Pygmy Princess Objects To Auckland Chill

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 668, 21 May 1929, Page 9

Pygmy Princess Objects To Auckland Chill

Queer Tastes of Little Visitor front Africa PASSION FOR CARROTS “Naw. I don’t like nothing!* - aanl the Princess peevishly, stamping a tiny white sandalled foot on the deck of the Maunganui this morning. Though it sounded like a passage from “Alice in Wonderland.” it was merely Princess Chillfwingi Chinna Mungamsi. late of the Ituri Fore*? in the Belgian Congo, expressing he: disapproval of the nippy breene bio* ing down the harbour when she arrived from Australia. Only 28 inches high, the little woman, who weighs 50 pounds, was dressed in a smart fur coat, brown hat and iip-io-d&te costume. She wor no stockings, and her feet were en cased in white shoes. Her hair hutic in long plaits down her little brown face. Just about three years ago she was trotting through the forests of the Belgian Congo, wearing little else but a pleasant expression and carrying a blow-pipe. Today she Is a “song and dance” artist touring Australia and New Zealand. She can •‘Black Bottom” with the best of them, and has done broadcasting. Her tastes are very mixed. She does fancy work, loves birds, music and flowers, hates sweets of any description, and has an enduring passion for carrots.

Those who wish to get on good terms with the little woman can do nothing better than buy her a bunch of carrots. She is a vegetarian usually', but sometimes succumbs to a weakness for pickled or curried fish. Rice, dry bread, toast and coffee are her principal foods. “Show the people the nice fancy work you have done.” said the woman who accompanied her. “Naw, I’ll not show it! I don t want to show nothing!” said Princess Chilliwingi Chinna Mungamsi, who spoke English fairly well and knew her own mind. She shrank into her fur coat and stared pensively at the Waitakeres.

Chilliwingi, as she is popularly known, sometimes answers to the prosaic name of “Maria.” She is only 27 years of age, and her pvgmy heart yearns for the forests of her native land. She is going back to Africa at the end of August. The sea annoys her, and she cannot understand being away out in the water with no land in sight. “The boat bucks up and down the hills on the water,” she said. “Naw, f don't like it at all.”

She is under bond in both Australia and New Zealand to return to Africa, so she is sure of seeing her native land again after her New Zealand tour is finished. She will join her pygmy people again and fade into the depths of the Congo forests with her bush companions.