Show DWARF LIFE IN AFRICA The Natives Are Noted Trappers and Hunters Oscar Roberts In the Independent Most of these people are smaller than their Bakoko and Mabeya neighbors I but not all as the dwarf women are sometimes married into these tribes They deserve the name dwarf more Iesene I from the similarity of their habits to the true dwarfs further Inland They live a wandering Indianlike life hunting hunt-Ing They have nets 120 feet long and three or four feet high a number of which they stretch across the bush and the men women and children drive the game into these nets They are exports ex-ports in trapping too They do not stay In one place long enough to plant so they trade their game to their agricultural ag-ricultural neighbors for vegetable food I These Mabeya head men have a certain cer-tain kind of ownership over them sometimes furnishing them with powder and guns and nets and a very little cloth for their game during the time they are in that community When not successful In the hunt they must depend de-pend upon the wild plants nuts honey which they know so well how to find They often have a feast and more often a famine Their sheds are from 15 to 50 feet long the leaf roof touching the ground on one side and being about four and a half feet high on the other side Where there are large trees the roofs are made of the bark of a tree four or five feet in diameter which often does not have time to crack and leak before the dwarfs want to move Under these sheds are the pole beds supported by forked sticks four to five inches from the ground There is a space left for afire a-fire between every two beds I they have any boxes or small tin trunks they keep them hid in the bush there Is nothing to be seen unless they have a pot or bowl or basket a net or gun or a native ax and no one man Is rich natve to possess all of these They can move all their possessions on 15 minutes notice may be living here today to-day and 20 miles away tomorrow Three moves do not equal one fire with them For amusements a man goes through violent form of exercise trying to move as many of the muscles of his I body at one time as possible the spectators spec-tators clapping their hands and calling beating on sticks and their drums during dur-ing the performance They seem to believe be-lieve in one supreme being who is good and kind but of course have no definite defi-nite knowledge of him They fear the I spirits of the departed and are said to move at once from a place where one I of their number died They fear and try to appease many evil spirits one of I which takes a dreadful form for his punishment Among the Mabeyas near here I know of but one blind man yet it is the rule to find one blind man in I a community of from 15 to BO dwarfs and sometimes as many as three blind ones made blind some night b the agent of this evil spirit as a punishment I punish-ment for some offense Miss MacClean a lady of Glasgow has given the funds for the work for I these people It is the purpose to establish es-tablish a station about 90 miles from I the beach doing regular station work with the Mabeyaspeaking people there and at the same time doing everything I possible for the speedy evangelization of these wandering people But the workers are needed men with good I I constitutions and a real love for itinerating I itin-erating bush travel I a man has a love for plants and insects and birds so I much the better These people might be able to show him a medical property I of some of the plants they know that I would be helpful to all The power to shoot a parrot out of a high tree with a Winchester ought not to be lightly I overlooked ID a country where everything key every-thing Is eaten from a snake to a mon |