PYGMY RELIGIONS. African Pygmies comprise a variety of ethnic groups who dwell as hunter-gatherers in the rain forest of central Africa. Because they live as nomads in a demanding and inaccessible environment, few serious studies have been done on them. Most studies of Pygmy life have been concerned with how they relate to the history of religions. According to Wilhelm Schmidt (1868–1954), an ordained priest and ethnologist interested in the origin of religion, the Pygmy peoples represented humanity in its childhood; they were a living equivalent of one of the earliest stages of human culture. Since early evidence seemed to indicate the existence of monotheistic belief in primitive societies, Schmidt engaged his colleagues to explore Pygmy religious life. Hence, for years the Pygmies were studied by Catholic missionaries seeking to support the idea that monotheism (rather than animism or fetishism) was the earliest form of religion.

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