CHAPTER XLVIII

THE OBONGOS, OR DWARFS

Strange-looking small human beings, almost as singular as the men of the woods, were one day talking together near some diminutive houses, looking somewhat like beehives covered with very large leaves. These houses had openings or doors which were so low and small that these creatures had to lie flat on their stomachs and crawl in like snakes when they wished to enter. They had just returned with rough-looking baskets filled with berries, nuts, and fruits which they had gathered that day.

These little people were the dwarfs, or pigmies, living in the great African forest, and were called obongos. They varied in height from about three feet eight or nine inches to four feet two to four inches. They were all taller than their houses.

Their complexion varied from that of light yellow to a muddy clay color, like that of the nkengos; a few were darker. They were shaped like big people, had feet and hands like theirs; but their feet were more flexible, yet not so much so that they could be used as hands, like those of the men of the woods. They were all lightly built; there was not a corpulent one among them. They had not the straight hair of the men of the woods. Their heads were covered with little tufts of reddish woolly hair, each tuft being separate. Some had also the same tufts of hair upon their bodies.

After a while other obongos came with more food, until there were about fifty of them together. They told what they had seen during the day and the places where food was plentiful.

They had an old chief with cunning but kindly features. They spoke a language more distinct than that of the men of the woods, but their words were difficult to make out. The dwarfs seated themselves on the ground, cross-legged, round a big fire that they had lighted by rubbing two pieces of very dry wood against each other.

After a while, a wise dwarf said to the others, who listened to him eagerly: “Strange it is that we dwarfs partake of two natures,—one that of the big human beings inhabiting the forest, and the other that of the men of the woods. We partake of the nature of the men of the woods in that we never plant or sow anything; we live on the berries, fruits, nuts, and canes of the forest; we have to roam through the forest like them in search of food; our shelters are of leaves like theirs; we have to shift our abode as they do, for after a few days we have eaten all the food around us.

“We partake of the nature of the human beings in this: we can make fire and enjoy it; we cook our food; we make traps to snare game; we use weapons, such as iron spears, bows and arrows, and axes; we know how to poison arrows; we can smoke; we can make intoxicating drinks, and can get drunk; we can learn the language of the big people and speak it, and the big people can also learn our language.”

After a short silence, another wise dwarf said: “What has been said is true. But we do not know how to work iron; the spears we get from the big people, and everything else that is made of iron; the intoxicating drinks we have learned from them also; what we smoke is planted by them; our pottery is of their make.

“Do not the young men of the woods that are captured by the big human beings learn to drink intoxicating drinks as we do, to eat cooked food, and even to smoke, when they keep them long enough with them? Do they not enjoy the heat of the fire as well as we do? Do they not steal plantains or other food, and learn that it is wrong to do so, after they have been flogged for it? Do they not prefer a soft place to sleep on instead of a hard one? I tell you the men of the woods can learn many of the ways of the human beings.”

“That is so!” shouted all the dwarfs at the same time. “The men of the woods can learn the ways of the human beings. You are right! you are right!”

Then the dwarfs put more wood on the fire. How strange the dwarf women appeared! How tiny were their little babies! The dwarfs began to eat the food they had brought, and after their meal lingered near the big fire; then other fires were lighted in different places among the green leafy dwellings. Gradually, one after another, they entered their houses by crawling on their stomachs, taking lighted brands to light fires inside.

That night there was a big storm; the claps of thunder were terrific; the lightning pierced through the forest. It rained in torrents. So the dwarfs, now and then, went out of their leafy houses to see that the fires were not extinguished; for they did not want any ferocious njego to come among them and carry away one of their number.

They were up at break of day, and hurried to the forest in search of food, for fear they should come too late and that the men of the woods and ngoas might be on the spot before them. The women followed with their tiny babies. They had to travel quite a way before they came to the food ground, for they had been in their settlement for over eight days. When they reached the spot, they saw that no creatures had been before them. So they were glad and ate to their hearts’ content.

Some climbed trees to seek nuts, berries, or fruits; others were on the ground looking for them. They all filled their baskets. They returned home quite a while before sunset, and talked, ate, and warmed themselves by the fires, after which they retired. They bemoaned the lack of game. The traps and snares they had laid were empty. They said: “These horrid bashikouay ants must have been in this region before we came. As for the monkeys, we do not know what has become of them.”

The following day they started, as usual, very early for the feeding ground; but it took them a much longer time to go, for every day it was farther off. When they got there, they found that some men of the woods, even some boars and monkeys, had been before them, and they were angry, shouting, “The horrid creatures have eaten our food! How often they play such tricks upon us!”

Like all the rest, the dwarfs thought that the berries, nuts, and fruits grew for them alone, and belonged to them, and that the other creatures of the forest had no business to eat them. Fortunately, the poor dwarfs had saved food, and they had plenty to eat when they returned to their settlement; but they were not in the best of humor.

The next morning they divided into several parties, and went to another district to get food. It was a nut country. To their consternation very little food was to be got; for the ngoas had been there and eaten all the koola nuts that had fallen on the ground, and some of the men of the woods and monkeys had made great havoc among the fruits and nuts. The dwarfs had no words bad enough for them, and wished they were all dead.

That afternoon some of their fellows arrived with a dead nkengo which they carried on a long pole. There was very great excitement among all the dwarfs when they saw the dead nkengo, for they thought that they were distantly related to him. They surrounded the body as he lay on the ground. The nkengo had died of old age; he had only five teeth left, and the hair on his body had become gray and was very thin. How old he was nobody could guess.

That evening, the dwarfs said: “Let us move away to-morrow. We have to travel too far now to get food. It will take us the whole day to go from here and come back. How horrid the ngoas are; but still worse are the men of the woods! What a pity that we cannot trap them all!”

Early the next morning the dwarfs packed their small belongings, the men having their bows and arrows, the women carrying their little bits of children slung on their backs.

As they were ready to start, the old chief said: “The men of the woods, the nkengos, and the mbouvés have an advantage over us. They have no belongings to carry with them when they go to find new quarters.” And, before leaving, the dwarfs said: “We cannot all go together, for we should not be able to pick up food enough for all of us. So we must journey in small squads, and before night we will meet by the big koola-tree we all know. Its nuts are ripe, and we shall find plenty of them on the ground, and have a good supper, unless the ngoas have been there before us.”

With this understanding they started. They looked, as their bodies were dimly seen through the branches of the trees, as if they were men of the woods. Soon the squads were out of sight of one another.

Though the dwarfs can find their way through the jungle better than the big people, they have not the natural gift in this respect bestowed on the animals of the forest. When they are changing their abode and are on the march, they have to make marks now and then, and see that they follow the marks they made with their hatchets the year before upon the trees, and also make new ones as they go along. They feed on what they can find on the way, picking here and there a berry, fruit, or nut, and looking for monkeys, which they hope to kill with their arrows made of palm-tree branches.

At the appointed time, the different squads of dwarfs arrived, one after another, under the koola-tree, and a great abundance of koola nuts covered the ground,—a sight which rejoiced them greatly.

“Fortunate are we,” said Monbon, one of the dwarfs, with a shrill laugh, “that these horrid ngoas did not make their appearance before us; otherwise we should have had to go to sleep with shrunken stomachs, for very little food have we found on our way.”

They lighted two big fires, and then gathered the koola nuts. These they broke with stones, and ate a good many of them and saved the others. When they had eaten, some of the dwarfs went to a stream near by to drink. There they saw the footprints of a ngina, and they were full of fear.

One dwarf also discovered fresh footprints of a njego; and when he told his comrades of it, they said: “We must keep our fires burning bright all night, so that the njegos will be afraid to come near. The only way for us to avoid the nginas and njegos, and to make them flee, is to make a great noise.” Accordingly they made all the racket they could, and then slept surrounded by big fires.

The following day they travelled from early morning, and in the afternoon came to a region full of berries, nuts, and fruits, and noticed that the country was full of game.

That day one of the squads found the skull of a full-grown male ngina. It was fearful to behold, it looked so fierce with all its teeth grinning in its jaws. Another squad found the skull of a little ngina, and they took it with them also.

When they laid these before the whole company of dwarfs, they all shouted: “Now, nginas, you will eat no more of our fruits, berries, and nuts.” Then they reflected that perhaps these nginas had come to their death by stepping upon the point of poisoned arrows that had been planted in the ground by some other colony of dwarfs; for it is their custom sometimes when they fear enemies at night to do so near their settlement; but it is very seldom they do this, and then they know exactly where these are laid, since they might step upon them themselves.

Examining the skull of the big ngina, they said, “The nginas have the same number of teeth that we have, but how strong theirs are;” and they wondered at the big ridge at the top of the skull,—which space, when the ngina is alive, is covered with muscles attached to the lower jaw, that give him such tremendous biting power.

Then they looked at the little head and counted its teeth and said: “These young nginas have the same number of teeth that our children have before they get their second set.”

They agreed to go a little farther the next day, and, if the country proved good, to stop there and build their houses.

The dwarfs went to sleep very happy, for there was a good prospect of food before them.

Early the following morning they were exploring the forest. At noon, when they met, they all agreed that the country was good, and there was much food. They looked for a place near a spring to build their new houses.

They went to the forest to collect material. They took machetes and queer-looking axes with them which they had got from the big people. They came back after a while with many long slender saplings, the kind that could be bent without breaking, large leaves, short sticks for beds,—in a word, all the building material they needed. After depositing these on the ground, they returned for more. When they had collected enough, they began to make their houses. They bent the slender branches of trees in the shape of a bow and put each end in the ground.

The houses were not quite four feet in height. They made two little beds in each house. Four or five sticks put together made each bed, and a log made the pillow. When this was done, they roofed their beehive-like structure with large leaves, overlapping each other, to prevent the rain from coming in. In each house slept two dwarfs. Though the houses appeared all alike, the owners could tell the difference between them. After their settlement was built, the dwarfs said:—

“How much better are our shelters than those of the nkengos and of the mbouvés! but we are obliged to move away as often as they do, for we live much the same kind of life.” They then collected firewood for the night. This was easy enough, for in the big forest dead and fallen limbs of trees were lying everywhere.

After their supper they seated themselves round a log fire. They all felt happy, for they had come to a part of the forest where food was plentiful; and even if the nginas, the men of the woods, or the ngoas came, they would not eat it all. When it was bedtime, they went off one by one to their houses. They lay flat on their bellies and crawled in, for the doors of their dwellings were not more than one foot in height and not quite as wide. They started early the following morning. The men went to lay all kinds of traps and snares in the forest to trap game. The women went after food, but they found it round their settlements. All came back early.

The next afternoon was a great feast day; not only fruits, berries, and nuts were abundant, but the dwarfs had been very successful in trapping game. One came back with a big ombama, over twenty feet long; some had monkeys, which they had killed with arrows. Two wild boars and two or three animals had been trapped and caught. So there was a great feast that evening.

The following day they trapped so much game that the dwarfs said, “The bashikouay ants must have made a raid in the forest, and the animals have fled in our direction.” Big fires were lighted; and when the firewood had been reduced to charcoal, they roasted the monkeys and big pieces of boar upon it. They ate to their hearts’ content. After eating, they lay on their backs, just as the men of the woods do, and smoked wild hemp which they got from the big human beings, and felt happy. In the evening they retired under their shelter after they had collected firewood for the night.

Then, seated around their fire, some of the dwarfs said: “Our camp is not far from a village of big people. It is a long time since we have eaten plantains. Let us go and exchange game with them for bunches of plantains, for the plantains taste so much better than all the nuts and fruits we find in the forest.”

So they went to a village of a tribe which lived in that part of the forest, and took several monkeys and pieces of wild boar. They were well received and welcomed by the big people, among whom they had many friends, and remained in their village, enjoying the cooked plantains that were served to them. When they returned, they took back with them as many bunches of plantains as they could carry.

Thus the dwarfs spend their lives year after year.