BATWA

This article appears in Volume V03, Page 535 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BAR-BEC

BATWA , a tribe of

African

AFRICAN

pygmies living in the mountainous country around Wissmann Falls in the Kasai

district

DISTRICT

of the Belgian Congo. They were discovered in 188o by Paul Pogge and Hermann von Wissmann, and have been identified with Sir H. M.

Stanley

's Vouatouas. They are typical of the negrito family

south

SOUTH
SOUTH, ROBERT (1634–1716)

of the Congo. They are well made, with limbs perfectly proportioned, and are seldom more than 4 ft. high. Their complexion is a yellow-brown, much lighter than their Bantu-Negroid neighbours. They have short woolly

hair

HAIR (a word common to Teutonic languages)

and no

beard

BEARD (A.S. beard, O. H. and Mod. Ger. Bart, Dan. beard, Icel. bar, rim, edge,
beak
- BEAK (early forms beke and becke, from Fr. bec, late Lat. beccus, supposed to be a Gaulish word; the Celtic bec and beq, however, are taken from the English)
of a ship, &c., O. Slay. barda, Russ. barodd. Cf. Welsh barf, Lat.. barba, though, according to the New English Dictionary, the connexion is for phonetic reasons doubtful)
BEARD, WILLIAM HOLBROOK (1825-1900)

. They are feared rather than despised by the Baluba and Bakuba tribes, among whom they live. They are nomads, cultivating nothing, and keeping no animals but a small type of

hunting

HUNTING (the verbal substantive from " hunt "; O. Eng. huntian, hunta; apparently connected with O. Eng. hentan, Gothic hinpan, to capture, O.H.G. hunda,booty)

-dog. Their weapon is a tiny bow, the arrows for which are usually poisoned. They build themselves temporary huts of a bee-hive shape. As hunters they are famous, bounding through the jungle growth " like grasshoppers " and fearlessly attacking elephants and

buffalo

BUFFALO

with their tiny weapons. Their only occupation apart from

hunting

HUNTING (the verbal substantive from " hunt "; O. Eng. huntian, hunta; apparently connected with O. Eng. hentan, Gothic hinpan, to capture, O.H.G. hunda,booty)

is the preparation of palm-wine which they barter for

grain

GRAIN (derived through the French from Lat. granum, seed, from an Aryan root meaning " to wear down," which also appears in the common Teutonic word " corn ")

with the Baluba. They are monogamous and display much family affection. See further PYGMY; AKKA; WOCHUA; BAMBUTE.
See A. de Quatrefages, The Pygmies (Eng. ed., 1895) ; Sir H. H. Johnston, Uganda Protectorate (1902) ; Hermann von Wissmann, My Second Journey through Equatorial Africa (London, 1891).

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