A RACE OF PIGMIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 95, 30 July 1910, Page 10

A RACE OF PIGMIES.

Latest files of the London Times contain a full account of the finding of a new race of pigmies in New Guinea, referredl to in a recent cable. "L-hey were discovered toy the British Ornithological Expedition in New Guinea, at an elevation of 2000 feet, and they do not average 43in in height. They are presumed to belong to the human race known as the Negritos, and the discovery will account for the presence of various anomalous races in the remoter parts of the Lesser Sunda Islands. Hitherto they have only been known to inhabit the Andaman Islands, the northern portion 0 the Malay Peninsula, and certain areas in the Philipine Islands. In all these districts the characteristics of the race are astonishingly uniform, practically no adult over sft in height being met, while the women rarely exceed 4ft. The main features of this marked type of the man race, apart from their small size, are the dark color of their skin, the extremely broad nose, the breadth being about equal to the height, and the frizzy hair, which grows in isolated "peppercorn" tufts all over the scalp. The mental qualitiies of the Negritos are extremely undevelopedi, none of them being able to express a higher numerical idea than three, but all observers who have met them unite in saying that they are a merry little people, when their confidence has been gained, and provided they have not been previously illtreated. They are not cannibals, and are generally monogamous. Their physical characteristics are entirely®different from those of the Papuans, and their 1 houses, which are merely "Ifan-to's," or wind screens are very different from the communal houses raised upon piles, which accommodate the New Guinea j natives. The discovery is regarded as one of the most interesting that has been made for years in the field of anthropology.