(1894) A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients

8/9/2019 (1894) A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients

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Bibllotb^que &e Caracas.VOL. IX.


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Five hundred and fifty copies of this Edition have beenprinted, five hundred of which are for sale.

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a iPbilolOGtcal lessai? Concerntno tbe"" PlÔtnies of tbe Bncients,

982 ^li&Jarti ^rgsoti, P[.1B., J.H.S.,li, 1699.

iSofior d^litteK, iDttl^ an Cnttatmctfon STreatmg ofPtgtng lâcBS antj Jairg STales, fig 23erttam

, a. OTinlJle, 5S.Sc., fK.., :P[.aSErmitg ffl^flllcge, JBuliItn ; can of

t]^c iWelitcal Jacultg anUProfesssor of ^natomg,

iKaaon CTolIege,Btrmmslâm.

LONDON. MDCCCXCIV. PUBLISHED BY DAVIDNUTT IN THE STRAND,

INDIANA UNIVERSITYA" LIBRARIESBLOOMINGTON


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MY DEAR MOTHER


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PREFATORY NOTEIt is only necessary for me to state here, what Ihave mentioned in the Introduction, that myaccount of the habits of the Pigmy races of legendand myth makes no pretence of being in anysense a complete or exhaustive account of theliterature of this subject. I have contented my-self with bringing forward such tales as seemedof value for the purpose of establishing thepoints upon which I desire to lay emphasis.

I have elsewhere expressed my obligations toM, De Quatrefage's book on Pigmies, obHgationswhich wiU be at once recognised by those familiarwith that monograph. To his observations Ihave endeavoured to add such other publishedfacts as I have been able to gather in relation tothese peoples.

I have to thank Professors Sir WiUiam Turner,Haddon, Schlegel, Brinton, and Topinard for their


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viii PREFATORY NOTEkindness in supplying me with information inresponse to my inquiries on several points.

Finally, I have to acknowledge my indebted-ness to Professor Alexander Macalister, Presidentof the Anthropological Institute, and to Mr. E.Sidney Hartland, for their kindness in readingthrough, the former the first two sections, andthe latter the last two sections of the Intro-duction, and for the valuable suggestions whichboth have made. These gentlemen have laid meunder obligations which I can acknowledge, butcannot repay.

BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE.Mason College,

Birmingham, 1894,


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u^^

INTRODUCTIONI.

Edwaed Tyson, the author of the Essay withwhich this book is concerned, was, on theauthority of Monk's Eoll of the Eoyal Collegeof Physicians, born, according to some accounts,at Bristol, according to others, at Clevedon, co.Somerset, but was descended from a familywhich had long settled in Cumberland. He waseducated at Magdalene Hall, Oxford, as amember of which he proceeded Bachelor of Artson the 8th of February 1670, and Master ofArts on the 4th of November 1673. Hisdegree of Doctor of Medicine he took at Cam-bridge in 1678 as a member of Corpus ChristiCollege. Dr. Tyson was admitted a candidateof the College of Physicians on the 30th . ofSeptember 1680, and a Fellow in April 1683.


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X INTRODUCTIONHe was Censor of the College in 1694, and heldthe appointments of Physician to the Hospitalsof Bridewell and Bethlem, and of AnatomicalReader at Surgeons' Hall. He was a Fellow ofthe Royal Society, and contributed several papersto the " Philosophical Transactions," Besides anumber of anatomical works, he published in1699 "A Philosophical Essay concerning theRhymes of the Ancients," and in the same yearthe work by which his name is still known, inwhich the Philological Essay which is here re-printed finds a place. Tyson died on the istof August 1708, in the fifty-eighth year of hisage, and is buried at St. Dionis Backchurch. Hewas the original of the Carus not very flatter-ingly described in Garth's "Dispensary."The title-page of the work above alluded to

runs as follows :


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Orang-Outang, Jive Homo Sylvejiris :OR, THEANATOMYOF A

PYGMIECompared with that of aMonkey, an ^^, and a Man,To which is added, APHILOLOGICAL ESSAY

Concerning thePygmies, the Cynocephali, the Satyrs,and Sphinges of the Ancients.

Wherein it will appear that they are alleither APES or MONKEYS, andnot MEN, as formerly pretended.

By EDWARD TTSON M.D.Fellow of the Colledge of Ph5r(icians, and theRoyal Society : Phyfician to the Hofpital of Beth-lem, and Reader of Anatomy at Chirurgeons-HalL

L N D ON:Printed for Thomas Bennet at the Half-Moon in St.

Paul's Church-yard ; and Daniel Brown at theBlack Swan and Bible without Temple-Bar andare to be had of Mr. Hunt at the Repofitory inGrejham- Colledge. M DC XCIX.


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xii INTRODUCTIONIt bears the authority of the Eoyal Society :

17 Die Maij, 1699.Imprimatur Liber cui Titulus, Orang-Outang,

sive Homo Sylvestris, &c. AuthoreEdvardo 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 skeletonis at this present moment in the Natural HistoryMuseum at South Kensington. Tyson's grand-daughter married a Dr. Allardyce, who was aphysician of good standing in Cheltenham. The"Pygmie" formed a somewhat remarkable itemof her dowry. Her husband presented it to theCheltenham Museum, where it was fortunatelycarefully preserved until, quite recently, it wastransferred to its present position.At the conclusion of the purely scientific part

of the work the author added four PhilologicalEssays, as will have appeared from his title-page.The first of these is both the longest and themost interesting, and has alone been selected forrepublication in this volume.

This is not the place to deal with the scientificmerit of the main body of Tyson's work, but it


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INTRODUCTION xiijmay at least be said that it was the first attemptwhich had been made to deal with the anatomyof any of the anthropoid apes, and that itsexecution shows very conspicuous ability on thepart of its author.

Tyson, however, was not satisfied with thehonour of being the author of an importantmorphologicarwork ; he desired to round off hissubject by considering its bearing upon the, tohim, wild and fabulous tales concerning pigmyraces. The various allusions to these races metwith in the pages of the older writers, and discussed in his, were to him what fairy tales areto us. Like modern folk-lorists, he wished toexplain, even to euhemerise them, and bringthem into line with the science of his day.Hence the "Philological Essay" with whichthis book is concerned. There are no pigmyraces, he says ; " the most diligent enquiries oflate into all the parts of the inhabited worldcould never discover any such puny diminutiverace of mankiad." But there are tales aboutthem, "fables and wonderful and merry re-lations, that are transmitted down to us con-cerning them," which surely require explanation.That explanation he found in his theory that all


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xiv INTRODUCTIONthe accounts of pigmy tribes were based uponthe mistakes of travellers who had taken apesfor men. Ifor was he without followers in hisopinion; amongst whom here need only bementioned Buffon, who in his Histoire desOiseaux explains the Homeric tale much asTyson had done. The discoveries, however, ofthis century have, as all know, re-established intheir essential details the accounts of the olderwriters, and in doing so have demoHshed thetheories of Tyson and Buffon. We now know,not merely that there are pigmy races in exist-ence, but that the area which they occupy is anextensive one, and in the remote past has with-out doubt been more extensive stiU. Moreover,certain of these races have been, at least tenta-tively, identified with the pigmy tribes of Pliny,Herodotus, Aristotle, and other writers. It willbe well, before considering this question, and be-fore entering into any consideration of the legendsand myths which may possibly be associatedwith dwarf races, to sketch briefly their distri-bution throughout the continents of the globe.It is necessary to keep clearly in view the upperlimit which can justly be assigned to dwarfish-ness, and with this object it may be advisable


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INTRODUCTION xvto commence with a statement as to the averageheights reached by various representative peoples.According to Topinard, the races of the worldmay be classified, in respect to their stature, inthe following manner :

Tall . . . . 5 ft. 8 in. and upwards.Above the average . . 5 ft, 6 in. to 5 ft. 8 in.Below the average . . 5 ^^'- 4 i^- 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 aver-age is concerned. It would, however, be a greatmistake to suppose that all races reaching a loweraverage height than five feet four inches are, inany accurate sense of the word, to be lookedupon as pigmies. We have to descend to a con-siderably lower figure before that appellation canbe correctly employed. The stature must fall con-siderably below five feet before we can speak ofthe race as one of dwarfs or pigmies. Anthropo-metrical authorities have not as yet agreed uponany upward limit for such a class, but for ourpresent purposes it may be convenient to saythat any race in which the average male staturedoes not exceed four feet nine inchesthatis, the average height of a boy of about twelve


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xvi INTRODUCTIONyears of agemay fairly be described as pigmy.It is most important to bear this matter of inchesin mind in connection with points which willhave to be considered in a later section.Pigmy races still exist in considerable nimibers

in Asia and the adjacent islands, and as it wasin that continent that, so far as our presentknowledge goes, they had in former days theirgreatest extension, and, if De Quatrefages becorrect, their place of origin, it will be wellto deal first with the tribes of that quarterof the globe. "The Negrito" (i.e., pigmyblack) "type," says the authority whom Ihave just quoted, and to whom I shall haveto be still further indebted,* "was first placedin South Asia, which it without doubt occupiedalone during an indeterminate period. It isthence that its diverse representatives have radi-ated, and, some going east, some west, have givenrise to the black populations of Melanesia andAfrica, In particular, India and Indo-Chinafirst belonged to the blacks. Invasions and in-filtrations of different yellow or white races havesplit up these Negrito populations, which for-

* The quotations from this author are taken from hiswork Les Pygmies. Paris, J. B. Bailliere et Fils, 1887.


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INTRODUCTION xvi;merly occupied a continuous area, and mixingwith them, have profoundly altered them. Thepresent condition of things is the final result ofstrifes and mixtures, the most ancient of whichmay be referred back to prehistoric times." Theinvasions above mentioned having in the pastdriven many of the races from the mainland tothe islands, and those which remained on thecontinent having undergone greater modificationby crossing with taUer and alien races, we mayexpect to find the purest Negritos amongst thetribes inhabiting the various archipelagoes situ-ated south and east of the mainland. Amongstthese, the Mincopies of the Andaman Islandsofier a convenient starting-point. The know-ledge which we possess of these little blacks isextensive, thanks to the labours in particularof Mr. Man * and Dr. Dobson,t which may befound in the Journal of the AnthropologicalInstitute, and summarised in De Quatrefages'work. The average stature of the males of thisrace is four feet six inches, the height of a boy often years of age. Like children, the head is rela-tively large in comparison with the stature, sinceit is contained seven times therein, instead of

* Jour. Anihrop. Inst., vii. t Ibid., iv.


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xviii INTRODUCTIONseven and a half times, as is the rule amongstmost average-sized peoples. Whilst speaking ofthe head, it may be weU to mention that theseNegritos, and in greater or less measure otherNegritos and Negrillos (i.e., pigmy blacks, Asiaticor African), diflfer in this part of the body in amost important respect from the ordinary Africannegro. Like him, they are black, often intenselyso : like him, too, they have woolly hair arrangedin tufts, but, unlike him, they have round (brachy-cephalic) heads instead of long (dolichocephalic)and the purer the race, the more marked is thisdistinction. The Mincopie has a singularly shortlife ; for though he attains puberty at much thesame age as ourselves, the twenty-second yearbrings him to middle life, and the fiftieth, ifreached, is a period of extreme seniHty. Purein race, ancient in history, and carefully studied,this race deserves some further attention herethan can be extended to others with which Ihave to deal. The moral side of the Mincopiesseems to be highly developed ; the modesty ofthe young girls is most strict ; monogamy is therule, and

" Their list of forbidden degreesAn extensive morality shows,"


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INTRODUCTION xixsince even the marriage of cousins-german isconsidered highly immoral. " Men and women,"says Man, *' are models of constancy." They be-lieve in a Supreme Deity, respecting whom theysay, that " although He resembles fire, He is in-visible; that He was never born, and is im-mortal; that He created the world and allanimate and inanimate objects, save only thepowers of evil. During the day He knowseverything, even the thoughts of the mind ; Heis angry when certain sins are committed, andfull of pity for the unfortunate and miserable,whom He sometimes condescends to assist. Hejudges souls after death, and pronounces on eacha sentence which sends them to paradise or con-demns them to a kind of purgatory. The hopeof escaping the torments of this latter placeinfluences their conduct. Puluga, this Deity,inhabits a house of stone; when it rains, Hedescends upon the earth in search of food ; dur-ing the dry weather He is asleep." Besides thisDeity, they believe in numerous evil spirits, thechief of whom is the Demon of the Woods. Thesespirits have created themselves, and have existedab immemordbili. The sun, which is a female,and the moon, her husband, are secondary deities.


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XX INTRODUCTIONSouth of tlie Andaman Islands are the Nice-

bars, the aborigines of which, the Shorn Pen,*now inhabit the mountains, where, like somany of their brethren, they have been drivenby the Malays. They are of small, but notpigmy stature (five feet two inches), a factwhich may be due to crossing.

Following the Negritos east amongst theislands, we find in Luzon the Aetas or Inagtas,a group of which is known in Mindanao asManamouas. The Aetas live side by side withthe Tagals, who are of Malay origin. Theywere called Negritos del Monte by the Spaniardswho first colonised these islands. Their averagestature, according to "Wallace, ranges from fourfeet six inches to four feet eight inches. In NewGuinea, the Karons, a similar race, occupy a chainof mountains parallel to the north coast of thegreat north-western peninsula. At Port Moresby,in the same island, the Koiari appear to repre-sent the most south-easterly group; but myfriend Professor Haddon, who has investigatedthis district, tells me that he finds traces of aformer existence of Negritos at Torres Straitsand in North Queensland, as shown by the

* Man, Jour. Antkrop, Insi., xviii. p. 354.


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INTRODUCTION xxishape of the skulls of the inhabitants of theseregions.The Malay Peninsula contains in Perak hill

tribes called "savages" by the Sakays. Thesetribes have not been seen by Europeans, but arestated to be pigmy in stature, troglodytic, andstill in the Stone Age. Farther south are theSemangs of Kedah, with an average stature offour feet ten inches, and the Jakuns of Singapore,rising to five feet. The Annamites admit thatthey are not autochthonous, a distinction whichthey confer upon the Mois, of whom little isknown, but whose existence and pigmy Negritocharacteristics are considered by De Quatrefagesas established.

China no longer, so far as we know, containsany representatives of this type, but ProfessorLacouperie * has recently shown that they for-merly existed in that part of Asia. Accord-ing to the annals of the Bamboo Books, "Inthe twenty-ninth year of the Emperor Yao, inspring, the chief of the Tsiao-Yao, or darkpigmies, came to court and offered as tributefeathers from the Mot." The Professor con-tinues, " As shown by this entry, we begin with

* Babylonian and Oriental Record, vol. v.


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xxii INTRODUCTIONthe semi-historic times as recorded in the'Annals of the Bamboo Books,' and the dateabout 2048 B.C. The so-called feathers weresimply some sort of marine plant or seaweedwith which the immigrant Chinese, still aninland people, were yet unacquainted. The Motwater or river, says the Shan-hai-king, or canoni-cal book of hills and seas, was situated in thesouth-east of the Tai-shan in Shan-tung. Thisgives a clue to the localisation of the pigmies,and this localisation agrees with the positiveknowledge we possess of the small area whichthe Chinese dominion covered at this time. Thusthe Negritos were part of the native populationof China when, in the twenty-third centuryB.C., the civUised 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, waspreviously the home of the Ainu, a white, hairyunder-sized race, possibly, even probably, emi-grants from Europe, and now gradually dyingout in Yezo and the Kurile Islands. Prior tothe Ainu was a ISTegrito race, whose connectionwith the former is a matter of much dispute,whose remains in the shape of pit-dwellings.


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INTRODUCTION xxiiistone arrow-heads, pottery, and other implementsstill exist, and will be found fully described byMr. Savage Landor in a recent most interest-ing work.* In the Shan-hai-king, as ProfessorSchlegel f points out, their country is spoken ofas the Siao-jin-Kouo, or land of little men, indistinction, be it noted, to the Peh-min-Kouo,or land of white people, identified by him withthe Aiau, These little men are spoken of bythe Ainu as Koro-puk-guru, i.e., according toMilne, men occupying excavations, orpit-dwellers.According to Chamberlain, the name meansdwellers under burdocks, and is associated withthe following legend. Before the time of theAinu, Yezo was inhabited by a race of dwarfs,said by some to be two to three feet, by othersonly one inch in height. When an enemy ap-proached, they hid themselves under the greatleaves of the burdock (Jcoro), for which reason theyare called Koro-puk-guru, i.e., the men under theburdocks. When they were exterminated by thewooden clubs of the Ainu, they raised their eyesto heaven, and, weeping, cried aloud to the gods,

* Alone with the Hairy Ainu.t ProbUmes Geographiques. Les Peuples Etrangers

chez les Historiens Chinois. Estrait du T'oung-pao, vol.iv. No, 4. Leide, E. J. Brill.


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xxiv INTRODUCTION"Why were we made so small?" It shouldbe said that Professor Schlegel and Mr. SavageLandor both seem to prefer the former etymology.

Passing to the north-west of the Andamans,we find in India a problem of considerable diffi-culty. That there were at one period numerousNegrito tribes inhabiting that part of Asia isindubitable ; that some of them persist to thisday in a state of approximate purity is no lesstrue, but the influence of crossing has here beenmost potent. Races of Hghter hue and tallerstature have invaded the territory of the Negri-tos, to a certain extent intermarried with them,and thus have originated the various Dravidiantribes. These tribes, therefore, afford us a valu-able clue as to the position occupied in formerdays by their ancestors, the Negritos.

In some of the early Indian legends, DeQuatrefages thinks that he finds traces of theseprehistoric connections between the indigenousNegrito tribes and their invaders. The accoimtof the services rendered to Rama by Hanumanand his monkey-people may, he thinks, easily beexplained by supposing the latter to be a Negritotribe. Another tale points to unions of a closernature between the alien races. Bhimasena,


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INTRODUCTION xxvafter having conquered and slain Hidimba, atfirst resisted the solicitations of the sister of thismonster, who, having become enamoured of him,presented herself under the guise of a lovelywoman. But at the wish of his elder brother,Youdhichshira, the king of justice, and with theconsent of his mother, he yielded, and passedsome time in the dwelling of this Negrito orDravidian Armida.

It will now be necessary to consider some ofthese races more or less crossed with alien blood.

In the centre of India, amongst the VindyahMountains, live the Djangals or Bandra-Lokhs,the latter name signifying man-monkey, andthus associating itself with the tale of Kama,above alluded to. Like most of the Dravidiantribes, they live in great misery, and show everysign of their condition in their attenuated figures.One of this tribe measured by Eousselet wasfive feet in height. It may here be remarkedthat the stature of the Dravidian races exceedsthat of the purer Negritos, a fact due, no doubt,to the influence of crossing. Farther south, inthe Nilgherry HUls, and in the neighbourhoodof the Todas and Badagas, dwell the Kurumbasand Irulas (children of darkness). Both are


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xxvi INTRODUCTIONweak and dwarfish, the latter especially so. Theyinhabit, says Walhouse, * the most secluded,densely wooded fastnesses of the mountainslopes. They are by popular tradition con-nected with the aboriginal builders of the rudestone monuments of the district, though, accord-ing to the above-mentioned authority, withoutany claim to such distinction. They, however,worship at these cromlechs from time to time,and are associated with them in another inter-esting manner. "The Kurumbas of l^uUi,"says "Walhouse, "one of the wildest ISTilgherrydecKvities, come up annually to worship at oneof the dolmens on the table-land above, in whichthey say one of their old gods resides. Thoughthey are regarded with fear and hatred as sor-cerers by the agricultural Badagas of the table-land, one of them must, nevertheless, at sowing-time be called to guide the first plough for twoor three yards, and go through a mystic panto-mime of propitiation to the earth deity, withoutwhich the crop would certainly fail. When sosummoned, the Kurumba must pass the nightby the dolmens alone, and I have seen one whohad been called from his present dwelling for

* Jouj: Anthrop. Inst., vii. 21.


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INTRODUCTION xxviithe morning ceremony, sitting after dark on thecapstone of a dolmen, with heels and hams drawntogether and chin onknees, looking like some hugeghostly fowl perched on the mysterious stone."Mr. Gomme has drawn attention to this andother similar customs in the interesting remarkswhich he makes upon the influence of conquerednon-Aryan races upon their Aryan suhduers.*

Farther south, in Ceylon, the Veddahs live,whom Bailey f considers to be identical withthe hill-tribes of the mainland, though, if thisbe true, some at least must have undergone alarge amount of crossing, judging from the wavynature of their hair. The author just quotedsays, " The tallest Veddah I ever saw, a man sotowering above his fellows that, till I measuredhim, I believed him to be not merely compara-tively a tall man, was only five feet three inchesin height. The shortest man I have measuredwas four feet one inch. I should say that ofmales the ordinary height is from four feet sixinches to five feet one inch, and of females fromfour feet four inches to four feet eight inches."

In the east the Santals inhabit the basin of* Ethnology and Folk-Lore, p. 46 ; The Village

Community, p. 105. t Trans. Ethn. Soc, ii, 278.


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xxviii INTRODUCTIONthe Ganges, and in the west the Jats belong tothe Punjab, and especially to the district of theIndus. The Kols inhabit the delta of the Indusand the neighbourhood of Gujerat, and stretchalmost across Central India into Behar and theeastern extremities of the Vindhya Mountains.Other Dravidian tribes are the Oraons, Jouangs,Buihers, and Gounds. All these races have astature of about five feet, and, though muchcrossed, present more or less marked Negritocharacteristics. Passing farther west, the Bra-houis of Beluchistan, a Dravidian race, who re-gard themselves as the aboriginal inhabitants,live side by side with the Belutchis. Finally, inthis direction, there seem to have been near LakeZerrah, in Persia, Negrito tribes who are probablyaboriginal, and may have formed the historicblack guard of the ancient kings of Susiana.An examination of the present localisation of

these remnants of the Negrito inhabitants showshow they have been split up, amalgamated with,or driven to the islands by the conqueringinvaders. An example of what has taken placemay be found in the case of Borneo, whereNegritos still exist in the centre of the island.The Dyaks chase them like wild beasts, and shoot


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INTRODUCTION xxixdown the children, who take refuge in the trees.This will not seem in the least surprising tothose who have studied the history of the relationbetween autochthonous races and their invaders.It is the same story that has been told of theAnglo-Saxon race in its dealings with aboriginesin America, and notably, in our case, in Tasmania.

Turning from Asia to a continent more closelyassociated, at least in popular estimation, withpigmy races, we find in Africa several races ofdAvarf men, of great antiquity and surpassinginterest. The discoveries of Stanley, Schwein-furth, Miani, and others have now placed atour disposal very complete information respect-ing the pigmies of the central part of thecontinent, with whom it will, therefore, beconvenient to make a commencement. Thesepigmies appear to be divided into two tribes,which, though similar in stature, and alike dis-tinguished by the characteristic of attachingthemselves to some larger race of natives, yetpresent considerable points of difference, somuch so as to cause Mr. Stanley to say thatthey are as unlike as a Scandinavian is to aTurk. "Scattered," says the same authority,*

* In Darkest Africa, vol. ii. p. 92.


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XXX INTRODUCTION"among the Balesse, between Ipoto and MountPisgah, and inhabiting the land between theE'gaiyu and Ituri rivers, a region equal in areato about two-thirds of Scotland, are the Wam-butti, variously called Batwa, Akka, and Bazungu.These people are under-sized nomads, dwarfs orpigmies, who live in the uncleared virgin forest,and support themselves on game, which theyare very expert in catching. They vary inheight from three feet to four feet six inches.A full-grown adult may weigh ninety pounds.They plant their village camps three milesaround a tribe of agricultural aborigines, themajority of whom are fine stalwart people.They use poisoned arrows, with which theykill elephants, and they capture other kinds ofgame by the use of traps."The two groups are respectively called Batwa

and Wambutti. The former inhabit the northernparts of the above-mentioned district, the latterthe southern. The former have longish heads,long narrow faces, and small reddish eyes setclose together, whilst the latter have round facesand open foreheads, gazeUe-Kke eyes, set farapart, and rich yellow ivory complexion. Theirbodies are covered with stiffish grey short hair.


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INTRODUCTION xxxiTwo further quotations from the same sourcemay be given to convey an idea to those ignorantof the original work, if such there be, of theappearances of these dwarfs. Speaking of thequeen of a tribe of pigmies, Stanley says,* " Shewas brought in to see me, with three rings ofpolished iron around her neck, the ends of whichwere coiled like a watch-spring. Three ironrings were suspended to each ear. She is of alight-brown complexion with broad round face,large eyes, and small but full lips. She hada quiet modest demeanour, though her dresswas but a narrow fork clout of bark cloth. Herheight is about four feet four inches, and herage may be nineteen or twenty. I notice whenher arms are held against the light a whity-brownfell on them. Her skin has not that silkysmoothness of touch common to the Zanzibaris,but altogether she is a very pleasing littlecreature." To this female portrait may be sub-joined one of a male aged probably twenty-oneyears and four feet in height, t " His colour wascoppery, the fell over the body was almost furry,being nearly half an inch long, and his handswere very delicate. On his head he wore a

* In Darkest Africa, vol. i. p. 345. t Ibid., ii. 40.


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xxxii INTRODUCTIONbonnet of a priestly form, decorated with a "bunchof parrot feathers, and a broad strip of barkcovered his nakedness."

Jephson states* that he found continual tracesof them from 27 30' E. long., a few miles abovethe Equator, up to the edge of the great forest,five days' march from Lake Albert. He alsosays that they are a hardy daring race, alwaysready for war, and are much feared by theirneighbours. As soon as a party of dwarfsmakes its appearance near a village, the chiefhastens to propitiate them by presents of cornand such vegetables as he possesses. They neverexceed four feet one inch in height, he informsus, and adds a characteristic which has not beenmentioned by Stanley, one, too, which is veryremarkable when it is remembered how scantyis the facial hair of the Negros and Negritosthe men have often very long beards.

The southern parts of the continent areoccupied by the Bushmen, who are vigorous andagile, of a stature ranging from four feet sixinches to four feet nine inches, and sufficientlywell known to permit me to pass over themwithout further description. The smallest woman

* Emin Pasha, p. 367, et seq.


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INTRODUCTION xxxiiiof this race who has been measured was onlythree feet three inches in height, and Barrowexamined one, who was the mother of severalchildren, with a stature of three feet eight inches.The Akoas of the Gaboon district were a race

of pigmies who, now apparently extinct, formerlydwelt on the north of the Nazareth River. Amale of this tribe was photographed and measuredby the French Admiral Fleuriot de I'Angle.His age was about forty and his stature fourfeet six inches.

Flower * says that " another tribe, the M'Bou-lous, inhabiting the coast north of the GaboonRiver, have been described by M. Marche asprobably the primitive race of the country. Theylive in little villages, keeping entirely to them-selves, though surrounded by the larger Negrotribes, M'Pongos and Bakalais, who are en-croaching upon them so closely that theirnumbers are rapidly diminishing. In i860they were not more than 3000 ; in 1879 theywere much less numerous. They are of anarthy-brown colour, and rarely exceed five feetthree inches in height. Another group livingbetween the Gaboon and the Congo, in Ashango-

* Jour. Anth. Inst, xviii. p. 86,


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xxxiv INTRODUCTIONland, a male of which measured four feet sixinches, has been described by Du Chaillu.

In Loango there is a tribe called Babonko,which was described by Battell in 1625, in thework entitled "Purchas his Pilgrimes," in thefollowing terms :"To the north-east of Mani-Kesock are a kind of little people calledMatimbas, which are no bigger than boyesof twelve yeares old, but very thicke, and liveonly upon flesh, which they kill in the woodswith their bows and darts. They pay tributeto Mani-Kesock, and bring all their elephants'teeth and tayles to him. They will not enterinto any of the Maramba's houses, nor willsuffer any one to come where they dwell.And if by chance any Maramba or peopleof Longo pass where they dwell, they willforsake that place and go to another. Thewomen carry bows and arrows as well as themen. And one of these will walk in thewoods alone and kill the Pongos with theirpoysoned arrows." It is somewhat surprisingthat Tyson, who gives in his essay (p. 80) theaccount of the same people published at a laterdate (1686) by Dapper, should have missed hisfellow-countryman's narrative. The existence


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INTRODUCTION xxxvof this tribe has been estabhshed by a Germanexpedition, one of the members of which, Dr.Falkenstein, photographed and measured an adultmale whose stature was four feet six inches.Krapf* states that in the south of Schoa,

in a part of Abyssinia as yet unworked, theDokos live, who are not taller than four feet.According to his account, they are of a darkolive colour, with thick prominent lips, flatnoses, small eyes, and long flowing hair. Theyhave no dwellings, temples, holy trees, chiefs,or weapons, live on roots and fruit, and areignorant of fire. Another group was describedby Mollieu in 1818 as inhabiting Tenda-Mai^,near the Rio Grande, but very little is knownabout them. In a work entitled "TheDwarfs of Mount Atlas," Halliburton f hasbrought forward a number of statements toprove that a tribe of dwarfs, named like thoseof Central Africa, Akkas, of a reddish com-plexion and with short woolly hair, live in thedistrict adjoining Soos. These dwarfs havebeen alluded to by Harris and Donnenburg,J

* Morgenhlatt, 1853 {quoted by Schaafhausen, Arch,f. Anih., 1866, p. 166).

+ London, Nutt, 1891. + Nature, 1892, ii, 616.


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xxxvi INTRODUCTIONbut Mr. Harold Crichton Browne,* who has ex-plored neighbouring districts, is of opinion thatthere is no such tribe, and that the accountsof them have been based upon the examinationof sporadic examples of dwarfishness met within that as in other parts of the world.

Finally, in Madagascar it is possible that theremay be a dwarf race. OHver f states that " theVazimbas are supposed to have been the firstoccupants of Ankova. They are described byRochon, under the name of Kunios, as a nationof dwarfs averaging three feet six inches instature, of a lighter colour than the Negroes,with very long arms and woolly hair. As theywere only described by natives of the coast, andhave never been seen, it is natural to supposethat these pecuHarities have been exaggerated;but it is stated that people of diminutive sizestill exist on the banks of a certain river to thesouth-west." There are many tumuli of rudework and made of rough stones throughout thecountry, which are supposed to be their tombs.In idolatrous days, says Mullens, J the Mala-gasy deified the Vazimba, and their so-called

* Nature, 1 892, i. 269. t Anthrop. Memoirs, iii. I.X Jour. Anthrop. Inst., v. 181.


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INTRODUCTION xxxviitombs were the most sacred objects in thecountry. In this account may be found furtherevidence in favour of Mr. Gomme's theory, towhich attention has already been called.

In the great continent of America there doesnot appear to have ever been, so far as ourpresent knowledge teaches, any pigmy race.Dr. Brinton, the distinguished American ethno-logist, to whom I applied for information onthis point, has been good enough to write to methat, in his opinion, there is no evidence of anypigmy race in America. The "little people " ofthe " stone graves " in Tennessee, often supposedto be such, were children, as the bones testify.The German explorer Hassler has alleged theexistence of a pigmy race in Brazil, but testi-mony is wanting to support such allegation.There are two tribes of very short but notpigmy stature in America, the Yahgans ofTierra del Fuego and the Utes of Colorado, butboth of these average over five feet.

Leaving aside for the moment the Lapps, towhom I shaU return, there does not appear tohave been at any time a really pigmy race inEurope, so far as any discoveries which havebeen made up to the present time show. Pro-


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xxxviii INTRODUCTIONfessor Topinard, whose authority upon this pointcannot be gainsaid, informs me that the smallestrace known to him in Central Europe is that ofthe pre-historic people of the Lozfere, who wereNeolithic troglodytes, and are represented pro-bably at the present day by some of the peoplesof South Italy and Sardinia. Their averagestature was about five feet two inches. Thisclosely corresponds with what is known of thestature of the Platycnemic race of Denbighshire,the Perthi-Chwareu. Busk * says of them thatthey were of low stature, the mean height, de-duced from the lengths of the long bones, beinglittle more than five feet. As both sexes areconsidered together in this description, it is fairto give the male a stature of about five feet twoinches, t It also corresponds with the stature

* Jour, Ethn. Soc, 1869-70, p. 455.t Since these pages were printed, Prof. Kollmann, of Basle,has described a group of Neolithic pigmies as having existedat Schaffhausen. The adult interments consisted of theremains of full-grown European types and of small-sizedpeople. These two races were found interred side by sideunder precisely similar conditions, from which he concludesthat they lived peaceably together, notwithstanding racialdifference. 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 speciesof mankind.


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INTRODUCTION xxxixassigned by Pitt-Rivers to a tribe occupying theborders of Wiltshire and Dorsetshire during theRoman occupation, the average height of whosemales and females was five feet two and a halfinches and four feet ten and three-quarter inchesrespectively.

Dr. Rahon,* who has recently made a carefulstudy of the bones of pre-historic and proto-historic races, with special reference to theirstature, states that the skeletons attributed tothe most ancient and to the Neolithic racesare of a stature below the middle height, theaverage being a little over five feet three inches.The peoples who constructed the Megalithic re-mains of Roknia and of the Caucasus, were ofa stature similar to our own. The diverse proto-historic populations, Gauls, Franks, Burgundians,and Merovingians, considered together, presenta stature slightly superior to that of the Frenchof the present day, but not so much so as theaccounts of the historians would have led us tobelieve.

It remains now to deal with two races whose* Recherches sv/r les Ossements Humaines, Anciens et

Prihistm'iques. M6m. de la Soc, d^Anthrop. de Paris,&6t, ii. torn. iv. 403.


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xl INTRODUCTIONphysical characters are of considerable import-ance in connection with certain points whichwill be dealt with in subsequent pages, I meanthe Lapps and the Innuit or Eskimo.The Lapps, according to Karonzine,* one of

their most recent describers, are divisible intotwo groups, Scandinavian and Russian, theformer being purer than the latter race. Theaverage male stature is five feet, a figure whichcorresponds closely with that obtained byMantegazza and quoted by Topinard. Theextremes obtained by this observer amongstmen were, on the one hand, five feet eightinches, and on the other four feet four inches.As, however, in a matter of this kind we haveto deal with averages and not with extremes,we must conclude that the Lapps, though astunted race, are not pigmies, in the sense inwhich the word is scientifically employed.The Innuit or Eskimo were called by the

original Norse explorers " Skraelingjar," ordwarfs, a name now converted by the Innuitinto "karalit," which is the nearest approachthat they are able to make phonetically to theformer term. They are certainly, on the aver-

* L'Anthropologie, ii. 80.


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INTRODUCTION xliage, a people of less than middle stature, yetthey can in no sense be described as Pigmies.Their mean height is five feet three inches.JSTansen* says of them, "It is a common erroramongst us in Europe to think of the Eskimoas a diminutive race. Though no doubt smallerthan the Scandinavian peoples, they must bereckoned amongst the middle-sized races, and Ieven found amongst those of purest breedingmen of nearly six feet in height."

II.The raison dJetre of Tyson's essay was to

explain away the accounts of the older writersrelating to Pigmy races, on the ground that, asno such races existed, an explanation of somekind was necessary in order to account for somany and such detailed descriptions as wereto be found in their works. Having now seennot merely that there are such things as Pigmyraces, but that they have a wide distributionthroughout the world, it may be well to con-sider to which of the existing or extinct races,the above-mentioned accounts may be supposedto have referred. In this task I am much

* Eskimo Life, p. 20. d


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xlii INTRODUCTIONaided in several instances by the labours ofDe Quatrefages, and as his book is easUy acces-sible, it will be unnecessary for me to repeat thearguments in favour of his decisions which hehas there given.

Starting with Asia, we have in the first placethe statement of Pliny, that " immediately afterthe nation of the Prusians, in the mountainswhere it is said are pigmies, is found the Indus."These Pigmies may be identified with the Bra-houis, now Dravidian, but still possessing thehabit, attributed to them by Pliny, of changingtheir dwellings twice a year-, in summer andwinter, migrations rendered necessary by thesearch for food for their flocks. The sameauthor's allusion to the "Spithamsei Pygmsei"of the mountains in the neighbourhood ofthe Ganges may apply to the Santals or someallied tribe, though Pliny's stature for themof two feet four inches is exaggeratedly dimi-nutive, and he has confused them with Homer'sPigmies, who were, as will be seen, a totallydifferent people.

Ctesias* tells us that "Middle India has* The quotation is taken from Ritson, Fairy Tales,

p. 4.


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INTRODUCTION xliiiblack men, who are called Pygmies, using thesame language as the other Indians ; they are,however, very little; that the greatest do notexceed the height of two cubits, and the mostpart only of one cubit and a half. But theynourish the longest hair, hanging down untothe knees, and even below; moreover, theycarry a beard more at length than any othermen; but, what is more, after this promisedbeard is risen to them, they never after useany clothing, but send down, truly, the hairsfrom the back much below the knees, but drawthe beard before down to the feet ; afterward,when they have covered the whole body withhairs, they bind themselves, using those in theplace of a vestment. They are, moreover, apesand deformed. Of these Pygmies, the king ofthe Indians has three thousand in his train;for they are very skilftd archers." No doubtthe actual stature has been much diminishedin this account, and, as De Quatrefages suggests,the garment of long floating grasses which theymay well have worn, may have been mistakenfor hair; yet, in the description, he believesthat he is able to recognise the ancestors ofthe Bandra-Lokh of the Vindhya Mountains.


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xliv INTRODUCTIONCtesias' other statement, that "the king ofIndia sends every fifth year fifty thousandswords, besides abundance of other weapons,to the nation of the Cynocephali," may referto the same or some other tribe.De Quatrefages also thinks that an allusion

to the ancestors of the Jats, who would thenhave been less altered by crossing than now,may be found in Herodotus' account of the armyof Xerxes when he says, "The Eastern Ethio-pians serve with the Indians. They resemblethe other Ethiopians, from whom they onlydiffer in language and hair. The EasternEthiopians have straight hair, while those ofLybia are more woolly than all other men."

Writing of isles in the neighbourhood ofJava, Maundeville says,* " In another yle, therben lityUe folk, as dwerghes; and thei ben toso meche as the Pygmeyes, and thei han nomouthe, but in stede of hire mouthe, thei hana lytylle round hole ; and whan thei schulle etenor drynken, thei taken thorghe a pipe or a penneor suche a thing, and sowken it in, for thei hanno tongue, and therefore thei speke not, but theimaken a maner of hissynge, as a Neddre dothe,

* Ed. Halliwell, p. 205.


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INTRODUCTION xlvand tliei maken signes on to another, as monkesdon, be the whiche every of hem undirstondethethe other."

Strip this statement of the characteristicMaundevillian touches with regard to the mouthand tongue, and it may refer to some of the in-sular races which exist or existed in the districtof which he is treating.A much fuller account * by the same authorrelates to Pigmies in the neighbourhood of ariver, stated by a commentator f to be the Yang-tze-Kiang, "a gret ryvere, that men clepenDalay, and that is the grettest ryvere of fresschewater that is in the world. For there, as it ismost narow, it is more than 4 myle of brede.And thanne entren men azen in to the lond ofthe great Chane. That ryvere gothe thorge thelond of Pigmaus, where that the folk ben oflitylle stature, that ben but 3 span long, andthei ben right faire and gentylle, aftre herequantytees, bothe the men and the women.And thei maryen hem, whan thei ben half zereof age and getten children. And thei lyvennot, but 6 zeer or 7 at the moste. And hethat lyveth 8 zeer, men holden him there* MaundevUle, p. 211. t Quart. Rev,, 172, p. 431.


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xlvi INTRODUCTIONrighte passynge old. Theise men ben tlie besteworcheres of gold, sylver, cotoun, sylk, and ofalle such tbinges, of ony other, that be in theworld. And thei han often tymes werre withthe briddes of the contree, that thei taken andeten. This litylle folk nouther labouren inlondes ne in vynes. But thei han grete menamonges hem, of oure stature, that tylen thelond, and labouren amonges the vynes for hem.And of the men of oure stature, han thei alsgrete skorne and wondre, as we wolde haveamong us of Geauntes, zif thei weren amongesus. There is a gode cytee, amonges othere,where there is duellynge gret plentee of thelytylle folk, and is a gret cytee and a fair, andthe men ben grete that duellen amonges hem;but whan thei getten ony children, thei ben alslitylle as the Pygmeyes, and therefore thei benalle, for the moste part, alle Pygmeyes, for thenature of the land is suche. The great Cane letkepe this cytee fulle wel, for it is his. And allebe it, that the Pygmeyes ben litylle, zit thei benfulle resonable, aftre here age and connenbothen wytt and gode and malice now." Thispassage, as will be noted, incorporates theHomeric tale of the battles between the Pigmies


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INTRODUCTION xlviiand the Cranes, and is adorned with a repre-sentation of such an encounter. WhetherMaundeville's dwarfs were the same as the Siao-Jin of the Shan-hai-King is a question difficultto decide ; hut, in any case, hoth these pigmy-races of legend inhabited a part of what is nowthe Chinese Empire. The same Pigmies seemto he alluded to in the rubric of the Catalan mapof the world in the National Library of Paris, thedate of which is a.d. 1375. "Here (N.W. ofCatayo-Cathay) grow little men who are but fivepalms in height, and though they be little, andnot fit for weighty matters, yet they be braveand clever at weaving and keeping cattle." Ifsuch an explanation may be hazarded, we mayperhaps go further and suppose that PaulusJovius may have been alluding to the Koro-puk-guru, when, as Pomponius Mela tells us, hetaught that there were Pigmies beyond Japan.In both these cases, however, it is well to re-member that there is a river in Macedon as wellas in Monmouth, and that it is hazardous tocome to too definite a belief as to the exactlocation of the Pigmies of ancient writers.The continent of Africa yielded its share of

Pigmies to the same writers. The most cele-


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xlviii INTRODUCTIONbrated of all are those alluded to by Aristotlein his classical passage, "They (the Granes)come out of Scythia to the Lakes above Egyptwhence the Nile flows. This is the place where-abouts the Pigmies dwell. For this is no fablebut a truth. Both they and the horses, as 'tissaid, are of a small kind. They are Troglodytesand live in caves."Leaving aside the crane part of the tale, whichit has been suggested may really have referredto ostriches, Aristotle's Pigmy race may, fromtheir situation, be fairly identified with theAkkas described by Stanley and others. Thatthis race is an exceedingly ancient one is provedby the fact that Marriette Bey has discoveredon a tomb of the' ancient Empire of Egypt afigure of a dwarf with the name Akka inscribedby it. This race is also supposed to have beenthat which, alluded to by Homer, has becomeconfused with other dwarf tribes in difierentparts of the world.

" So when inclement winters vex the plainWith 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."


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INTRODUCTION xlixAttention may here be drawn to Tyson's

quotation (p. 78) from Vossius as to the tradedriven by the Pigmies in elephants' tusks, since,as we have seen, this corresponds with what wenow know as to the habits of the Akkas.The accoimt which Herodotus gives of the

expedition of the Nasamonians is well known.Five men, chosen by lot from amongst theirfellows, crossed the desert of Lybia, and, havingmarched several days in deep sand, perceivedtrees growing in the midst of the plain. Theyapproached and commenced to eat the fruitwhich they bore. Scarcely had they begun totaste it, when they were surprised by a greatnumber of men of a stature much inferior tothe middlie height, who seized them and carriedthem off. They were eventually taken to acity, the inhabitants of which were black.Near this city ran a considerable river whosecourse was from west to east, and in whichcrocodiles were found. In his accoimt of theAkkas, Mr. Stanley beHeved that he had dis-covered the representatives of the Pigmies men-tioned in this history. Speaking of one ofthese, he says,* "Twenty-six centuries ago his

* Op, supra cit., ii. 40.


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1 INTRODUCTIONancestors captured the five young ITasamonianexplorers, and made merry with, them at theirvillages on the banks of the Niger." It maybe correct to say that, at the period alludedto, the dwarf races of Africa were in morecontinuous occupancy of the land than is nowthe case, but such an identification as thatjust mentioned gives a false idea of the positionof the Pigmies of Herodotus. De Quatrefages,after a most careful examination of the questionin all its aspects, finds himself obliged to con-clude, either that the Pigmy race seen by theIl^asamonians still exists on the north of theNiger, which has been identified with the riveralluded to by Herodotus, but has not, up tothe present, been discovered ; or that it hasdisappeared from those regions.

Pomponius Mela has also his account ofAfrican Pigmies. Beyond the Arabian Gulf,and at the bottom of an indentation of the EedSea, he places the Panchseans, also called Ophio-phagi, on account of the fact that they fedupon serpents. More within the Arabian baythan the Panchaeans are the Pigmies, a minuterace, which became exterminated in the warswhich it was compelled to wage with the


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INTRODUCTION liCranes for the preservation of its fruits. Theregion indicated somewhat corresponds withthat which is assigned to the Dokos bytheir describer. In this district, too, otherdwarf races have been reported. The Frenchwriter whom I have so often cited says, " Thetradition of Eastern African Pigmies has neverbeen lost by the Arabs. At every period thegeographers of this nation have placed theirRiver of Pigmies much more to the south.It is in this region, a little to the northof the Equator, and towards the 32 of eastlongitude, that the Eev. Fr. Leon des Avan-chers has found the Wa-Berrikimos or Cin-calles, whose stature is about four feet fourinches. The information gathered by M. D'Ab-badie places towards the 6 of north latitudethe Mallas or Maze-Mall^as, with a stature offive feet. Everything indicates that thereexist, at the south of the Galla country,different negro tribes of small stature. Itseems difficult to me not to associate themwith the Pigmies of Pomponius Mela. Onlythey have retreated farther south. Probablythis change had already taken place at thetime when the Eoman geographer wrote j it


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Hi INTRODUCTIONis, therefore, comprehensible that he may haveregarded them as having disappeared."

Tyson (p. 29) quotes the following passagefrom Photius :" That Nonnosus sailing fromPharsa, when he came to the farthermost ofthe islands, a thing very strange to be heardof 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 theirbodies. The women, who were of the samestature, followed the men. They were allnaked, only the elder of them, both men andwomen, covered their privy parts with a smallskin. They seemed not at all fierce or wild ;they had a human voice, but their dialect wasaltogether unknown to everybody that livedabout them, much more to those that werewith Nonnosus. They lived upon sea-oystersand fish that were cast out of the sea uponthe island. They had no courage for seeingour men; they were frighted, as we are atthe sight of the greatest wild beast." It isnot easy to identify this race with any existingtribe of Pigmies, but the hairiness of theirbodies, and above all their method of clothing


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INTRODUCTION liiithemselves, leave no doubt that in this accountwe 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 accuracyand certainty to identify most of those raceswhich, described by the older writers, had beenrejected by their successors. Time has broughttheir revenge to Aristotle and Pliny by showingthat they were right, where Tyson, and evenBuffon, were wrong.

IILThe little people of story and legend have

a much wider area of distribution than thoseof real life, and it is the object of this sec-tion to give some idea of their localities anddwellings. Imperfect as such an account mustnecessarily be, it will yet suffice I trust in somemeasure to show that, like the England ofArthurian times, all the world is "fulfilled offaery."

In dealing with this part of the subject, itwould be possible, following the example ofKeightley, to treat the little folk of each country


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liv INTRODUCTIONseparately. But a better idea of their nature,and certainly one which for my purpose willbe more satisfactory, can, I think, be obtainedby classifying them according to the nature oftheir habitations, and mentioning incidentallysuch other points concerning them as it mayseem advisable to bring out.

I. In the first place, then, fairies] are founddwelling in mounds of different kinds, or inthe interior of hills. This form of habitationis so frequently met with in Scotch and Irishaccounts of the fairies, that it will not benecessary for me to burden these pages withinstances, especially since I shall have to alludeto them in a further section in greater detail.Suffice it to say, that many instances of suchan association in the former country will befound in the pages of Mr. MacEitchie's works,whilst as to the latter, I shall content myselfby quoting Sir William "Wilde's statement, thatevery green "rath" in that country is con-secrated to the "good people." In Englandthere are numerous instances of a similar kind.Gervase of Tilbury in the thirteenth centurymentions such a spot in Gloucestershire : " Thereis in the county of Gloucester a forest abounding


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INTRODUCTION Ivin boars, stags, and every species of game thatEngland produces. In a grovy lawn of thisforest there is a little mount, rising in a pointto the height of a man." With this mounthe associates the familiar story of the offeringof refreshment to travellers by its unseen in-habitants. In Warwickshire, the mound uponwhich Kenilworth Castle is built was formerlya fairy habitation.* Eitson f mentions that the"fairies frequented many parts of the Bishopricof Durham." There is a hillock or tumulusnear Bishopton, and a large hill near Billing-ham, 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." InYorkshire a similar story attaches to thesepulchral barrow of Willey How,| and inSussex to a green mound called the Mountin the parish of Pulborough. The fairiesformerly frequented Bussers Hill in St. Mary'sIsle, one of the Scilly group. || The Bryn-yr-

* Testimony of Tradition, p. 142.t Op. cit, p. 56.t Folk Lore, ii. 115. Folk Lore Record, i. 16 and 28.II Eitson, p. 62.


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Ivi INTRODUCTIONEUyllon,* or Fairy-hill, near Mold, may becited as a similar instance in "Wales, whichmust again be referred to.The pages of Keightley's work contain in-

stances of hill-inhabiting fairies in Scandinavia,Denmark, the Isle of Rtigen, Iceland, Germany,and Switzerland. It is not only in Europe,however, that this form of habitation is to bemet with; we find it also in America. TheSioux have a curious superstition respecting amound near the mouth of the Whitestone River,which they call the Mountain of Little Peopleor Little Spirits; they believe that it is theabode of little devils in the human form, ofabout eighteen inches high and with remarkablylarge heads ; they are armed with sharp arrows,in the use of which they are very skilful. Theselittle spirits are always on the watch to killthose who should have the hardihood to ap-proach their residence. The tradition is thatmany have suffered from their malice, and that,among others, three Maha Indians fell a sacri-fice to them a few years since. This has in-spired all the neighbouring nations, Sioux,Mahas, and Ottoes, with such terror, that no

* Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, p. 433.


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INTRODUCTION Iviiconsideration could tempt them to visit thehiU*The mounds or hills inhabited by the fairies

are, however, of very diverse kinds, as we dis-cover when we attempt to analyse their actualnature. In some cases they are undoubtedlynatural elevations. Speaking of the explorationof the Isle of Unst, Hunt f says that the term"Fairy Knowe" is applied alike to artificialand to natural mounds. "We visited," hestates, "two 'Fairy Knowes' in the side ofthe hill near the turning of the road fromKeay Wick to Safester, and found that thesewonderful relics were merely natural formations.The workmen were soon convinced of this, andour digging had the effect of proving to themthat the fairies had nothing to do with at leasttwo of these hillocks." The same may surelybe said of that favourite and important fairyhaunt Tomnahurich, near Inverness, though Mr.MacRitchie seems to think that an investigation,

* Lewis and Clarke, Travels to the Source of theMissouri River. Quoted in Flint Chips, p. 346. Thetale is also given in Folk Lore, Oriental and American(Gibbings & Co.), p. 45.

t Anthrop. Mems,, ii. 294,e


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Iviii INTRODUCTIONwere such possible, of its interior, might leadto a different explanation.

In other cases, and these are of great im-portance in coming to a conclusion as to theorigin of fairy tales, the mounds inhabited bythe little people are of a sepulchral nature.This is the case in the instance of Willey How,which, when explored by Canon Greenwell, wasfound, in spite of its size and the enormouscare evidently bestowed upon its construction,to be merely a cenotaph. A grave there was,sunk more than twelve feet deep in the chalkrock; but no corporeal tenant had ever occu-pied it.

This fact is still more clearly shown in theremarkable case mentioned by Professor BoydDawkins. A barrow called Bryn-yr-EUyllon(Fairy-hill), near Mold, was said to be hauntedby a ghost clad in golden armour which hadbeen seen to enter it. The barrow was openedin the year 1832, and was found to containthe skeleton of a man wearing a golden corseletof Etruscan workmanship.The same may be said respecting that famous

fairy-hill in Ireland, the Brugh of the Boyne,though Mr. MacEitchie seems to regard it as


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INTRODUCTION lixhaving been a dwelling-place. Mr. Coffey ina most careful study appears to me to havefinally settled the question.* He speaks of theremains as those of probably the most remark-able of the pre-Christian cemeteries of Ireland.Of the stone basins, whose nature Mr. MacRitchieregards as doubtful, he says, "There can behardly any doubt but that they served thepurpose of some rude form of sarcophagus, or ofa receptacle for urns." Mr. Coffey quotes theaccount from the Leadhar na huidri respectingcemeteries, in which Brugh is mentioned asamongst the chief of those existing before thefaith {i.e. before the introduction of Christianity)." The nobles of the Tuatha de Danann wereused to bury at Brugh (i.e. the Dagda withhis three sons ; also Lugaidh, and Oe, and OUam,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 shouldadopt Brugh as a burial-place for himself andhis descendants, and this was the cause thatthey did not bury at Cruachan." Mr. Coffey

* Tumuli at New Grange, Trans. Roy. Irish Academy,


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Ix INTRODUCTIONalso quotes O'Hartagain's poem, which seems tobear 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."

But certain of the expressions in this are evi-dently to be taken figuratively, since Mr. Coffeystates, in connection with this and other quota-tions, that their importance consists in that theyestablish the existence at a very early date ofa tradition associating Brugh na Boinne, theburial-place of the kings of Tara, with thetumuli on the Boyne. The association of parti-cular monuments with the Dagda and other divi-nities and heroes of Irish mythology impliesthat the actual persons for whom they wereerected had been forgotten, the pagan tradi-tions being probably broken by the introduc-tion of Christianity. The mythological ancestorsof the heroes and kings interred at Brugh,who probably were even contemporarily associ-ated with the cemetery, no doubt subsequentlyovershadowed in tradition the actual personsinterred there.


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INTRODUCTION IxiFinally, it seems that tlie fairy hills may

have been actual dwelling-places, fortified ornot, of prehistoric peoples. Such were nodoubt some of the Picts' houses so fully dealtwith by Mr. MacEitchie, though Petrie * seemsto have considered that many of these weresepulchral in their nature. Such were also theRaths of Ireland and fortified hiUs, like theWhite Cater Thun of Forfarshire.The interior of the mound-dwellings, as de-

scribed in the stories, is a point to which allusionshould be made. Sometimes the mound containsa splendid palace, adorned with gold and silverand precious stones, like the palace of the Kingof Elfland in the tale of "Childe Rowland."In the Scandinavian mound-stories we find acurious incident, for they are described as beingcapable of being raised upon red pillars, and asbeing so raised when the occupants gave a feastto their neighbours. " There are three hills onthe lands of Bubbelgaard in Funen, which areto this day called the Dance-hills, from thefollowing occurrence. A lad named Hans wasat service in Bubbelgaard, and as he was comingone evening past the hills, he saw one of them

* Anthrop, Mems., ii. 2 1 6.


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Ixii INTRODUCTIONraised on red pillars, and great dancing and muchmerriment underneath,"* This feature is metwith in several of the stories collected by Keight-ley, 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 merelya habitation, but a vast country underneath themound. An instance of this occurs in the taleof John Dietrich from the Isle of Riigen. Underthe Nine-hills he found "that there were inthat place the most beautiful walks, in which hemight ramble along for miles in all directions,without ever finding an end of them, so immenselylarge 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." t

2. The haunts of the fairies may be in caves,and examples of this form of dwelling-place areto be met with in difierent parts of the world.The Scandinavian hill people live in caves orsmall hills, and the Elves or dwarfs of LaRomagna " dwell in lonely places, far away inthe mountains, deep in them, in caves or among

Quoted by Keightley (p. 9), from Thiele, i. 118.t Keightley, 178.


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INTRODUCTION Ixiiiold ruins and rocks," as Mr. Leland,* who givesa tale respecting these little people, tells us. ALithuanian tale f tells " how the hero, Martin,went into a forest to hunt, accompanied by asmith and a tailor. Finduig an empty hut, theytook possession of it ; the tailor remained in itto cook the dinner, and the others went forthto the chase. When the dinner was almostready, there came to the hut a very little oldman with a very long beard, who piteouslybegged for food. After receiving it, he sprangon the tailor's neck and beat him almost to death.When the hunters returned, they found theircomrade groaning on his couch, complaining ofillness, but saying nothing about the beardeddwarf. Next day the smith suffered in a similarway ; but when it came to Martin's turn, heproved too many and too strong for the dwarf,whom he overcame, and whom he fastened bythe beard to the stump of a tree. But thedwarf tore himself loose before the hunters cameback from the forest and escaped into a cavern.

* Etrusco Roman Remains, p. 222.+ Folk Lore Record, i. 85. Mr. Hartland points out

to me that this tale, being a Marchen, does not affordquite such good evidence of belief as actually or recentlyexisting as a saga.


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Ixiv INTRODUCTIONTracing him by the drops of blood which hadfallen from him, the three companions came tothe mouth of the cavern, and Martin waslowered into it by the two others. Within it hefound three princesses, who had been stolen bythree dragons. These dragons he slew, and theprincesses and their property he took to the spotabove which his comrades kept watch, who hoistedthem out of the cavern, but left Martin in it todie. As he wandered about disconsolately, hefound the bearded dwarf, whom he slew. Andsoon afterwards he was conveyed out of thecavern by a flying serpent, and was able topunish his treacherous friends, and to recoverthe princesses, all three of whom he simulta-neously married."

Amongst the Magyars,* also, in some localitiescaves are pointed out as the haunts of fairies,such as the caves in the side of the rock namedBudvAr, the cave Borza-vdra, near the castle ofDame Eapson; another haimt of the fairies isthe cave near Almds, and the cold wind knownas the " Nemere " is said to blow when the fairyin AlmAs cave feels cold. On one occasion the

* Jones and Kropf, Folk Tales of the Magyars, pp.xxxvi. t seq.


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INTRODUCTION Ixvplague was raging in this neighbourhood; thepeople ascribed it to the cold blast emanatingfrom the cave ; so they hung shirts before themouth of the cave and the plague ceased.

In a widely distant part of the world, theBattaks-Karo,* of the high ground north ofLake Toba in Sumatra, believe in three classesof mysterious beings, one of which closely cor-responds with the fairies of Europe. The firstgroup are called Hantous; they are giants anddead Begous (i.e. definitely dead souls), whoinhabit Mount Sampouran together with thesecond group. These are called Omangs ; theyare dwarfs who marry and reproduce their species,live generally in mountains, and have their feetplaced transversely. They must be propitiated,and those making the ascent of Mount S^bayaksacrifice a white hen to them, or otherwise theOmangs would throw stones at them. Theycarry ofi" men and women, and often keep themfor years. They love to dwell amongst stones,and the Koumah Omang, which is one of theirfavourite habitations, is a cavern. The thirdgroup, or Orangs Boumans, resemble ordinarybeings, but have the power of making themselves

* L'Anthropologic, iv. 83.


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Ixvi INTRODUCTIONinvisible. They come down from the mountainsto buy supplies, but have not been seen for sometime. Westenberg, from whom this informationis quoted, regards the last class as being pro-scribed Battaks, who have fled for refuge to themountains. Passing to another continent, theIroquois * have several stories about Pigmies, oneof whom, by name Go-ga-ah, lives in a little cave.

3. The little people may occupy a castle orhouse, or the hill upon which such a building iserected, or a cave under it. Without dwellingupon the Brownies and other similar distinctlyhousehold spirits, there are certain classes whichmust be mentioned in this connection. TheMagyar fairies live in castles on lofty mountainpeaks. They build them themselves, or inheritthem from giants. Kozma enumerates the namesof about twenty-three castles which belongedto fairies, and which still exist. Although theyhave disappeared from earth, they continue tolive, even in our days, in caves under theircastles, in which caves their treasures lie hidden.The iron gates of Zeta Castle, which have subsidedinto the ground and disappeared from the surface,

* Smith, Myths of the Iroquois. American Bweau ofEthnology, ii. 65.


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INTRODUCTION Ixviiopen once in every seven years. On one occasiona man went in there, and met two beautiful fairieswhom he addressed thus, " How long wUl youstill linger here, my little sisters ? " and they re-plied, " As long as the cows will give warm milk."

Like the interior of some of the mound-dwell-ings already mentioned, these fairy caves aresplendid habitations. " Their subterranean habi-tations are not less splendid and glittering thanwere their castles of yore on the mountain peaks.The one at Firtos is a palace resting on solidgold columns. The palace at Tartod and thegorgeous one of Dame Eapson are lighted bythree diamond balls, as big as human heads,which hang from golden chains. The treasurewhich is heaped up in the latter place consistsof immense gold bars, golden lions with car-buncle eyes, a golden hen with her brood, andgolden casks, filled with gold coin. The trea-sures of Pairy Helen are kept in a cellar underKovdszna Castle, the gates of the cellar beingguarded by a magic cock. This bird only goesto sleep once in seven years, and anybody whocould guess the right moment would be able toscrape no end of diamond crystals from the wallsand brins: them out with him. The fairies who


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Ixviii INTRODUCTIONguard tlie treasures of the Poganyvdr (PaganCastle) in Marossz^k even nowadays come onmoonlight nights to bathe in the lake below." *In Brittany, " a number of little men, not morethan a foot high, dwell under the castle of Mor-laix. They live in holes in the ground, whitherthey may often be seen going, and beating onbasins. They possess great treasures, whichthey sometimes bring out ; and if any one passby at the time, allow him to take one handful,but no more. Should any one attempt to fill hispockets, the money vanishes, and he is instantlyassailed by a shower of boxes on the ear frominvisible hands." f In the Netherlands, the"Gypnissen," "queer little women," lived in acastle which had been reared in a single night. JThe Ainu have tales of the Poiyaumbe, a namewhich means literally " little beings residing onthe soil " (Mr. Batchelor says that " little " is pro-bably meant to express endearment or admiration,but one may be allowed to doubt this). TheAinu, who is the hero of the story, " comes to atall mountain with a beautiful house built on its

* Folk Tales of the Magyars, p. xxxviii.+ Grimm, apud Keightley, 441.J Testimony of Tradition, p. 86.


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INTRODUCTION Ixixsummit. Descending, for his path had alwaysbeen through the air, by the side of the house,and looking through the chinks of the door, hesaw a little man and a little woman sitting besidethe fireplace." *

4. The little people or fairies occupy rudestone monuments or are connected with theirbuilding. In Brittany they are associated withseveral of the megalithic remains.! "At Carnac,near Quiberon," says M. De Cambry, " in the de-partment of Morbihan, on the sea-shore, is theTemple of Carnac, called in Breton ' Ti Goriquet(House of the Gories), one of the most remark-able Celtic monuments extant. It is composed ofmore than four thousand large stones, standingerect in an arid plain, where neither tree norshrub is to be seen, and not even a pebble is to befound in the soil on which they stand. If theinhabitants are asked concerning this wonderfulmonument, they say it is an old camp of Caesar's,an army turned into stone, or that it is the workof the Crions or Gories. These they describe aslittle men between two and three feet high, whocarried these enormous masses on their hands

* Folk Lore Journal, vi. 195.+ Keightley, 440.


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Ixx INTRODUCTIONfor, though little, they are stronger than giants.Every night they dance around the stones, andwoe betide the traveller who approaches withintheir reach ! he is forced to join in the dance,where he is whirled about till, breathless andexhausted, he falls down, amidst the peals oflaughter of the Crions. All vanish with thebreak of day. In the ruins of Tresmalouendwell the Courils. They are of a malignantdisposition, but great lovers of dancing. Atnight they sport around the Druidical monu-ments. The unfortunate shepherd that ap-proaches them must dance their rounds withthem tm cockcrow ; and the instances are notfew of persons thus ensnared who have beenfound next morning dead with exhaustion andfatigue. ' Woe also to the ill-fated maiden whodraws near the Couril dance ! nine months after,the family counts one member more. Yet sogreat is the cunning and power of these dwarfs,that the young stranger bears no resemblance tothem, but they impart to it the features of somelad of the village."

In India megalithic remains are also associatedwith little people. "Dwarfs hold a distinctplace in Hindu mythology; they appear sculp-


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INTRODUCTION Ixxitured on all temples. Siva is accompanied bya body-guard of dwarfs, one of whom, the three-legged Bhringi, dances nimbly. But comingnearer to Northern legend, the cromlechs andkistvaens which abound over Southern Indiaare believed to have been built by a dwarf race,a cubit high, who could, nevertheless, move andhandle the huge stones easily. The villagerscall them Pandayar." *

Mr. Meadows Taylor, speaking of cromlechsin India, says, "Wherever I found them, thesame tradition was attached to them, that theywere Morie humu, or Mories' houses; theseMories having been dwarfs who inhabited thecountry before the present race of men."Again, speaking of the cromlechs of Koodil-ghee, he states, "Tradition says that formerGovernments caused dwellings of the descrip-tion aUuded to to be erected for a species ofhuman beings called ' Mohories,' whose dwarfishstature is said not to have exceeded a spanwhen standing, and a fist high when in a sittingposture, who were endowed with strength suffi-cient to roll off large stones with a touchof their thumb." There are, he also tells us,

* Folk Lore, iv. 401.


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Ixxii INTRODUCTIONsimilar traditions attaching to other places, wherethe dwarfs are sometimes spoken of as Gujaries.*Of stone structures built by fairies or little

people for the use of others, may be mentionedthe churches built by dwarfs in Scotland andBrittany, and described by Mr. MacEitchie, asalso the two following instances, taken fromwidely distant parts of the globe. In Brittany,the dolmen of Mann^-er Hrock (Montaigne de laFee), at Locmariaquer, is said to have been builtby a fairy, in order that a mother might standupon it and look out for her son's ship.f InFiji the following tale is told about the Nangaor sacred stone enclosure :" This is the word ofour fathers concerning the IlTanga. Long agotheir fathers were ignorant of it ; but one daytwo strangers were found sitting in the Eara(public square), and they said they had come upfrom the sea to give them the ITanga. They werelittle men, and very dark-skinned, and one ofthem had his face and bust painted red, whilethe other was painted black. Whether thesewere gods or men our fathers did not tell us,but it was they who taught our people the

* Jour. Ethnol. Soc, 1868-69, P- 157-+ Flint Chips, p. 104.


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INTRODUCTION IxxiiiNanga. This was in the old times, when ourfathers were living in another landnot in thisplace, for we are strangers here." * It is worthyof note that the term " Nanga " applies notmerely to the enclosure, but also to the secretsociety which held its meetings therein,f

5. The little people make their dwellingseither in the interior of a stone or amongststones. I am not here alluding to the stones onthe sides of mountains which are the doorwaysto fairy dwellings, but to a closer connection,which will be better understood from some ofthe following instances than from any lengthyexplanation. The Duergas of the ScandinavianEddas had their dwelling-places in stones, as weare told in the story of Thorston, who "cameone day to an open part of the wood, wherehe saw a great rock, and out a little wayfrom it a dwarf, who was horridly ugly." f InIreland, in Innisbofin, co. Galway, ProfessorHaddon relates that the men who were quarry-ing a rock in the neighbourhood of the harbourrefused to work at it any longer, as it was so

* Fison, Journ. Anthrop, Inst, xiv. 14.t Joske, Jnternat. Arch, f. EthnografMe, viii. 254.X Keightley, 70. /


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Ixxiv INTRODUCTIONfull of " good people " as to be hot.* In Eng-land the Pixy-house of Devon is in a stone,and a large stone is also connected with thestory of the Frensham caldron, though it isnot clear that the fairies lived in the rockitself, t Oseberrow or Osebury (vulgo Rose-bury) Rock, in Lulsey, Worcestershire, was,according to tradition, a favourite haunt of thefairies. :|: In another part of "Worcestershire, onthe side of the Cotswolds, there is, in a littlespinney, a large flat stone, much worn on itsunder surface, which is called the White Lady'sTable. This personage is supposed to take hermeals with the fairies at this rock, but what theexact relation of the little people to it as a dwell-ing-place may be, I have not been able to learn.

There is an Iroquois tale of dwarfs, in whichthe summons to the Pigmies was given by knock-ing upon a large stone. The little people ofMelanesia seem also to be associated in somemeasure with stones. Speaking of these beings,

* FoUcLore, iv. 49.t Ritson, 106, quoting Aubrey's Natural History of

Surrey, iii. 366.J Allies, Antiquities and Folk-Lore of Worcestershire,

p. 443- Smith, Myths of Iroquois, ut supra.


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INTRODUCTION IxxvMr. Codrington says,* "There are certain Vuishaving rather the nature of fairies. The ac-counts of them are vague, hut it is arguedthat they had never left the islands beforethe introduction of Christianity, and indeedhave been seen since. Not long ago therewas a woman living at Mota who was thechild of one, and a very few years ago afemale Vui with a child was seen in SaddleIsland. Some of these were called Nopitu,which come invisibly, or possess those withwhom they associate themselves. The pos-sessed are called Nopitu. Such persons wouldlift a cocoa-nut to drink, and native shellmoney would run out instead of the juiceand rattle against their teeth; they wouldvomit up money, or scratch and shake them-selves on a mat, when money would pourfrom their fingers. This was often seen, andbelieved to be the doing of a Nopitu. Inanother manner of manifestation, a Nopituwould make himself known as a party weresitting round an evening fire. A man wouldhear a voice in his thigh, * Here am I, giveme food.' He would roast a little red yam,

* Journ. Anthrop. Inst., x. 261.


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Ixxvi INTRODUCTIONand fold it in the corner of his mat. Hewould soon find it gone, and the iN'opituwould begin a song. Its voice was so smalland clear and sweet, that once heard it nevercould be forgotten; but it sang the ordinaryMota songs. Such spirits as these, if seen orfound, would disappear beside a stone; theywere smaller than the native people, darker,and with long straight hair. But they weremostly unseen, or seen only by those to whomthey took a fancy. They were the friendlyTrolls or Robin GoodfeUows of the islands;a man would find a fine red yam put for himon the seat beside the door, or the moneywhich he paid away returned within his purse.A woman working in her garden heard a voicefrom the fruit of a gourd asking for some food,and when she pulled up an arum or dug outa yam, another still remained ; but when shelistened to another spirit's panpipes, the firstin his jealousy conveyed away garden and all."Amongst the Australians also supernatural beingsdwell amongst the rocks, and the Annannitesand Arabians know of fairies living amongstthe rocks and hills.*

* Hartland, Science of Fairy Tales, p. 351.


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INTRODUCTION Ixxvii6. The little people may have their habi-

tation in forests or trees. Such were the Skov-trolde, or "Wood-Trolls of Thorlacius,* who madetheir home on the earth in gr

Documents

(1894) A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients