Edward Tyson

“ The discoveries, however, of this century have, as all know, re-established in their essential details the accounts of the older writers, and in doing so have demolished the theories of Tyson and Buffon. We now know, not merely that there are pigmy races in existence, but that the area which they occupy is an extensive one, and in the remote past has without doubt been more extensive still. Moreover, certain of these races have been, at least tentatively, identified with the pigmy tribes of Pliny, Herodotus, Aristotle, and other writers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Ludolphus it may be is a little too strict with Vossius for calling them Nani; he may only mean a sort of Men in that Country of less Stature than ordinary. And Dapper in his History of Africa, from whom Vossius takes this Account, describes such in the Kingdom of Mokoko, he calls Mimos, and tells us that they kill Elephants. But I see no reason why Vossius should take these Men for the Pygmies of the Ancients, or think that they gave any occasion or ground for the inventing this Fable, is there was no other reason, this was sufficient, because they were able to kill the Elephants. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Julius Cæsar 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 Nubæ or Nobæ ”

“ 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. ”

“ If, as archaeologists tell us, there was once a race of men in Northern Europe very short and hairy, that dwelt in underground chambers artificially concealed by green hillocks, it does not seem unlikely that odd survivors of the race should have lived on after they had been conquered and nearly exterminated by Aryan invaders, and should occasionally have performed something like the pranks told of fairies and trolls. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”