DWARFS OF THE STONE AGE.

Hokitika Guardian, 12 June 1926, Page 4

DWARFS OF THE STONE AGE.

MY DISCOVERIES IX AN AFRICAN DESERT.

(By Profssor E. H. L. Schwarz, the Scientist and Explorer, who recently discovered Lost Peoples and Unknown Towns in the Kalahari Desert).

The story of the war between Ihe s: dwarfs and the cranes comes to us h front thb remotest antiquity; it was g< embeHished in classical times by all manner Jot' amusing frills and has s been discussed at length by scholars tl of all ages. It has now fallen into 1 oblivion and is taken to be a stupid traveller’s tale. It is true for all that—at least that version given by Homer, by whom the shouts of. the Trojans about to join buttle with the Creeks are compared with the noise of the cranes when the dwarfs attacked them. The latter are tho Bushmen of Qlmaikwe —People of the Apron—still living in the Kalahari, in South Africa, but who used to live round the Mcditerranenan. "he cranes ’are ostriches, whose deep-throat-ed boom has terrified many a newcomer to Africa, and whieh_ was likened by Dr Livingstone to the roar of a lion.

Tho Bushmen speak an extranrclinary language made up of clicks, snores, and warbles, invented before the human tongue acquired the finer adjustments necessary for articulate speech. They average four feet six in height and are U merry little people, full ol fun and famous for their dancing. The Go-o. or women’s dance, might bo taken up ns a new sensation by jazz devotees, but tho Khu, that r.f the men. is more ceremonious and statelv. if['XTET) LIKE BABOONS. The Kings 'of ancient" Egypt were great admirers of the Bushmen. W hen a King died a couple of the little men were sacrificed and buried with him, so that I heir shades might accompany his to the Other World, wild there dance before the dread Osiris. Tt was expected that the deity would he so delighted that ho would pass the whole party on, without inquiring 100 closely into their behaviour on earth. In the sixth dynasty we have pathetic picture of the great Pharaoh himself trying to learn how to he gay and light-hearted by laboriously copying the antics of his Court Bushman.

Pepi 11. sent Her-khuf, Governor of Elephantine, on the Nile, to fetch him a tenk (pigmy) from the oasis of Owenat. Elaborate instructions were issued that every precaution should be taken, to bring the precious captive safely to .Memphis, and that lie should he watched day and night lest ho might tumble into the. river. This was live thousand yens ago. The actual oasis has been discovered, or at. any rate one very like that described by Her-khuf, who called it llhat. On the walls of a rock shelter there the Bushmen have painted animals of various kinds, and among them is a, man shooting an ostrich with a how* and arrow.

There is a continuous chain of these rock-drawings through tile Sudan, lo f.nko Tanganyika, thence to Rhode-ua and the Cape, and there can be no doubt that they were executed by men of the same race. ’1 here are re li cs of tho click language, too, to substantiate this in Central Africa.

The little fellows were hunted as I oleums by all the other nations in Africa, but they emerged al last in to the pla ins of the Karroo, which nobody wanted. Here they muitiplied exceedingly, forming large omlnunities, with towns ol five and Ox thousand inhabitants. LAST OF THE GNOMES.

Then came the trek Boer, wth bis art op building dams, whereby he could store water between the- mins, so that the land became desirable. There ensued a war of extermination, like that waged in Tasmania against ■a very similar people. The Bushmen would have, disappeared as the Tasmanian aborigines did, bad not ilm Kalahari afforded them a sanctmry. Hero they live to-day, relics of the Stone Age, with habits and mode of speech dating from the beginning of time., as far as tlu* human species is concerned.

There is another interest ultached to these Bushmen, for they are the living representatives ol the gimmes, elves, trolls, Fairies anil so forth. One piece of evidence will have to suffice to prove this. At Canute, near Quiheron, in France, there is the temple of Ti Goriqnet, the house of the Cories, or Crions. They are dwarfs and actually beiar the same mime as cue tribe of tile South African Bushmen, the Gorif|Uns. At night time they dance round the four thousand standing stones of which their “house’ is made, and any luckless wight who comes too close is dragged into their midst, whirled about and bustled till lie falls exhausted. The same kind of temples occur throughout North Africa and India, and wc have Stonehenge in England. The true Qhuaikwe are now exceedingly scarce, but there are a number of other wild tribes living with them in the Kalahari. Some are tall, some medium-sized but heavily built. One race is yellow, another red-brown, others black. All of them represent various pre-historio people, and all are still in the Stone Age, dwelling in grass huts more-like the liests of animals than human habitations, living by hunting and such food 'ns the veld provides, utterly incapable of tilling the ground or becoming of use as sir. vants, and speaking a most primitive click language. , - ,