CENTRAL AFRICAN TRIBES.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 August 1921, Page 7

CENTRAL AFRICAN TRIBES.

A VAST GRAVEYARD OF DYING . RACES.

Describing'travels in equatorial Africa, comprising two journeys across the continent from sea to sea, Mr. F. W. H. Migeod says:—*‘The most remarkable feature of the country between the north of the French territory and the coast, the Gaboon area, is that it ie becoming a vast graveyard for the dying races of Central Africa. For some time the sands of the Sahara have been advancing southward, and there has been a steady trek of native tribes, as if pushed by the sands, south and west, into the French territory. There they are held up by the more vigorous coastal races, and settle down. And they settle down as if determined to die out. It is. indeed, the most amazing case of racial suicide, on a huge scale, that the world has ever seen. I passed among tribes where the women refuse to bear children, and in another generation, if present ideas prevail, they will simply die out. J heard of a tribe further north, where the chief has absolutely forbidden marriage, with this some idea. So pronounced is this lack of the will to live, that many tribes have to be compelled by the French authorities to grow food enough to keep themselves alive. I believe that this desire to die out dates from the introduction of the liquor traffic (now, happily, stopped), and the spread of certain diseases by new-comers from Europe and other parts of- Africa. But certainly there is nothing more extraordinary than this drift of peoples from the Sahara borders into this district, which they have apparently decided to make the <rav« of their racai/’ t