Kathleen Conrad age 13, Atlanta, Ga
What are Pygmies?
There are pictures of pygmies on ancient Greek vases. The little people are shown wrestling with storks. The Greeks believed white, long legged storks went to live in Africa with the pygmies during the worst of the winter. So it seems the small pygmies have been sharing our world for a long time. The Greeks named them with their word for fist. A fist was a measure of length about 13 inches.
Real pygmies are more than four times as tall as one of these old time fists. You might mistake them for a group of sun tanned sun bathing fifth graders. Their bodies are proportioned more like children than adults. Heads are big, legs are short, trunks are long.
Adult pygmies resemble children in other respect, they are cheerful and more ready to smile than most sober grown ups. They are very interested in everything going on. They love to try on your hat anal swap for knives and pretty beads. When you explain something simple, they can learn quickly. But even second graders can concentrate longer than grown up pygmies. There are small pygmies living happily in several parts of the world. Some live in the deep forests of the African Congo. Others live in Malaya and the dense vegetation of the Philippines. They are most at home in the tangles of tropical jungles.
They tend to live in small groups of a few families. Their carefree life never keeps them long on one spot. Home is a small dome built of bent boughs and neatly covered with leaves. There is a picture of a group of pygmies in front of such a home in your gift encyclopedia.
The tangled jungles are full of all sorts of dangers. But remember, pygmies have been coping with jungles for at least 2000 years. To them, the jungle is home. Adders, cobras, big cats and pounding elephants are no more threatening to them than crossing a crowded street is to us. They know the safety rules and teach them to their children.
Pygmies feed on meat, berries, nuts and roots. Game is hunted by the man of the group. They are armed with bows and arrows and blowguns. The blowgun is a hollow tube carrying a slender dart. Sometimes the dart is dipped in poison soaked from certain plants. A little hunter can bring down really big game with one of these poisoned darts,
The charming little pygmies are rated among the rather backward members of the human family. However, they can chatter, figure in twos and cope with some of the toughest surroundings on earth, We might call them mankind’s race of happy children, Pygmies seldom, if ever, squabble among themselves.