[C] ridicules such as pretend to justifie them: Sic nostra aetate (saith he) non desunt, qui eandem de Pygmaeis lepidam fabellam renovent; ut qui etiam e Sacris Literis, si Deo placet, fidem illis conentur astruere. Legi etiam Bergei cujusdam Galli Scripta, qui se vidisse diceret. At non ego credulus illi, illi inquam Omnium Bipedum mendacissimo. I shall add one Authority more, and that is of Adrian Spigelius, who produces a Witness that had examined the very place, where the Pygmies were said to be; yet upon a diligent enquiry, he could neither find them, nor hear any tidings of them.[D] Spigelius therefore tells us, Hoc loco de Pygmaeis dicendum erat, qui [Greek: para pygonos] dicti a statura, quae ulnam non excedunt. Verum ego Poetarum fabulas esse crediderim, pro quibus tamen Aristoteles minime haberi vult, sed veram esse Historiam. 8. Hist. Animal. 12. asseverat. Ego quo minus hoc statuam, tum Authoritate primum Doctissimi Strabonis I. Geograph. coactus sum, tum potissimum nunc moveor, quod nostro tempore, quo nulla Mundi pars est, quam Nautarum Industria non perlustrarit, nihil tamen, unquam simile aut visum est, aut auditum. Accedit quod Franciscus Alvarez Lusitanus, qui ea ipsa loca peragravit, circa quae Aristoteles Pygmaeos esse scribit, nullibi tamen tam parvam Gentem a se conspectam tradidit, sed Populum esse Mediocris staturae, & AEthiopes tradit.
[Footnote A: Strabo Geograph. lib. 17. p.m. 565.]
[Footnote B: Jul. Caes. Scaliger. Comment. in Arist. Hist. Animal. lib. 8. sec. 126. p.m. 914.]
[Footnote C: Isaac Causabon Notae & Castigat. in lib. 1. Strabonis Geograph. p.m. 38.]
[Footnote D: Adrian. Spigelij de Corporis Humani fabrica, lib. 1. cap. 7. p.m. 15.]
I think my self therefore here obliged to make out, that there were such Creatures as Pygmies, before I determine what they were, since the very being of them is called in question, and utterly denied by so great Men, and by others too that might be here produced. Now in the doing this, Aristotle’s Assertion of them is so very positive, that I think there needs not a greater or better Proof; and it is so remarkable a one, that I find the very Enemies to this Opinion at a loss, how to shift it off. To lessen it’s Authority they have interpolated the Text, by foisting into the Translation what is not in the Original; or by not translating at all the most material passage, that makes against them; or by miserably glossing it, to make him speak what he never intended: Such unfair dealings plainly argue, that at any rate they are willing to get rid of a Proof, that otherwise they can neither deny, or answer.
Aristotle’s Text is this, which I shall give with Theodorus Gaza’s Translation: for discoursing of the Migration of Birds, according to the Season of the Year, from one Country to another, he saith:[A]
[Footnote A: Aristotel. Hist. Animal. lib. 8. cap. 12.]
[Greek: Meta men taen phthinoporinaen Isaemerian, ek tou Pontou kaiton psychron pheugonta ton epionta cheimona; meta de taen earinaen, ek ton therinon, eis tous topous tous psychrous, phoboumena ta kaumata; ta men, kai ek ton engus topon poioumena tas metabolas, ta de, kai ek ton eschaton hos eipein, hoion hai geranoi poiousi. Metaballousi gar ek ton Skythikon eis ta helae ta ano taes Aigyptou, othen ho Neilos rhei. Esti de ho topos outos peri on hoi pigmaioi katoikousin; ou gar esti touto mythos, all’ esti kata taen alaetheian. Genos mikron men, hosper legetai, kai autoi kai hoi hippoi; Troglodytai d’ eisi ton bion.]
Tam ab Autumnali AEquinoctio ex Ponto, Locisque frigidis fugiunt Hyemem futuram. A Verno autem ex tepida Regione ad frigidam sese conferunt, aestus metu futuri: & alia de locis vicinis discedunt, alia de ultimis, prope dixerim, ut Grues faciunt, quae ex Scythicis Campis ad Paludes AEgypto superiores, unde Nilus profluit, veniunt, quo in loco pugnare cum Pygmaeis dicuntur. Non enim id fabula est, sed certe, genus tum hominum, tum etiam Equorum pusillum (ut dicitur) est, deguntque in Cavernis, unde Nomen Troglodytae a subeundis Cavernis accepere.
In English ’tis thus: ’At the Autumnal AEquinox they go out of Pontus and the cold Countreys to avoid the Winter that is coming on. At the Vernal AEquinox they pass from hot Countreys into cold ones, for fear of the ensuing heat; some making their Migrations from nearer places; others from the most remote (as I may say) as the Cranes do: for they come out of Scythia to the Lakes above AEgypt, whence the Nile do’s flow. This is the place, whereabout the Pygmies dwell: For this is no Fable, but a Truth. Both they and the Horses, as ’tis said, are a small kind. They are Troglodytes, or live in Caves.’
We may here observe how positive the Philosopher is, that there are Pygmies; he tells us where they dwell, and that ’tis no Fable, but a Truth. But Theodorus Gaza has been unjust in translating him, by foisting in, Quo in loco pugnare cum Pygmaeis dicuntur, whereas there is nothing in the Text that warrants it: As likewise, where he expresses the little Stature of the Pygmies and the Horses, there Gaza has rendered it, Sed certe Genus tum Hominum, tum etiam Equorum pusillum. Aristotle only saith, [Greek: Genos mikron men hosper legetai, kai autoi, kai hoi hippoi]. He neither makes his Pygmies Men, nor saith any thing of their fighting the Cranes; tho’ here he had a fair occasion, discoursing of the Migration of the Cranes out of Scythia to the Lakes above AEgypt, where he tells us the Pygmies are. Cardan[A] therefore must certainly be out in his guess, that Aristotle only asserted the Pygmies out of Complement to his friend Homer; for surely then he would not have forgot their fight with the Cranes; upon which occasion only Homer mentions them.[B] I should rather think that Aristotle, being sensible of the many Fables that had been raised on this occasion, studiously avoided the mentioning this fight, that he might not give countenance to the Extravagant Relations that had been made of it.
[Footnote A: Cardan de Rerum varietate, lib. 8. cap. 40. p.m. 153.]
[Footnote B: Apparet ergo (saith Cardan) Pygmaeorum Historiam esse fabulosam, quod &_ Strabo sentit & nosira aetas, cum omnia nunc ferme orbis mirabilia innotuerint, declarat. Sed quod tantum Philosophum decepit, fuit Homeri Auctoritas non apud illium levis.]
But I wonder that neither Casaubon nor Duvall in their Editions of Aristotle’s Works, should have taken notice of these Mistakes of Gaza, and corrected them. And Gesner, and Aldrovandus, and several other Learned Men, in quoting this place of Aristotle, do make use of this faulty Translation, which must necessarily lead them into Mistakes. Sam. Bochartus[A] tho’ he gives Aristotle’s Text in Greek, and adds a new Translation of it, he leaves out indeed the Cranes fighting with the Pygmies, yet makes them Men, which Aristotle do’s not; and by anti-placing, ut aiunt, he renders Aristotle’s Assertion more dubious; Neque enim (saith he in the Translation) id est fabula, sed revera, ut aiunt, Genus ibi parvum est tam Hominum quam Equorum. Julius Caesar Scaliger in translating this Text of Aristotle, omits both these Interpretations of Gaza; but on the other hand is no less to be blamed in not translating at all the most remarkable passage, and where the Philosopher seems to be so much in earnest; as, [Greek:
[Footnote A: Bocharti Hierozoic. S. de Animalib. S. Script. part. Posterior. lib. 1. cap. 11. p.m. 76.]
[Footnote B: Scaliger. Comment. in Arist. Hist. Animal. lib. 8. p.m. 914.]
[Footnote C: Sir Thomas Brown’s Pseudodoxia, or, Enquiries into Vulgar Errors, lib. 4. cap. 11.]
I do not here find Aristotle asserting or confirming any thing of the fabulous Narrations that had been made about the Pygmies. He does not say that they were [Greek: andres], or [Greek: anthropoi mikroi], or [Greek: melanes]; he only calls them [Greek: pygmaioi]. And discoursing of the Pygmies in a place, where he is only treating about Brutes, ’tis reasonable to think, that he looked upon them only as such. This is the place where the Pygmies are; this is no fable, saith Aristotle, as ’tis that they are a Dwarfish Race of Men; that they speak the Indian Language; that they are excellent Archers; that they are very Just; and abundance of other Things that are fabulously reported of them; and because he thought them Fables, he does not take the least notice of them, but only saith, This is no Fable, but a Truth, that about the Lakes of Nile such Animals, as are called Pygmies, do live. And, as if he had foreseen, that the abundance of Fables that Ctesias (whom he saith is not to be believed) and the Indian Historians had invented about them, would make the whole Story to appear as a Figment, and render it doubtful, whether there were ever such Creatures as Pygmies in Nature; he more zealously asserts the Being of them, and assures us, That this is no Fable, but a Truth.
I shall therefore now enquire what sort of Creatures these Pygmies were; and hope so to manage the Matter, as in a great measure, to abate the Passion these Great Men have had against them: for, no doubt, what has incensed them the most, was, the fabulous Historians making them a part of Mankind, and then inventing a hundred ridiculous Stories about them, which they would impose upon the World as real Truths. If therefore they have Satisfaction given them in these two Points, I do not see, but that the Business may be accommodated very fairly; and that they may be allowed to be Pygmies, tho’ we do not make them Men.
For I am not of Gesner’s mind, Sed veterum nullus (saith he[A]) aliter de Pygmaeis scripsit, quam Homunciones esse. Had they been a Race of Men, no doubt but Aristotle would have informed himself farther about them. Such a Curiosity could not but have excited his Inquisitive Genius, to a stricter Enquiry and Examination; and we might easily have expected from him a larger Account of them. But finding them, it may be, a sort of Apes, he only tells us, that in such a place these Pygmies live.
[Footnote A: Gesner. Histor. Quadruped. p.m. 885.]
Herodotus[A] plainly makes them Brutes: For reckoning up the Animals of Libya, he tells us, [Greek: Kai gar hoi ophies hoi hypermegathees, kai hoi leontes kata toutous eisi, kai hoi elephantes te kai arktoi, kai aspides te kai onoi hoi ta kerata echontes; kai hoi kynokephaloi (akephaloi) hoi en toisi staethesi tous ophthalmous echontes (hos dae legetai ge hypo libyon) kai agrioi andres, kai gynaikes agriai kai alla plaethei polla thaeria akatapseusta;] i.e. That there are here prodigious large Serpents, and Lions, and Elephants, and Bears, and Asps, and Asses that have horns, and Cynocephali, (in the Margin ’tis Acephali) that have Eyes in their Breast, (as is reported by the Libyans) and wild Men, and wild Women, and a great many other wild Beasts that are not fabulous. Tis evident therefore that Herodotus his [Greek: agrioi andres, kai gynaikes agriai] are only [Greek: thaeria] or wild Beasts: and tho’ they are called [Greek: andres], they are no more Men than our Orang-Outang, or Homo Sylvestris, or wild Man, which has exactly the same Name, and I must confess I can’t but think is the same Animal: and that the same Name has been continued down to us, from his Time, and it may be from Homer’s.
[Footnote A: Herodot. Melpomene seu lib. 4. p.m. 285.]
So Philostratus speaking of AEthiopia and AEgypt, tells us,[A] [Greek: Boskousi de kai thaeria hoia ouch heterothi; kai anthropous melanas, ho mae allai aepeiroi. Pygmaion te en autais ethnae kai hylaktounton allo allaei.] i.e. Here are bred wild Beasts that are not in other places; and black Men, which no other Country affords: and amongst them is the Nation of the Pygmies, and the BARKERS, that is, the Cynocephali. For tho’ Philostratus is pleased here only to call them Barkers, and to reckon them, as he does the Black Men and the Pygmies amongst the wild Beasts of those Countreys; yet Ctesias, from whom Philostratus has borrowed a great deal of his Natural History, stiles them Men, and makes them speak, and to perform most notable Feats in Merchandising. But not being in a merry Humour it may be now, before he was aware, he speaks Truth: For Caelius Rhodiginus’s[B] Character of him is, Philostratus omnium qui unquam Historiam conscripserunt, mendacissimus.
[Footnote A: Philostratus in vita Apollon. Tyanaei, lib. 6. cap. 1. p.m. 258.]
[Footnote B: Caelij Rhodigini Lection. Antiq. lib. 17. cap. 13.]
Since the Pygmies therefore are some of the Brute Beasts that naturally breed in these Countries, and they are pleased to let us know as much, I can easily excuse them a Name. [Greek: Andres agrioi], or Orang-Outang, is alike to me; and I am better pleased with Homer’s [Greek: andres pygmaioi], than if he had called [Greek: pithaekoi]. Had this been the only Instance where they had misapplied the Name of Man, methinks I could be so good natur’d, as in some measure to make an Apology for them. But finding them, so extravagantly loose, so wretchedly whimsical, in abusing the Dignity of Mankind, by giving the name of Man to such monstrous Productions of their idle Imaginations, as the Indian Historians have done, I do not wonder that wise Men have suspected all that comes out of their Mint, to be false and counterfeit.
Such are their [Greek: Amykteres] or [Greek: Arrines], that want Noses, and have only two holes above their Mouth; they eat all things, but they must be raw; they are short lived; the upper part of their Mouths is very prominent. The [Greek: Enotokeitai], whose Ears reach down to their Heels, on which they lye and sleep. The [Greek: Astomoi], that have no Mouths, a civil sort of People, that dwell about the Head of the Ganges; and live upon smelling to boil’d Meats and the Odours of Fruits and Flowers; they can bear no ill scent, and therefore can’t live in a Camp. The [Greek: Monommatoi] or [Greek: Monophthalmoi], that have but one Eye, and that in the middle of their Foreheads: they have Dog’s Ears; their Hair stands an end, but smooth on the Breasts. The [Greek: Sternophthalmoi],
Now Strabo[A] from whom I have collected the Description of these Monstrous sorts of Men, and they are mentioned too by Pliny, Solinus, Mela, Philostratus, and others; and Munster in his Cosmography[B] has given a figure of some of them; Strabo, I say, who was an Enemy to all such fabulous Relations, no doubt was prejudiced likewise against the Pygmies, because these Historians had made them a Puny Race of Men, and invented so many Romances about them. I can no ways therefore blame him for denying, that there were ever any such Men Pygmies; and do readily agree with him, that no Man ever saw them: and am so far from dissenting from those Great Men, who have denied them on this account, that I think they have all the reason in the World on their side. And to shew how ready I am to close with them in this Point, I will here examine the contrary Opinion, and what Reasons they give for the supporting it: For there have been some Moderns, as well as the Ancients, that have maintained that these Pygmies were real Men. And this they pretend to prove, both from Humane Authority and Divine.
[Footnote A: Strabo Geograph. lib. 15. p.m. 489. & lib. 2. p. 48. _& alibi_.]
[Footnote B: Munster Cosmograph. lib. 6. p. 1151.]
Now by Men Pygmies we are by no means to understand Dwarfs. In all Countries, and in all Ages, there has been now and then observed such Miniture of Mankind, or under-sized Men. Cardan[A] tells us he saw one carried about in a Parrot’s Cage, that was but a Cubit high. Nicephorus[B] tells us, that in Theodosius the Emperour’s time, there was one in AEgypt that was no bigger than a Partridge; yet what was to be admired, he was very Prudent, had a sweet clear Voice, and a generous Mind; and lived Twenty Years. So likewise a King of Portugal sent to a Duke of Savoy, when he married his Daughter to him, an AEthiopian Dwarf but three Palms high.[C] And Thevenot[D] tells us of the Present made by the King of the Abyssins, to the Grand Seignior, of several little black Slaves out of Nubia, and the Countries near AEthiopia, which being made Eunuchs, were to guard the Ladies of the Seraglio. And a great many such like Relations there are. But these being only Dwarfs, they must not be esteemed the Pygmies we are enquiring about, which are represented as a Nation, and the whole Race of them to be of the like stature. Dari tamen integras Pumilionum Gentes, tam falsum est, quam quod falsissimum, saith Harduin.[E]
[Footnote A: Cardan de subtilitate, lib. 11. p. 458.]
[Footnote B: Nicephor. Histor. Ecclesiiast. lib. 12. cap. 37.]
[Footnote C: Happelius in Relat. curiosis, No. 85. p. 677.]
[Footnote D: Thevenot. Voyage de Levant. lib. 2. c. 68.]
[Footnote E: Jo. Harduini Notae in Plinij Nat. Hist. lib. 6. cap. 22. p. 688.]
Neither likewise must it be granted, that tho’ in some Climates there might be Men generally of less stature, than what are to be met with in other Countries, that they are presently Pygmies. Nature has not fixed the same standard to the growth of Mankind in all Places alike, no more than to Brutes or Plants. The Dimensions of them all, according to the Climate, may differ. If we consult the Original, viz. Homer that first mentioned the Pygmies, there are only these two Characteristics he gives of them. That they are [Greek: Pygmaioi] seu Cubitales; and that the Cranes did use to fight them. ’Tis true, as a Poet, he calls them [Greek: andres], which I have accounted for before. Now if there cannot be found such Men as are Cubitales, that the Cranes might probably fight with, notwithstanding all the Romances of the Indian Historians, I cannot think these Pygmies to be Men, but they must be some other Animals, or the whole must be a Fiction.
Having premised this, we will now enquire into their Assertion that maintain the Pygmies to be a Race of Men. Now because there have been Giants formerly, that have so much exceeded the usual Stature of Man, that there must be likewise Pygmies as defective in the other extream from this Standard, I think is no conclusive Argument, tho’ made use of by some. Old Caspar Bartholine[A] tells us, that because J. Cassanius and others had wrote de Gygantibus, since no Body else had undertaken it, he would give us a Book de Pygmaeis; and since he makes it his design to prove the Existence of Pygmies, and that the Pygmies were Men, I must confess I expected great Matters from him.
[Footnote A: Caspar. Bartholin. Opusculum de Pygmaeis.]
But I do not find he has informed us of any thing
more of them, than what Jo. Talentonius,
a Professor formerly at Parma, had told us before
in his Variarum & Reconditarum Rerum Thesaurus,[A]
from whom he has borrowed most of this Tract.
He has made it a little more formal indeed, by dividing
it into Chapters; of which I will give you the
Titles; and as I see occasion, some Remarks
thereon: They will not be many, because I have
prevented my self already. The first Chapter
is, De Homuncionibus & Pumilionilus seu Nanis a
Pygmaeis distinctis. The second Chapter,
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De Pygmaei nominibus & Etymologia. The third
Chapter, Duplex esse Pygmaeorum Genus; & primum Genus
aliquando dari. He means Dwarfs, that
are no Pygmies at all. The fourth Chapter
is, Alterum Genus, nempe Gentem Pygmaeorum esse,
aut saltem aliquando fuisse Autoritatibus Humanis,
fide tamen dignorum asseritur. ’Tis
as I find it printed; and no doubt an Error in the
printing. The Authorities he gives, are, Homer,
Ctesias, Aristotle, Philostratus, Pliny, Juvenal,
Oppian, Baptista Mantuan, St. Austin and
his Scholiast. Ludovic. Vives, Jo.
Laurentius Anania, Joh. Cassanius, Joh.
Talentonius, Gellius, Pomp. Mela, and Olaus
Magnus. I have taken notice of most of them
already, as I shall of St. Austin and Ludovicus
Vives by and by. Jo. Laurentius Anania[B]
ex Mercatorum relatione tradit (saith Bartholine)
eos (sc. Pygmaeos) in Septentrionali Thraciae
Parte reperiri, (quae Scythiae est proxima) atque ibi
cum Gruibus pugnare. And Joh. Cassanius[C]
(as he is here quoted) saith, De Pygmaeis fabulosa
quidem esse omnia, quae de iis narrari solent, aliquando
existimavi. Verum cum videam non unum vel alterum,
sed complures Classicos & probatos Autores de his
Homunculis multa in eandem fere Sententiam tradidisse;
eo adducor ut Pygmaeos fuisse inficiari non ausim.
He next brings in Jo. Talentonius, to whom
he is so much beholden, and quotes his Opinion, which
is full and home, Constare arbitror (saith
Talentonius)[D] debere concedi, Pygmaeos
non solum olim fuisse, sed nunc etiam esse, & homines
esse, nec parvitatem illis impedimenta esse quo minus
sint & homines sint. But were there such Men
Pygmies now in being, no doubt but we must have
heard of them; some or other of our Saylors, in their
Voyages, would have lighted on them. Tho’
Aristotle is here quoted, yet he does not make
them Men; So neither does Anania:
And I must own, tho’ Talentonius be of
this Opinion, yet he takes notice of the faulty Translation
of this Text of Aristotle by Gaza:
and tho’ the parvity or lowness of Stature,
be no Impediment, because we have frequently seen
such Dwarf-Men, yet we did never see a Nation
of them: For then there would be no need of that
Talmudical Precept which Job. Ludolphus[E]
mentions, Nanus ne ducat Nanam, ne forte oriatur
ex iis Digitalis (in Bechor. fol. 45).
[Footnote A: Jo. Talentionij. Variar. & Recondit. Rerum. Thesaurus. lib. 3. cap. 21.]
[Footnote B: Joh. Laurent. Anania prope finem tractatus primi suae Geograph.]
[Footnote C: Joh. Cassanius libello de Gygantibus, p. 73.]
[Footnote D: Jo. Talentonius Variar. & recondit. Rerum Thesaurus, lib. 3. cap. 21. p.m. 515.]
[Footnote E: Job Ludolphi Comment. in Historiam AEthiopic. p.m. 71.]
I had almost forgotten Olaus Magnus, whom Bartholine mentions in the close of this Chapter, but lays no great stress upon his Authority, because he tells us, he is fabulous in a great many other Relations, and he writes but by hear-say, that the Greenlanders fight the Cranes; Tandem (saith Bartholine) neque ideo Pygmaei sunt, si forte sagittis & hastis, sicut alij homines, Grues conficiunt & occidunt. This I think is great Partiality: For Ctesias, an Author whom upon all turns Bartholine makes use of as an Evidence, is very positive, that the Pygmies were excellent Archers: so that he himself owns, that their being such, illustrates very much that Text in Ezekiel, on which he spends good part of the next Chapter, whose Title is, Pygmaeorum Gens ex Ezekiele, atque rationibus probabilibus adstruitur; which we will consider by and by. And tho’ Olaus Magnus may write some things by hear-say, yet he cannot be so fabulous as Ctesias, who (as Lucian tells us) writes what he neither saw himself, or heard from any Body else. Not that I think Olaus Magnus his Greenlanders were real Pygmies, no more than Ctesias his Pygmies were real Men; tho’ he vouches very notably for them. And if all that have copied this Fable from Ctesias, must be look’d upon as the same Evidence with himself; the number of the Testimonies produced need not much concern us, since they must all stand or fall with him.
The probable Reasons that Bartholine gives in the fifth Chapter, are taken from other Animals, as Sheep, Oxen, Horses, Dogs, the Indian Formica and Plants: For observing in the same Species some excessive large, and others extreamly little, he infers, Quae certe cum in Animalibus & Vegetabilibus fiant; cur in Humana specie non sit probabile, haud video: imprimis cum detur magnitudinis excessus Gigantaeus; cur non etiam dabitur Defectus? Quia ergo dantur Gigantes, dabuntur & Pygmaei. Quam consequentiam ut firmam, admittit Cardanus,[A] licet de Pygmaeis hoc tantum concedat, qui pro miraculo, non pro Gente. Now Cardan, tho’ he allows this Consequence, yet in the same place he gives several Reasons why the Pygmies could not be Men, and looks upon the whole Story as fabulous. Bartholine concludes this Chapter thus: Ulterius ut Probabilitatem fulciamus, addendum Sceleton Pygmaei, quod Dresdae vidimus inter alia plurima, servatum in Arce sereniss. Electoris Saxoniae, altitudine infra Cubitum, Ossium soliditate, proportioneque tum Capitis, tum aliorum; ut Embrionem, aut Artificiale quid Nemo rerum peritus suspicari possit. Addita insuper est Inscriptio Veri Pygmaei. I hereupon looked into Dr. Brown’s Travels into those Parts, who has given us a large Catalogue of the Curiosities, the Elector of Saxony had at Dresden, but did not find amongst them this Sceleton; which, by the largeness of the Head, I suspect to be the Sceleton of an Orang-Outang, or our wild Man. But had he given us either a figure of it, or a more particular Description, it had been a far greater Satisfaction.
[Footnote A: Cardan. de Rerum varietate, lib. 8. cap. 40.]
The Title of Bartholine’s sixth Chapter is, Pygmaeos esse aut fuisse ex variis eorum adjunctis, accidentibus, &c. ab Authoribus descriptis ostenditur. As first, their Magnitude: which he mentions from Ctesias, Pliny, Gellius, and Juvenal; and tho’ they do not all agree exactly, ’tis nothing. Autorum hic dissensus nullus est (saith Bartholine) etenim sicut in nostris hominibus, ita indubie in Pygmaeis non omnes ejusdem magnitudinis. 2. The Place and Country: As Ctesias (he saith) places them in the middle of India; Aristotle and Pliny at the Lakes above AEgypt; Homer’s Scholiast in the middle of AEgypt; Pliny at another time saith they are at the Head of the Ganges, and sometimes at Gerania, which is in Thracia, which being near Scythia, confirms (he saith) Anania’s Relation. Mela places them at the Arabian Gulf; and Paulus Jovius docet Pygmaeos ultra Japonem esse; and adds, has Autorum dissensiones facile fuerit conciliare; nec mirum diversas relationes a, Plinio auditas. For (saith he) as the Tartars often change their Seats, since they do not live in Houses, but in Tents, so ’tis no wonder that the Pygmies often change theirs, since instead of Houses, they live in Caves or Huts, built of Mud, Feathers, and Egg-shells. And this mutation of their Habitations he thinks is very plain from Pliny, where speaking of Gerania, he saith, Pygmaeorum Gens fuisse (non jam esse) proditur, creduntque a Gruibus fugatos. Which passage (saith Bartholine) had Adrian Spigelius considered, he would not so soon have left Aristotle’s Opinion, because Franc. Alvares the Portuguese did not find them in the place where Aristotle left them; for the Cranes, it may be, had driven them thence. His third Article is, their Habitation, which Aristotle saith is in Caves; hence they are Troglodytes. Pliny tells us they build Huts with Mud, Feathers, and Egg-shells. But what Bartholine adds, Eo quod Terrae Cavernas inhabitent, non injuria dicti sunt olim Pygmaei, Terrae filii, is wholly new to me, and I have not met with it in any Author before: tho’ he gives us here several other significations of the word Terrae filij from a great many Authors, which I will not trouble you at present with. 4. The Form, being flat nosed and ugly, as Ctesias. 5. Their Speech, which was the same as the Indians, as Ctesias; and for this I find he has no other Author. 6. Their Hair; where he quotes Ctesias again, that they make use of it for Clothes. 7. Their Vertues and Arts; as that they use the same Laws as the
The seventh Chapter in Bartholine has a promising Title, An Pygmaei sint homines, and I expected here something more to our purpose; but I find he rather endeavours to answer the Reasons of those that would make them Apes, than to lay down any of his own to prove them Men. And Albertus Magnus’s Opinion he thinks absurd, that makes them part Men part Beasts; they must be either one or the other, not a Medium between both; and to make out this, he gives us a large Quotation out of Cardan. But Cardan[A] in the same place argues that they are not Men. As to Suessanus[B] his Argument, that they want Reason, this he will not Grant; but if they use it less or more imperfectly than others (which yet, he saith, is not certain) by the same parity of Reason Children, the Boeotians, Cumani and Naturals may not be reckoned Men; and he thinks, what he has mentioned in the preceding Chapter out of Ctesias, &c. shews that they have no small use of Reason. As to Suessanus’s next Argument, that they want Religion, Justice, &c. this, he saith, is not confirmed by any grave Writer; and if it was, yet it would not prove that they are not Men. For this defect (he saith) might hence happen, because they are forced to live in Caves for fear of the Cranes; and others besides them, are herein faulty. For this Opinion, that the Pygmies were Apes and not Men, he quotes likewise Benedictus Varchius,[C] and Joh. Tinnulus,[D] and Paulus Jovius,[E] and several others of the Moderns, he tells us, are of the same mind. Imprimis Geographici quos non puduit in Mappis Geographicis loco Pygmaeorum simias cum Gruibus pugnantes ridicule dipinxisse.
[Footnote A: Cardan. de Rerum varietate, lib. 8. cap. 40.]
[Footnote B: Suessanus Comment. in Arist. de Histor. Animal. lib. 8. cap. 12.]
[Footnote C: Benedict. Varchius de Monstris. lingua vernacula.]
[Footnote D: Joh. Tinnulus in Glotto-Chrysio.]
[Footnote E: Paulus Jovius lib. de Muscovit. Legalione.]
The Title of Bartholine’s eighth and last Chapter is, Argumenta eorum qui Pygmaeorum Historiam fabulosam censent, recitantur & refutantur. Where he tells us, the only Person amongst the Ancients that thought the Story of the Pygmies to be fabulous was Strabo; but amongst the Moderns there are several, as Cardan, Budaeus, Aldrovandus, Fullerus and others. The first Objection (he saith) is that of Spigelius and others; that since the whole World is now discovered, how happens it, that these Pygmies are not to be met with? He has seven Answers to this Objection; how satisfactory they are, the Reader may judge, if he pleases, by perusing them amongst the Quotations.[A] Cardan’s second Objection (he saith) is, that they live but eight years, whence several Inconveniences would happen, as Cardan shews; he answers that no good Author asserts this; and if there was, yet what Cardan urges would not follow; and instances out of Artemidorus in Pliny,[B] as a Parallel in the Calingae a Nation in India, where the Women conceive when five years old, and do not live above eight. Gesner speaking of the Pygmies, saith, Vitae autem longitudo anni arciter octo ut Albertus refert. Cardan perhaps had his Authority from Albertus, or it may be both took it from this passage in Pliny, which I think would better agree to Apes than Men. But Artemidorus being an Indian Historian, and in the same place telling other Romances, the less Credit is to be given to him. The third Objection, he saith, is of Cornelius a Lapide, who denies the Pygmies, because Homer was the first Author of them. The fourth Objection he saith is, because Authors differ about the Place where they should be: This, he tells us, he has answered already in the fifth Chapter. The fifth and last Objection he mentions is, that but few have seen them. He answers, there are a great many Wonders in Sacred and Profane History that we have not seen, yet must not deny. And he instances in three; As the Formicae Indicae, which are as big as great Dogs: The Cornu Plantabile in the Island Goa, which when cut off from the Beast, and flung upon the Ground, will take root like a Cabbage: and the Scotland Geese that grow upon Trees, for which he quotes a great many Authors, and so concludes.
[Footnote A: Respondeo. 1. Contrarium testari Mercatorum Relationem apud Ananiam supra Cap. 4. 2. Et licet non inventi essent vivi a quolibet, pari jure Monocerota & alia negare liceret. 3. Qui maria pernavigant, vix oras paucas maritimas lustrant, adeo non terras omnes a mari dissitas. 4. Neque in Oris illos habitare maritimis ex Capite quinto manifestum est. 5. Quis testatum se omnem adhibuisse diligentiam in inquirendo eos ut inveniret. 6. Ita in terra habitant, ut in Antris vitam tolerare dicantur. 7. Si vel maxime omni ab omnibus diligentia quaesiti fuissent, nec inventi; fieri potest, ut instar Gigantum jam desierint nec sint amplius.]
[Footnote B: Plinij Hist. Nat. lib. 7. cap. 2. p.m. 14.]
Now how far Bartholine in his Treatise has made out that the Pygmies of the Ancients were real Men, either from the Authorities he has quoted, or his Reasonings upon them, I submit to the Reader. I shall proceed now (as I promised) to consider the Proof they pretend from Holy Writ: For Bartholine and others insist upon that Text in Ezekiel (Cap. 27. Vers. 11) where the Vulgar Translation has it thus; Filij Arvad cum Exercitu tuo supra Muros tuos per circuitum, & Pygmaei in Turribus tuis fuerunt; Scuta sua suspenderunt supra Muros tuos per circuitum. Now Talentonius and Bartholine think that what Ctesias relates of the Pygmies, as their being good Archers, very well illustrates this Text of Ezekiel: I shall here transcribe what Sir Thomas Brown[A] remarks upon it; and if any one requires further Satisfaction, they may consult Job Ludolphus’s Comment on his AEthiopic History.[B]
[Footnote A: Sir Thomas Brown’s Enquiries into Vulgar Errors, lib. 4. cap. 11. p. 242.]
[Footnote B: Comment. in Hist. AEthiopic. p. 73.]
The second Testimony (saith Sir Thomas Brown) is deduced from Holy Scripture; thus rendered in the Vulgar Translation, Sed & Pygmaei qui erant in turribus tuis, pharetras suas suspenderunt in muris tuis per gyrum: from whence notwithstanding we cannot infer this Assertion, for first the Translators accord not, and the Hebrew word Gammadim is very variously rendered. Though Aquila, Vatablus and Lyra will have it Pygmaei, yet in the Septuagint, it is no more than Watchman; and so in the Arabick and High-Dutch. In the Chalde, Cappadocians, in Symmachus, Medes, and in the French, those of Gamed. Theodotian of old, and Tremillius of late, have retained the Textuary word; and so have the Italian, Low Dutch, and English Translators, that is, the Men of Arvad were upon thy Walls round about, and the Gammadims were in thy Towers.
Nor do Men only dissent in the Translation of the
word, but in the Exposition of the Sense and Meaning
thereof; for some by Gammadims understand a
People of Syria, so called from the City of
Gamala; some hereby understand the Cappadocians,
many the Medes: and hereof Forerius
hath a singular Exposition, conceiving the Watchmen
of Tyre, might well be called Pygmies,
the Towers of that City being so high, that unto
Men below, they appeared in a Cubital Stature.
Others expound it quite contrary to common Acception,
that is not Men of the least, but of the largest size;
so doth Cornelius construe Pygmaei, or
Viri Cubitales, that is, not Men of a Cubit high,
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but of the largest Stature, whose height like that
of Giants, is rather to be taken by the Cubit than
the Foot; in which phrase we read the measure of
Goliah, whose height is said to be six Cubits and
span. Of affinity hereto is also the Exposition
of Jerom; not taking Pygmies for Dwarfs,
but stout and valiant Champions; not taking the sense
of [Greek: pygmae], which signifies the Cubit
measure, but that which expresseth Pugils; that is,
Men fit for Combat and the Exercise of the Fist.
Thus there can be no satisfying illation from this
Text, the diversity, or rather contrariety of Expositions
and Interpretations, distracting more than confirming
the Truth of the Story.
But why Aldrovandus or Caspar Bartholine should bring in St. Austin as a Favourer of this Opinion of Men Pygmies, I see no Reason. To me he seems to assert quite the contrary: For proposing this Question, An ex propagine Adam vel filiorum Noe, quaedam genera Hominum Monstrosa prodierunt? He mentions a great many monstrous Nations of Men, as they are described by the Indian Historians, and amongst the rest, the Pygmies, the Sciopodes, &c. And adds, Quid dicam de Cynocephalis, quorum Canina Capita atque ipse Latratus magis Bestias quam Homines confitentur? Sed omnia Genera Hominum, quae dicuntur esse, esse credere, non est necesse. And afterwards so fully expresses himself in favour of the Hypothesis I am here maintaining, that I think it a great Confirmation of it. Nam & Simias (saith he) _& Cercopithecos, & Sphingas, si nesciremus non Homines esse, sed Bestias, possent isti Historici de sua Curiositate gloriantes velut Gentes Aliquas Hominum nobis impunita vanitate mentiri._ At last he concludes and determines the Question thus, Aut illa, quae talia de quibusdam Gentibus scripta sunt, omnino nulla sunt, aut si sunt, Homines non sunt, aut ex Adam sunt si Homines sunt.
There is nothing therefore in St. Austin that justifies the being of Men Pygmies, or that the Pygmies were Men; he rather makes them Apes. And there is nothing in his Scholiast Ludovicus Vives that tends this way, he only quotes from other Authors, what might illustrate the Text he is commenting upon, and no way asserts their being Men. I shall therefore next enquire into Bochartus’s Opinion, who would have them to be the Nubae or Nobae. Hos Nubas Troglodyticos (saith[A] he) ad Avalitem Sinum esse Pygmaeos Veterum multa probant. He gives us five Reasons to prove this. As, 1. The Authority of Hesychius, who saith, [Greek: Noboi Pygmaioi]. 2. Because Homer places the Pygmies near the Ocean, where the Nubae were. 3. Aristotle places them at the lakes of the Nile. Now by the Nile Bochartus tells us, we must understand the Astaborus,
[Footnote A: Sam. Bochart. Geograph. Sacrae, Part. 1. lib. 2. cap. 23. p.m. 142.]
[Footnote B: Bocharti Hierozoici pars Posterior, lib. I. cap. II. p. 76.]
But this Fable of Men Pygmies has not only obtained amongst the Greeks and Indian Historians: the Arabians likewise tell much such Stories of them, as the same learned Bochartus informs us. I will give his Latin Translation of one of them, which he has printed in Arabick also: Arabes idem (saith[A] Bochartus) referunt ex cujusdam Graeculi fide, qui Jacobo Isaaci filio, Sigariensi fertur ita narrasse. Navigabam aliquando in mari Zingitano, _& impulit me ventus in quandam Insulam_. In cujus Oppidum cum devenissem, reperi Incolas Cubitalis esse staturae, & plerosque Coclites. Quorum multitudo in me congregata me deduxit ad Regem suum. Fussit is, ut Captivus detinerer; & inquandam Caveae speciem conjectus sum; eos autem aliquando ad bellum instrui cum viderem, dixerunt Hostem imminere, & fore ut propediem ingrueret. Nec multo post Gruum exercitus in eos insurrexit. Atque ideo erant Coclites, quod eorum oculos hae confodissent. Atque Ego, virga assumpta, in eas impetum feci, & illae avolarunt atque aufugerunt; ob quod facinus in honore fui apud illos. This Author, it seems, represents them under the same Misfortune with the Poet, who first mentioned them, as being blind, by having their Eyes peck’d out by their cruel Enemies. Such an Accident possibly might happen now and then, in these bloody Engagements, tho’ I wonder the Indian Historians have not taken notice of it. However the Pygmies shewed themselves grateful to their Deliverer, in heaping Honours on him. One would guess, for their own sakes, they could not do less than make him their Generalissimo; but our Author is modest in not declaring what they were.
[Footnote A: Bochartus ibid. p.m. 77.]
Isaac Vossius seems to unsettle all, and endeavours utterly to ruine the whole Story: for he tells us, If you travel all over Africa, you shall not meet with either a Crane or Pygmie: Se mirari (saith[A] Isaac Vossius) Aristotelem, quod tam serio affirmet non esse fabellam, quae de Pygmaeis & Bello, quod cum Gruibus gerant, narrantur. Si quis totam pervadat Africam, nullas vel Grues vel Pygmaeos inveniet. Now one would wonder more at Vossius, that he should assert this of Aristotle, which he never said. And since Vossius is so mistaken in what he relates of Aristotle; where he might so easily have been in the right, ’tis not improbable, but he may be out in the rest too: For who has travelled all Africa over, that could inform him? And why should he be so peremptory in the Negative, when he had so positive an Affirmation of Aristotle to the contrary? or if he would not
[Footnote A: Isaac Vossius de Nili aliorumque stuminum Origine, Cap. 18.]
[Footnote B: Aristophanes in Nubibus.]
But Vossius I find, tho’ he will not allow the Cranes, yet upon second Thoughts did admit of Pygmies here: For this Story of the Pygmies and the Cranes having made so much noise, he thinks there may be something of truth in it; and then gives us his Conjecture, how that the Pygmies may be those Dwarfs, that are to be met with beyond the Fountains of the Nile; but that they do not fight Cranes but Elephants, and kill a great many of them, and drive a considerable Traffick for their teeth with the Jagi, who sell them to those of Congo and the Portuguese. I will give you Vossius’s own words; Attamen (saith[A] he) ut solent fabellae non de nihilo fingi & aliquod plerunque continent veri, id ipsum quoque que hic factum esse existimo. Certum quippe est ultra Nili fontes multos reperiri Nanos, qui tamen non cum Gruibus, sed cum Elephantis perpetuum gerant bellum. Praecipuum quippe Eboris commercium in regno magni Macoki per istos transigitur Homunciones; habitant in Sylvis, & mira dexteritate Elephantos sagittis conficiunt. Carnibus vescuntur, Dentes vero Jagis divendunt, illi autem Congentibus & Lusitanis.
[Footnote A: Isaac Vossius ibid.]
Job Ludolphus[A] in his Commentary on his AEthiopick History remarks, That there was never known a Nation all of Dwarfs. Nani quippe (saith Ludolphus) Naturae quodam errore ex aliis justae staturae hominibus generantur. Qualis vero ea Gens sit, ex qua ista Naturae Ludibria tanta copia proveniant, Vossium docere oportelat, quia Pumiliones Pumiles alios non gignunt, sed plerunque steriles sunt, experientia teste; ut plane non opus habuerunt Doctores Talmudici Nanorum matrimonia prohibere, ne Digitales ex iis nascerentur. Ludolphus it may be is a little too strict with Vossius for calling them Nani; he may only mean a sort
[Footnote A: Job Ludolphus in Comment, in Historiam AEthiopicam, p.m. 71.]
[Footnote B: Philostratus. Icon. lib. 2. p.m. 817.]
[Footnote C: Plutarch. in vita Q. Sertorij.]
But to return to our Pygmies; tho’ most of the great and learned Men would seem to decry this Story as a Fiction and mere Fable, yet there is something of Truth, they think, must have given the first rise to it, and that it was not wholly the product of Phancy, but had some real foundation, tho’ disguised, according to the different Imagination and Genius of the Relator: ’Tis this that has incited them to give their several Conjectures about it. Job Ludolphus finding what has been offered at in Relation to the Pygmies, not to satisfie, he thinks he can better account for this Story, by leaving out the Cranes, and placing in their
[Footnote A: Job Ludolphus Comment, in Historiam suam AEthiopic. p. 73.]
’Tis true, if what Juvenal only in ridicule mentions, was to be admitted as a thing really done, that the Cranes could fly away with a Pygmie, as our Kites can with a Chicken, there might be some pretence for Ludovicus’s Condor or Cunctor: For he mentions afterwards[A] out of P. Joh. dos Santos the Portuguese, that ’twas observed that one of these Condors once flew away with an Ape, Chain, Clog and all, about ten or twelve pounds weight, which he carried to a neighbouring Wood, and there devoured him. And Garcilasso de la Vega[B] relates that they will seize and fly away with a Child ten or twelve years old. But Juvenal[C] only mentions this in ridicule and merriment, where he saith,
Adsubitas Thracum volucres, nubemque sonoram
Pygmaeos parvis currit Bellator in armis:
Mox impar hosti, raptusque per aera curvis
Unguibus a faeva fertur Grue.
[Footnote A: Job Ludolphus ibid. pag. 164.]
[Footnote B: Garcilasso de la Vega Royal Comment, of Peru.]
[Footnote C: Juvenal Satyr. 13 vers. 167.]
Besides, were the Condors to be taken for the Cranes, it would utterly spoil the Pygmaeomachia; for where the Match is so very unequal, ’tis impossible for the Pygmies to make the least shew of a fight. Ludolphus puts as great hardships on them, to fight these Condors, as Vossius did, in making them fight Elephants, but not with equal Success; for Vossius’s Pygmies made great Slaughters of the Elephants; but Ludolphus his Cranes sweep away the Pygmies, as easily as an Owl would a Mouse, and eat them up into the bargain; now I never heard the Cranes were so cruel and barbarous to their Enemies, tho’ there are some Nations in the World that are reported to do so.
Moreover, these Condor’s I find are very rare to be met with; and when they are, they often appear single or but a few. Now Homer’s, and the Cranes of the Ancients, are always represented in Flocks. Thus Oppian[A] as I find him translated into Latin Verse:
Et velut AEthiopum veniunt, Nilique fluenta Turmalim Palamedis Aves, celsoeque per altum Aera labentes fugiunt Athlanta nivosum, Pygmaeos imbelle Genus, parvumque saligant, Non perturbato procedunt ordine densae Instructis volucres obscurant aera Turmis.
To imagine these Grues a single Gigantick Bird, would much lessen the Beauty of Homer’s Simile, and would not have served his turn; and there are none who have borrowed Homer’s fancy, but have thought so. I will only farther instance in Baptista Mantuan:
Pygmaei breve vulgus, iners Plelecula, quando Convenere Grues longis in praelia rostris, Sublato clamore fremunt, dumque agmine magno Hostibus occurrit, tellus tremit Indica, clamant Littora, arenarum nimbis absconditur aer; Omnis & involvit Pulvis solemque, Polumque, Et Genus hoc Hominum natura imbelle, quietum, Mite, facit Mavors pugnax, immane Cruentum.
[Footnote: A Oppian lib. I. de Piscibus.]
Having now considered and examined the various Opinions of these learned Men concerning this Pygmaeomachia; and represented the Reasons they give for maintaining their Conjectures; I shall beg leave to subjoyn my own: and if what at present I offer, may seem more probable, or account for this Story with more likelyhood, than what hath hitherto been advanced, I shall not think my time altogether misspent: But if this will not do, I shall never trouble my head more about them, nor think my self any ways concerned to write on this Argument again. And I had not done it now, but upon the occasion of Dissecting this Orang-Outang, or wild Man, which being a Native of Africa, and brought from Angola, tho’ first taken higher up in the Country, as I was informed by the Relation given me; and observing so great a Resemblance, both in the outward shape, and, what surprized me more, in the Structure likewise of the inward Parts, to a Man; this Thought was easily suggested to me, That very probably this Animal, or some other such of the same Species, might give the first rise and occasion to the Stories of the Pygmies. What has been the [Greek: proton pheudos], and rendered this Story so difficult to be believed, I find hath been the Opinion that has generally obtained, that these Pygmies were really a Race of little Men. And tho’ they are only Brutes, yet being at first call’d wild Men, no doubt from the Resemblance they bear to Men; there have not been wanting those especially amongst the Ancients, who have invented a hundred ridiculous Stories concerning them; and have attributed those things to them, were they to be believed in what they say, that necessarily conclude them real Men.
To sum up therefore what I have already discoursed, I think I have proved, that the Pygmies were not an Humane Species or Men. And tho’ Homer, who first mentioned them, calls them [Greek: andres pygmaioi], yet we need not understand by this Expression any thing more than Apes: And tho’ his Geranomachia hath been look’d upon by most only as a Poetical Fiction; yet by assigning what might be the true Cause of this Quarrel between the Cranes and Pygmies, and by divesting it of the many fabulous Relations that the Indian Historians, and others, have loaded it with, I have endeavoured to render it a true, at least a probable Story. I have instanced in Ctesias and the Indian Historians, as the Authors and Inventors of the many Fables we have had concerning them: Particularly, I have Examined those Relations, where Speech or Language is attributed to them; and shewn, that there is no reason to believe that they ever spake any Language at all. But these Indian Historians having related so many extravagant Romances of the Pygmies, as to render their whole History suspected, nay to be utterly denied, that there were ever any such Creatures as Pygmies in Nature, both by Strabo of old, and most of our learned men of late, I have endeavoured to assert the Truth of their being, from a Text in Aristotle; which being so positive in affirming their Existence, creates a difficulty, that can no ways be got over by such as are of the contrary Opinion. This Text I have vindicated from the false Interpretations and Glosses of several Great Men, who had their Minds so prepossessed and prejudiced with the Notion of Men Pygmies, that they often would quote it, and misapply it, tho’ it contain’d nothing that any ways favoured their Opinion; but the contrary rather, that they were Brutes, and not Men.
And that the Pygmies were really Brutes, I think I have plainly proved out of Herodotus and Philostratus, who reckon them amongst the wild Beasts that breed in those Countries: For tho’ by Herodotus they are call’d [Greek: andres agrioi], and Philostratus calls them [Greek: anthropous melanas], yet both make them [Greek: theria] or wild Beasts. And I might here add what Pausanias[A] relates from Euphemus Car, who by contrary Winds was driven upon some Islands, where he tells us, [Greek: en de tautais oikein andras agrious], but when he comes to describe them, tells us that they had no Speech; that they had Tails on their Rumps; and were very lascivious toward the Women in the Ship. But of these more, when we come to discourse of Satyrs.
[Footnote A: Pausanias in Atticis, p.m. 21.]
And we may the less wonder to find that they call Brutes Men, since ’twas common for these Historians to give the Title of Men, not only to Brutes, but they were grown so wanton in their Inventions, as to describe several Nations of Monstrous Men, that had never any Being, but in their own Imagination, as I have instanced in several. I therefore excuse Strabo, for denying the Pygmies, since he could not but be convinced, they could not be such Men, as these Historians have described them. And the better to judge of the Reasons that some of the Moderns have given to prove the Being of Men Pygmies, I have laid down as Postulata’s, that hereby we must not understand Dwarfs, nor yet a Nation of Men, tho’ somewhat of a lesser size and stature than ordinary; but we must observe those two Characteristicks that Homer gives of them, that they are Cubitales and fight Cranes.
Having premised this, I have taken into consideration Caspar Bartholine Senior his Opusculum de Pygmaeis, and Jo. Talentonius’s Dissertation about them: and upon examination do find, that neither the Humane Authorities, nor Divine that they alledge, do any ways prove, as they pretend, the Being of Men Pygmies. St. Austin, who is likewise quoted on their side, is so far from favouring this Opinion, that he doubts whether any such Creatures exist, and if they do, concludes them to be Apes or Monkeys; and censures those Indian Historians for imposing such Beasts upon us, as distinct Races of Men. Julius Caesar Scaliger, and Isaac Casaubon, and Adrian Spigelius utterly deny the Being of Pygmies, and look upon them as a Figment only of the Ancients, because such little Men as they describe them to be, are no where to be met with in all the World. The Learned Bochartus tho’ he esteems the Geranomachia to be a Fable, and slights it, yet thinks that what might give the occasion to the Story of the Pygmies, might be the Nubae or Nobae; as Isaac Vossius conjectures that it was those Dwarfs beyond the Fountains of the Nile, that Dapper calls the Mimos, and tells us, they kill Elephants for to make a Traffick with their Teeth. But Job Ludolphus alters the Scene, and instead of Cranes, substitutes his Condors, who do not fight the Pygmies, but fly away with them, and then devour them.
Now all these Conjectures do no ways account for Homer’s Pygmies and Cranes, they are too much forced and strain’d. Truth is always easie and plain. In our present Case therefore I think the Orang-Outang, or wild Man, may exactly supply the place of the Pygmies, and without any violence or injury to the Story, sufficiently account for the whole History of the Pygmies,
I cannot see therefore any thing that will so fairly solve this doubt, that will reconcile all, that will so easily and plainly make out this Story, as by making the Orang-Outang to be the Pygmie of the Ancients; for ’tis the same Name that Antiquity gave them. For Herodotus’s [Greek: andres agrioi], what can they be else, than Homines Sylvestres, or wild Men? as they are now called. And Homer’s [Greek: andres pygmaioi], are no more an Humane Kind, or Men, then Herodotus’s [Greek: andres agrioi], which he makes to be [Greek: theria], or wild Beasts: And the [Greek: andres mikroi] or [Greek: melanes] (as they are often called) were just the same. Because this sort of Apes had so great a resemblance to Men, more than other Apes or Monkeys; and they going naturally erect, and being designed by Nature to go so, (as I have shewn in the Anatomy) the Ancients had a very plausible ground for giving them this denomination of [Greek: andres] or [Greek: anthropoi], but commonly they added an Epithet; as [Greek: agrioi, mikroi, pygmaioi, melanes], or some such like. Now the Ancient Greek and Indian Historians, tho’ they might know these Pygmies to be only Apes like Men, and not to be real Men, yet being so extremely addicted to Mythology, or making Fables, and finding this so fit a Subject to engraft upon, and invent Stories about, they have not been wanting in furnishing us with a great many very Romantick ones on this occasion. And the Moderns being imposed upon by them, and misguided by the Name of [Greek: andres] or [Greek: anthropoi], as if thereby must be always understood an Humane Kind, or real Men, they have altogether mistaken the Truth of the Story, and have either wholly denied it, or rendered it as improbable by their own Conjectures.
This difficulty therefore of their being called Men, I think, may fairly enough be accounted by what I have said. But it may be objected that the Orang-Outang, or these wild or savage Men are not [Greek: pygmaioi], or Trispithami, that is, but two Foot and a quarter high, because by some Relations that have been given, it appears they have been observed to be of a higher stature, and as tall as ordinary Men. Now tho’ this may be allowed as to these wild Men that are bred in other places; and probably enough like wise, there are such in some Parts of the Continent of Africa; yet ’tis sufficient to our business if there are any there, that will come within our Dimensions; for our Scene lies in Africa; where Strabo observes, that generally the Beasts are of a less size than ordinary; and this he thinks might give rise to the Story of the Pygmies. For, saith he[A] [Greek: Ta de boskaemata autois esti mikra, probata kai aiges, kai kynes mikroi, tracheis de kai machimoi (oikountes mikroi ontes) tacha de kai tous pygmaious apo tes touton mikrophyias epenoaesan, kai aneplasan.] i.e. That their Beasts are small, as their Sheep, Goats and Oxen, and their Dogs are small, but hairy and fierce: and it may be (saith he) from the [Greek: mikrophyia] or littleness of the stature of these Animals, they have invented and imposed on us the Pygmies. And then adds, That no body fit to be believed ever saw them; because he fancied, as a great many others have done, that these Pygmies must be real Men, and not a sort of Brutes. Now since the other Brutes in this Country are generally of a less size than in other Parts, why may not this sort of Ape, the Orang-Outang, or wild Man, be so likewise. Aristotle speaking of the Pygmies, saith, [Greek: genos mikron men kai autoi, kai oi hippoi.] That both they and the Horses there are but small. He does not say their Horses, for they were never mounted upon Horses, but only upon Partridges, Goats and Rams. And as the Horses, and other Beasts are naturally less in Africa than in other Parts, so likewise may the Orang-Outang be. This that I dissected, which was brought from Angola (as I have often mentioned) wanted something of the just stature of the Pygmies; but it was young, and I am therefore uncertain to what tallness it might grow, when at full Age: And neither Tulpius, nor Gassendus, nor any that I have hitherto met with, have adjusted the full stature of this Animal that is found in those parts from whence ours was brought: But ’tis most certain, that there are sorts of Apes that are much less than the Pygmies are described to be. And, as other Brutes, so the Ape-kind, in different Climates, may be of different Dimensions; and because the other Brutes here are generally small, why may not they be so likewise. Or if the difference should be but little, I see no great reason in this case, why we should be over-nice, or scrupulous.
[Footnote A: Strabo Geograph. lib. 17. p.m. 565.]
As to our Ape Pygmies or Orang-Outang fighting the Cranes, this, I think, may be easily enough made out, by what I have already observed; for this wild Man I dissected was Carnivorous, and it may be Omnivorous, at least as much as Man is; for it would eat any thing that was brought to the Table. And if it was not their Hunger that drove them to it, their Wantonness, it may be, would make them apt enough to rob the Cranes Nests; and if they did so, no doubt but the Cranes would noise enough about it, and endeavour what they could to beat them off, which a Poet might easily make a Fight: Tho’ Homer only makes use of it as a Simile, in comparing the great Shouts of the Trojans to the Noise of the Cranes, and the Silence of the Greeks to that of the Pygmies when they are going to Engage, which is natural enough, and very just, and contains nothing, but what may easily be believed; tho’ upon this account he is commonly exposed, and derided, as the Inventor of this Fable; and that there was nothing of Truth in it, but that ’twas wholly a Fiction of his own.
Those Pygmies that Paulus Jovius[A] describes, tho’ they dwell at a great distance from Africa, and he calls them Men, yet are so like Apes, that I cannot think them any thing else. I will give you his own words: Ultra Lapones (saith he) in Regione inter Corum & Aquilonem perpetua oppressa Caligine Pygmaeos reperiri, aliqui eximiae fidei testes retulerunt; qui postquam ad summum adoleverint, nostratis Pueri denum annorum Mensuram vix excedunt. Meticulosum genus hominum, & garritu Sermonem exprimens, adeo ut tam Simiae propinqui, quam Statura ac sensibus ab justae Proceritatis homine remoti videantur. Now there is this Advantage in our Hypothesis, it will take in all the Pygmies, in any part of the World; or wherever they are to be met with, without supposing, as some have done, that ’twas the Cranes that forced them to quit their Quarters; and upon this account several Authors have described them in different places: For unless we suppose the Cranes so kind to them, as to waft them over, how came we to find them often in Islands? But this is more than can be reasonably expected from so great Enemies.
[Footnote A: Paul. Jovij de Legatione Muschovitar. lib. p.m. 489.]
I shall conclude by observing to you, that this having been the Common Error of the Age, in believing the Pygmies to be a sort of little Men, and it having been handed down from so great Antiquity, what might contribute farther to the confirming of this Mistake, might be, the Imposture of the Navigators, who failing to Parts where these Apes are, they have embalmed their Bodies, and brought them home, and then made the People believe that they were the
[Footnote A: M. Pauli Veneti de Regionibus Oriental. lib. 3. cap. 15. p. m. 390.]
[Footnote B: Jo. Jonston. Hist. Nat. de Quadruped. p.m. 139.]
I shall only add, That the Servile Offices that these Creatures are observed to perform, might formerly, as it does to this very day, impose upon Mankind to believe, that they were of the same Species with themselves; but that only out of Sullenness or cunning, they think they will not speak, for fear of being made Slaves. Philostratus[A] tells us, That the Indians make use of the Apes in gathering the Pepper; and for this Reason they do defend and preserve them from the Lions, who are very greedy of preying upon them: And altho’ he calls them Apes, yet he speaks of them as Men, and as if they were the Husbandmen of the Pepper Trees, [Greek: kai ta dendra oi piperides, on georgoi pithekoi]. And he calls them the People of Apes; [Greek: ou legetai pithekon oikein demos en mychois tou orous]. Dapper[B] tells us, That the Indians take the Baris when young, and make them so tame, that they will do almost the work of a Slave; for they commonly go erect as Men do. They will beat Rice in a Mortar, carry Water in a Pitcher, &c. And Gassendus[C] in the Life of Pieresky, tells us, us, That they will play upon a Pipe or Cittern, or the like Musick, they will sweep the House, turn the Spit, beat in a Mortar, and do other Offices in a Family. And Acosta, as I find him quoted by Garcilasso de la Vega[D] tells us of a Monkey he saw at the Governour’s House at Cartagena, ’whom they fent often to the Tavern for Wine, with Money in one hand, and a Bottle in the other; and that when he came to the Tavern, he would not deliver his Money, until he had received his Wine. If the Boys met with him by the way, or made a houting or noise after him, he would set down his Bottle, and throw Stones at them; and having cleared the way he would take up his Bottle, and hasten home, And tho’ he loved Wine excessively, yet he would not dare to touch it, unless his Master gave him License.’ A great many Instances of this Nature might be given that are very surprising. And in another place he tells us, That the Natives think that they can speak, but will not, for fear of being made to work. And Bontius[E] mentions that the Javans had the same Opinion concerning the Orang-Outang, Loqui vero eos, easque Javani aiunt, sed non velle, ne ad labores cogerentur.
[Footnote A: Philostratus in vita Apollonij Tyanaei, lib. 3. cap. I. p. m. 110, & 111.]
[Footnote B: Dapper Description de l’Afrique, p.m. 249.]
[Footnote C: Gassendus in vita Pierskij, lib. 5. p.m. 169.]
[Footnote D: Garcilasso de la Vega Royal Commentaries of Peru, lib. 8. cap. 18. p. 1333.]
[Footnote E: Jac. Bontij Hist. Nat. & Med. lib. 5. cap. 32. p.m. 85.]
* * * * *
[NOTE.—A few obvious errors in the quotations have been corrected, but for the most part they stand as in Tyson, who must, therefore, be held responsible for any inaccuracies which may exist.]