A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients | Page 4

of
which, the Shom Pen,[A] now inhabit the mountains, where, like so
many of their brethren, they have been driven by the Malays. They are
of small, but not pigmy stature (five feet two inches), a fact which may
be due to crossing.
[Footnote A: Man, _Jour. Anthrop. Inst._, xviii. p. 354.]
Following the Negritos east amongst the islands, we find in Luzon the
Aetas or Inagtas, a group of which is known in Mindanao as
Manamouas. The Aetas live side by side with the Tagals, who are of
Malay origin. They were called Negritos del Monte by the Spaniards
who first colonised these islands. Their average stature, according to

Wallace, ranges from four feet six inches to four feet eight inches. In
New Guinea, the Karons, a similar race, occupy a chain of mountains
parallel to the north coast of the great north-western peninsula. At Port
Moresby, in the same island, the Koiari appear to represent the most
south-easterly group; but my friend Professor Haddon, who has
investigated this district, tells me that he finds traces of a former
existence of Negritos at Torres Straits and in North Queensland, as
shown by the shape of the skulls of the inhabitants of these regions.
The Malay Peninsula contains in Perak hill tribes called "savages" by
the Sakays. These tribes have not been seen by Europeans, but are
stated to be pigmy in stature, troglodytic, and still in the Stone Age.
Farther south are the Semangs of Kedah, with an average stature of four
feet ten inches, and the Jakuns of Singapore, rising to five feet. The
Annamites admit that they are not autochthonous, a distinction which
they confer upon the Moïs, of whom little is known, but whose
existence and pigmy Negrito characteristics are considered by De
Quatrefages as established.
China no longer, so far as we know, contains any representatives of this
type, but Professor Lacouperie[A] has recently shown that they
formerly existed in that part of Asia. According to the annals of the
Bamboo Books, "In the twenty-ninth year of the Emperor Yao, in
spring, the chief of the Tsiao-Yao, or dark pigmies, came to court and
offered as tribute feathers from the Mot." The Professor continues, "As
shown by this entry, we begin with the semi-historic times as recorded
in the 'Annals of the Bamboo Books,' and the date about 2048 B.C. The
so-called feathers were simply some sort of marine plant or seaweed
with which the immigrant Chinese, still an inland people, were yet
unacquainted. The Mot water or river, says the Shan-hai-king, or
canonical book of hills and seas, was situated in the south-east of the
Tai-shan in Shan-tung. This gives a clue to the localisation of the
pigmies, and this localisation agrees with the positive knowledge we
possess of the small area which the Chinese dominion covered at this
time. Thus the Negritos were part of the native population of China
when, in the twenty-third century B.C., the civilised 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, was previously the home of the Ainu, a white, hairy

under-sized race, possibly, even probably, emigrants from Europe, and
now gradually dying out in Yezo and the Kurile Islands. Prior to the
Ainu was a Negrito race, whose connection with the former is a matter
of much dispute, whose remains in the shape of pit-dwellings, stone
arrow-heads, pottery, and other implements still exist, and will be
found fully described by Mr. Savage Landor in a recent most
interesting work.[B] In the Shan-hai-king, as Professor Schlegel[C]
points out, their country is spoken of as the Siao-jin-Kouo, or land of
little men, in distinction, be it noted, to the Peh-min-Kouo, or land of
white people, identified by him with the Ainu. These little men are
spoken of by the Ainu as Koro-puk-guru, _i.e._, according to Milne,
men occupying excavations, or pit-dwellers. According to Chamberlain,
the name means dwellers under burdocks, and is associated with the
following legend. Before the time of the Ainu, Yezo was inhabited by a
race of dwarfs, said by some to be two to three feet, by others only one
inch in height. When an enemy approached, they hid themselves under
the great leaves of the burdock (_koro_), for which reason they are
called Koro-puk-guru, i.e., the men under the burdocks. When they
were exterminated by the wooden clubs of the Ainu, they raised their
eyes to heaven, and, weeping, cried aloud to the gods, "Why were we
made so small?" It should be said that Professor Schlegel and Mr.
Savage Landor both seem to prefer the former etymology.
[Footnote A: Babylonian and Oriental Record, vol. v.]
[Footnote B: Alone with the Hairy Ainu.]