A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients | Page 8

adjoining Soos. These dwarfs have been alluded to by Harris and
Dönnenburg,[C] but Mr. Harold Crichton Browne,[D] who has
explored neighbouring districts, is of opinion that there is no such tribe,
and that the accounts of them have been based upon the examination of
sporadic examples of dwarfishness met with in that as in other parts of
the world.
[Footnote A: _Morgenblatt_, 1853 (quoted by Schaafhausen, _Arch. f.
Anth._, 1866, p. 166).]
[Footnote B: London, Nutt, 1891.]
[Footnote C: _Nature_, 1892, ii. 616.]
[Footnote A: _Nature_, 1892, i. 269.]
Finally, in Madagascar it is possible that there may be a dwarf race.
Oliver[A] states that "the Vazimbas are supposed to have been the first
occupants of Ankova. They are described by Rochon, under the name
of Kunios, as a nation of dwarfs averaging three feet six inches in
stature, of a lighter colour than the Negroes, with very long arms and
woolly hair. As they were only described by natives of the coast, and
have never been seen, it is natural to suppose that these peculiarities
have been exaggerated; but it is stated that people of diminutive size
still exist on the banks of a certain river to the south-west." There are
many tumuli of rude work and made of rough stones throughout the
country, which are supposed to be their tombs. In idolatrous days, says

Mullens,[B] the Malagasy deified the Vazimba, and their so-called
tombs were the most sacred objects in the country. In this account may
be found further evidence in favour of Mr. Gomme's theory, to which
attention has already been called.
[Footnote A: _Anthrop. Memoirs_, iii. 1.]
[Footnote B: _Jour. Anthrop. Inst._, v. 181.]
In the great continent of America there does not appear to have ever
been, so far as our present knowledge teaches, any pigmy race. Dr.
Brinton, the distinguished American ethnologist, to whom I applied for
information on this point, has been good enough to write to me that, in
his opinion, there is no evidence of any pigmy race in America. The
"little people" of the "stone graves" in Tennessee, often supposed to be
such, were children, as the bones testify. The German explorer Hassler
has alleged the existence of a pigmy race in Brazil, but testimony is
wanting to support such allegation. There are two tribes of very short
but not pigmy stature in America, the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuégo and
the Utes of Colorado, but both of these average over five feet.
Leaving aside for the moment the Lapps, to whom I shall return, there
does not appear to have been at any time a really pigmy race in Europe,
so far as any discoveries which have been made up to the present time
show. Professor Topinard, whose authority upon this point cannot be
gainsaid, informs me that the smallest race known to him in Central
Europe is that of the pre-historic people of the Lozère, who were
Neolithic troglodytes, and are represented probably at the present day
by some of the peoples of South Italy and Sardinia. Their average
stature was about five feet two inches. This closely corresponds with
what is known of the stature of the Platycnemic race of Denbighshire,
the Perthi-Chwareu. Busk[A] says of them that they were of low stature,
the mean height, deduced from the lengths of the long bones, being
little more than five feet. As both sexes are considered together in this
description, it is fair to give the male a stature of about five feet two
inches,[B] It also corresponds with the stature assigned by Pitt-Rivers
to a tribe occupying the borders of Wiltshire and Dorsetshire during the
Roman occupation, the average height of whose males and females was
five feet two and a half inches and four feet ten and three-quarter inches
respectively.
[Footnote A: _Jour. Ethn. Soc._, 1869-70, p. 455.]

[Footnote B: Since these pages were printed, Prof. Kollmann, of Basle,
has described a group of Neolithic pigmies as having existed at
Schaffhausen. The adult interments consisted of the remains of
full-grown European types and of small-sized people. These two races
were found interred side by side under precisely similar conditions,
from which he concludes that they lived peaceably together,
notwithstanding racial difference. Their stature (about three feet six
inches) may be compared with that of the Veddahs in Ceylon. Prof.
Kollmann believes that they were a distinct species of mankind.]
Dr. Rahon,[A] who has recently made a careful study of the bones of
pre-historic and proto-historic races, with special reference to their
stature, states that the skeletons attributed to the most ancient and to the
Neolithic races are of a stature below the middle height, the average
being a little over five feet three inches. The peoples who constructed
the Megalithic remains of Roknia and of the Caucasus, were