Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1896 — Pygmy Races. [ARTICLE]

Pygmy Races.

There are several pygmy races varying little in size, and ranging from 3Vi feet to 4% feet in height. They include the Itas, of the Philippines: the Andaman Islanders; at Batwa. in the Congo basin, and the Akkas of Central Africa, Of the African dwarf races. Emln Pasha states that the tribes near Lake Akkas average 4 feet 1 inch. Dr. Parke, who in 1886 discovered the Batwa. gives their average he-jght as 4 feet 3 inches, but places above the Nubian negro. The existing diminutive races are regarded by some anthropologists as surviving fragments of a rgee that once occupied possibly a much wider region, extending, it is suggested, over India, North Africa, the Pyrenees, Switzerland and Central America. The pygmies mentioned by Aristotle and Herodotus occupied the Upper Nile and the Niger valley, and then, as now, dwarfs were socially at ■the lowest stage of culture.