Forest hunters. African Mbuti pygmy tribe. Interesting facts about the smallest people that you did not know before The peoples of Africa, their traditions and customs of the pygmies

Pygmies differ from other African tribes in their height, which ranges from 143 to 150 centimeters. The reason for such a small growth of pygmies is still a mystery to scientists, although some researchers believe that their growth is due to adaptation to difficult living conditions in the tropical forest.

Pygmies were sold to zoos!

The origin of the pygmies still remains a mystery to scientists. No one knows who their distant ancestors were and how these little people ended up in the equatorial forests of Africa. There are no legends or myths that help answer these questions. There is an assumption that in ancient times the pygmies occupied the entire central part of the Dark Continent, and were later forced out by other tribes into the tropical forests. From Greek, pygmies translates as “people the size of a fist.” The scientific definition interprets pygmies as a group of short Negroid peoples living in the forests of Africa.

Pygmies are mentioned in ancient Egyptian sources of the 3rd millennium BC. e., later Herodotus and Strabo, Homer wrote about them in his Iliad. Aristotle considered the pygmies to be a very real people, although in ancient sources a lot of fantastic things were written about them: for example, Strabo listed them along with large-headed, noseless, cyclops, dog-headed and other mythical creatures of the ancient period.

It is worth noting that because of their growth, pygmies have suffered many disasters and humiliations since ancient times. Taller Africans drove them out of the most favorable places and drove them into the green hell of the equatorial forests. Civilization also brought them some joy, especially at the beginning of contact with white people. Some travelers and colonial officials captured the pygmies and took them with them to Europe and the USA as a curiosity. It got to the point that pygmies, especially their children, were sold as living exhibits to Western zoos in the late 19th and early 20th centuries...

It would seem that now these people can live much calmer and more confident in their future, but, alas, this is not so. It's hard to believe, but in the period 1998-2003 during the civil war in the Congo, it happened quite often that pygmies were caught and eaten like wild animals. In the same area, a sect of “erasers” is still operating, whose members are hired to clear the territory of pygmies if mining is planned on it. Cultists kill pygmies and feed on their flesh. Enlightenment has not yet penetrated into the deep layers of the African population, so many inhabitants of the Dark Continent believe that by eating a pygmy, they acquire some kind of magical power that protects them from witchcraft.

The presence of a considerable number of peculiar pygmy slaves will also seem incredible, although slavery is legally prohibited in all countries. Pygmies become slaves in the same Republic of the Congo, and they are even inherited; according to the tradition existing here, their owners are representatives of the Bantu people. No, pygmies do not walk in shackles, but their owner can simply take away from the slaves fruits and meat obtained in the forest, sometimes he still provides them with some kind of provisions, tools and metal for arrowheads. Amazingly, the pygmies do not organize any uprisings against slave owners: as some researchers say, without maintaining relations with the Bantu, things can only get worse for them,

Why are they so small?

The height of pygmies ranges from 140 to 150 cm. The smallest people in the world are considered to be the pygmies of the Efe tribe, in which the average height of men does not exceed 143 cm, and for women - 130-132 cm. Of course, as soon as scientists learned about the existence of pygmies, they The question immediately arose - what is the reason for their such insignificant growth? If the small pygmies made up only a small part of their tribe, their diminutiveness could be explained by a genetic failure. However, due to the universal low growth, this explanation had to be immediately discarded.

Another explanation, it would seem, lies right on the surface - pygmies do not have adequate nutrition, and they are often malnourished, which affects their growth. The study showed that the diet of African pygmies is almost the same as that of their neighboring farmers (the same Bantus), but their daily amount of food consumed is very small. It is possible that this is why their bodies, and therefore their height, decreased from generation to generation. It is clear that a small person needs less food to survive. There was even a very interesting experiment: for a long time, a small group of pygmies was fed to their full capacity, but, alas, neither the pygmies themselves nor their offspring grew up because of this.

There is also a version about the effect of lack of sunlight on the growth of pygmies. Spending their entire lives under the canopy of a dense forest, pygmies do not receive enough sunlight, which leads to insignificant production of vitamin D by the body. The lack of this vitamin causes inhibition of bone tissue growth, which is why pygmies end up with a very miniature skeleton.

Some researchers believe that the miniature size of pygmies is caused by an evolutionary process that adapts them to life in dense thickets. It is clear that it is much easier for a small and nimble pygmy to make his way through a palisade of trees, fallen trunks, entangled in vines than for a tall European. It is also known that the pygmies are addicted to collecting honey. While searching for honey, pygmy men spend approximately 9% of their lives in trees in search of wild bee habitats. Of course, climbing trees is easier for a person of short stature and weighing up to 45 kilograms.

Of course, the pygmies were carefully studied by doctors and geneticists; they found that the concentration of growth hormone in their blood is not very different from the average indicators of an ordinary person. However, the level of insulin-like growth factor was 3 times lower than normal. According to researchers, this explains the small growth of newborn pygmies. In addition, the low concentration of this hormone in the blood plasma prevents the onset of a period of active growth in pygmy adolescents, who completely stop growing at the age of 12-15 years. By the way, genetic research has made it possible to call the pygmies the descendants of the most ancient people who appeared on Earth about 70 thousand years ago. But scientists did not identify any genetic mutations in them.

The small stature of pygmies is also explained by their short life span. Alas, these little people live on average only from 16 to 24 years; those who reach 35-40 years old among them are already long-livers. Due to their short life cycle, pygmies experience early puberty, causing inhibition of body growth. Pygmies reach puberty at the age of 12, and the highest birth rate in women is observed at 15.

As you can see, there are many factors that contribute to the small growth of pygmies. Perhaps one of them is the main one, or maybe they all act together. Yes, due to their short stature, some scientists are even ready to distinguish pygmies as a separate race. It is curious that in addition to height, pygmies have other differences from the Negroid race - they have light brown skin and very thin lips.

"Lilliputians" from the rainforest

Now pygmy tribes can be found in the forests of Gabon, Cameroon, Congo, Rwanda, and the Central African Republic. The life of these little people is constantly connected with the forest, they spend the main part of their lives in it, get their food, give birth to children and die. They do not engage in agriculture; their main activities are gathering and hunting. Pygmies lead a nomadic lifestyle; they leave their camp as soon as there is no game, fruit, edible plants, or honey left around the camp. Resettlement occurs within boundaries established with other groups; hunting on someone else's land can become a cause for conflict.

There is another reason for relocation. It happens when someone dies in a small pygmy village. Pygmies are very superstitious, they believe that since death visited them, it means that the forest does not want them to continue living in this place. The deceased is buried right in his hut, funeral dances are held at night, and in the morning, abandoning their simple buildings, the pygmies move to another place.

The main occupation of pygmy men is hunting. Unlike “civilized” hunters who come to Africa to amuse their vanity and get hunting trophies, pygmies never kill a living creature unless necessary. They hunt with bows with arrows poisoned with plant poison and spears with metal tips. Their prey includes birds, monkeys, small antelopes and deer. Pygmies do not store meat for future use; they always divide the spoils fairly. Despite the usual luck of small hunters, the meat they hunt makes up only 9% of their diet. By the way, pygmies often hunt with dogs; they are very hardy and, if necessary, are ready to protect their owner from the most ferocious beast at the cost of their lives.

A significant portion of the pygmies' diet consists of honey and other forest products. Honey is extracted by men, who are ready to climb the tallest trees for it, but women collect the gifts of the forest. Around the camp they look for fruits, wild roots, edible plants, and do not disdain worms, larvae, snails, frogs and snakes. All this goes into food. However, at least 50% of the pygmies’ diet consists of vegetables and fruits, which they exchange with farmers for honey and other forest products. In addition to food, through exchange, the pygmies obtain the fabrics they need, pottery, iron and tobacco.

Every day, a part of the women remains in the village, making a kind of material from tree bark called “tana”, it is from this that the famous aprons of the pygmies are made. For men, such an apron is attached to a leather or fur belt, and they wear a bunch of leaves at the back. But the women wear only aprons. However, the settled pygmies that have already appeared often wear European clothes. Civilization is slowly but persistently penetrating the everyday life of the pygmies; their culture and traditions may become a thing of the past in just a few decades.

Dwarfism and gigantism are opposites of the human world that attract attention. In addition to 190 cm giants, Africa is home to the smallest people in the world. And this is not just a glitch in genetics - there is a whole set of factors here that everyone will be interested in learning about.

The smallest people in Africa are called pygmies or negrillies.. Translated from Greek, “people the size of a fist.” Their height ranges from 124 to 150 cm (and dwarfism is considered height below 147 cm).

Pygmies are well adapted to life in tropical rainforests - it is easy for them to move in impassable wilds, their organisms cool better in hot climates and require much less calories for food.

On the mainland there is a fairly large community of pygmies (about 280 thousand people), distributed in the equatorial forests of Central Africa on the territory of 5 states. They are conventionally divided into Western and Eastern.

Pygmies can be found on all continents: the Philippines, Brazil, Australia, Bolivia, Indonesia, the Fiji and Adaman Islands. In addition to tropical forests, the smallest people in the world live in other places (for example, the African Twa pygmies live in the desert).

Pygmies in history

The first mentions of pygmies are found among the ancient Greeks (III millennium BC) and Egyptians (II millennium BC). And officially the world became acquainted with the pygmies after the independent travels in Africa of the German G. Schweinfurt and the Russian V. Juncker in the 1870s.

In the 60s of the twentieth century, the Belgian researcher J.P. Alle lived for several months in one of the pygmy communities, Efe. He made 2 documentaries about the Aborigines and founded a charitable foundation. Now this organization provides real assistance to this people in the Congo, providing them with land for farming.

Genetics, anthropology of pygmies

Many researchers identify pygmies as a special race. Men with a height of one and a half meters are considered giants, and the average height of women is around 133 cm. African pygmies have light brown skin, a small head with a wide forehead and nose, black and curly hair, and thin lips.

It is interesting that in appearance the Negritos inhabiting the south and southeast of Asia, as well as the islands of Melanesia and the north of Australia are closest to the pygmies. But genetically the differences are quite large.

Pygmies still have the Neanderthal gene (up to 0.7%). These human ancestors lived from 600 to 350 thousand years ago, and in modern humans this gene has mutated and is practically not found.

Origin hypotheses

Reasons for short stature

• Hormones

It is not surprising, but the pituitary gland secretes growth hormone in pygmies in the same way as in ordinary people. But Africans do not experience growth acceleration, since the secretion of hormones during puberty does not occur at the proper level.

Already in childhood, strong differences are visible between the same Europeans and pygmies. A five-year-old pygmy is the same in height as a 2-year-old European. And in adolescence (12-15 years), pygmies simply stop growing.

• Malnutrition

Pygmies are not only small, but also extremely delicate. Their nutrition depends largely on luck. For example, the pygmy tribe in the Philippines is considered the thinnest of all human populations. Infant mortality in this tribe accounts for half of the total birth rate.

Therefore, in order to survive, the size of the pygmies decreased from generation to generation.

• Living near the equator

The tropics are characterized by a hot and humid climate. In such conditions (if we add forests here), the body will definitely overheat. People usually sweat and thus can avoid heatstroke.

But with high humidity, you simply won’t be able to sweat intensely. Pygmies were able to reduce muscle mass and thus improve thermoregulation.

• Sun deficiency

Dense tropical forests prevent sufficient sunlight penetration (and the body's production of vitamin D). Therefore, the skeleton of pygmies is smaller - calcium is not absorbed enough and bone growth is inhibited.

• Lifestyle

One of the main activities of the aborigines in Africa is collecting honey. Pygmies have been doing this for several millennia, so they have evolved into small and agile people, weighing up to 45 kg, who can climb vertically on branches that can support their weight. Among the Batwa pygmies, even the feet can bend at an angle of 45 degrees, although in ordinary people - only up to 18.

Pygmies even managed to enter into a kind of symbiosis with bees. Bees almost never bite people, and the latter practically do not react to minor stings. But as soon as a white man appears next to him and sweats a little, he will have no mercy.

• Small century

Unfortunately, the smallest people in the world live very short lives. Their average life expectancy is only 24 years, and 40-year-olds are already considered elders. Pygmies survive only due to frequent changes of generations.

Puberty occurs very early in them, simultaneously with growth inhibition. Men begin to reproduce at the age of 12, and the peak birth rate for women is at 15.

Pygmies in the modern world

Modern African pygmies live in forests, obtaining everything they need through hunting and gathering. They kill animals with a bow and arrow.

At the same time, until recently, they did not know how to make fire (they carried it when changing camps) and did not make tools (they exchanged them with neighboring tribes).

A large segment of nutrition (up to 30%) is occupied by collecting fruits and honey. And the pygmies exchange the rest of the food and things (metal, tobacco, clothes, dishes) from nearby farmers for honey and other forest provisions.

Pygmies are constantly wandering. This is due to the custom - when a member of the tribe dies, he is left in the hut where he lived. In this case, the entire community moves to a new place.

Pygmies are very knowledgeable about medicinal plants. Therefore, no one can prepare a medicinal or poisonous mixture better than them. Even the bulk of the pygmy vocabulary consists of similar words.

Pygmies catch fish in an interesting way. They produce a poison that causes all the fish in the pond to float upside down. But over time, the poison loses its potency and the fish can be eaten.

Slavery and cannibalism

It turns out that slavery still exists in the Republic of the Congo. The neighboring tribe, the Bantu, has pygmy slaves in their families and passes them on by inheritance.

Pygmies obtain food for their masters in the forest in exchange for goods necessary for survival. To be fair, it is worth noting that slaves may well be in the service of several farmers.

And in the province of North Kivu there is still a belief that by eating the flesh of a pygmy, you can get magical powers.

Video

The first mentions of pygmies were made in ancient Egyptian records dating back to the 3rd millennium BC. Later, ancient Greek historians wrote about pygmies Herodotus, Strabo, Homer. The real existence of these African tribes was confirmed only in the 19th century by a German traveler Georg Schweinfurt, Russian explorer Vasily Junker and others.

The height of adult male pygmies is from 144-150 cm in height. Women - about 120 cm. They have short limbs and light brown skin, which serves as excellent camouflage in the forest. The hair is dark, curly, the lips are thin.

Occupation

Pygmies live in forests. For them, the forest is the highest deity - the source of everything necessary for survival. The traditional occupation for most pygmies is hunting and gathering. They hunt birds, elephants, antelopes and monkeys. For hunting they use short bows and poisoned arrows. In addition to various meats, pygmies are very fond of honey from wild bees. In order to get to their favorite treat, they have to climb 45-meter trees, after which they use ash and smoke to disperse the bees. Women collect nuts, berries, mushrooms and roots.

Pygmies live in small groups of at least 50 members. Each group has a special area for building huts. Marriages between members of different tribes are quite common here. Also, absolutely any member of the tribe, whenever he wishes, can freely leave and join another tribe. There are no formal leaders in the tribe. Issues and problems that arise are resolved through open negotiations.

Weapon

Weapons are a spear, a small bow, and arrows (often poisoned). Pygmies trade iron for arrowheads from neighboring tribes. Various traps and snares are widely used.

Pygmies are the most famous dwarf tribes living in the forests of tropical Africa. The main areas of concentration of pygmies today: Zaire (165 thousand people), Rwanda (65 thousand people), Burundi (50 thousand people), Congo (30 thousand people), Cameroon (20 thousand people) and Gabon (5 thousand people).

Mbutis- a tribe of pygmies living in the Ituri forest in Zaire. Most scientists believe that they were most likely the first inhabitants of this region.

Twa (Batwa)- a tribe of pygmies in equatorial Africa. They live both in the mountains and on the plains near Lake Kivu in Zaire, Burundi and Rwanda. They maintain close ties with neighboring pastoral tribes and know how to make pottery.

Tswa (batswa)- This large tribe lives near a swamp south of the Congo River. They, like the Twa tribe, live in cooperation with neighboring tribes, adopting their culture and language. Most Tswa are engaged in hunting or fishing.

In the tropical forests of the Ituri province of the Republic of Congo live the shortest people on the planet - the pygmies of the Mbuti tribe. Their average height is 135 cm. Their light skin color helps them live easily and unnoticed in the forest shade at the Stone Age level.
They do not raise livestock or cultivate plants. They live in close connection with the forest, but no longer than a month in one place. Their diet is based on collected berries, nuts, honey, mushrooms, fruits and roots, and the form of their social organization is determined by hunting.

Among those Mbuti who hunt mainly with bows and arrows, a group may consist of only three families, although during the honey-gathering season the hunters unite in large groups required during round-ups. But in the West, net hunters must have a group of at least seven families, preferably twice as many. In cases where the group already unites 30 families, it is divided.

There is enough space for 35 thousand Mbuti in the Ituri forests. Each group occupies its own territory, always leaving a decent-sized common area of ​​land in the center of the thicket.

The group as a whole considers itself a single family. And this is the main social unit, although the group does not always consist of relatives. Its composition can also change with each monthly nomadic journey. Therefore, there are no leaders or permanent leaders. In any case, all members of the group are in solidarity with each other.

When hunting, the family is divided into age groups. The older men set traps and ambush them with darts and clubs. Young men stand at a distance with arrows in their hands, so that if the game escapes, they can kill it. And women and children are behind the young hunters, facing them and waiting for the caught game to be put into baskets. They carry baskets behind their backs and are held in place by straps placed on their foreheads. When the group has caught game for the day, it returns to the campsite, collecting everything edible along the way. Then the food is cooked over a fire.

The most heinous crime among the Pygmies is considered to be when some cunning hunter sets up nets at the time of driving in game. The main catch ends up in his hands, and he doesn’t share it with anyone. But justice is restored simply and impressively. All the spoils are confiscated from the sly man, and his family remains hungry.”

A curious Englishman, Colin Turnbull, decided to conduct an experiment. He really wanted to check how the pygmy would behave outside his forest. Here's what he writes: “I persuaded an experienced hunter, Kenge, to go with me to the Ishango National Forest, a savannah teeming with game. We loaded up with all sorts of provisions, got into the car and drove off. Since it was pouring rain, Kenge did not even notice that the forest was left behind. When we drove out onto a grassy plain, my companion began to grumble: “Not a single tree, what a bad country.”
The only thing that calmed him down was the promise of plenty of game. But then he was upset again when he learned that it was impossible to hunt this game. When we climbed the slope and looked out over the plain, Kenge was dumbfounded. In front of him, a green plain stretched to the horizon, merging with Lake Edward. Without end and without edge. And elephants, antelopes, buffaloes, etc. graze everywhere. Kenge had never seen anything like this before.
“This meat would last for many months,” he said dreamily. I got into the car and kept getting out of it until we left the reserve. The next day, Kenge felt more confident and said:
- I was wrong, this is a good place, although I don’t like it. Here the sky is clear and the earth is clean. If only there were more trees... On the way back, the deeper we drove into the forest, the louder Kenge sang. At the camp he was greeted as a hero

The Mbuti tribe are pygmies living in eastern Zaire, numbering approximately 100 thousand people and speaking the Efe language. Their dark glory as merciless hunters is distinguished by a rather peaceful way of life, compared to the warlike North Kenyan tribes. All tribes have already been discovered, because European missionaries do not leave any ethnic group without their attention.

Mbuti pygmies change their sites once every five years in order to migrate closer and closer to civilization - near roads and rivers they can exchange their prey in the form of skins, meat, wild fruits and berries for the achievements of cultural life they need - salt, matches, metal objects.

Mbuti tribe

They also became interested in clothing, so it is almost impossible to see their famous skirts made of leaves and tree bark. The Mbuti come into contact for such natural exchanges with the sedentary and civilized Bantu (translated from Swahili - “people”).
Bantu is a linguistic group of most of the Zairian tribes and many other African peoples, the literal linguistic name of which denotes a sedentary people, tall in stature.

Some argue that by this act the hunters atone for their guilt for depriving the forest of game and vegetation, since the pygmies have an ambivalent attitude towards hunting. It brings them joy, pleasure, and they love to eat meat, but still they believe that it is not good to take the life of living beings, for God created not only the people of the forest, but also the animals of the forest.

Children at a very early age are instilled with the idea of ​​dependence on the forest, faith in it, they are made to feel like they are part of the forest, and therefore they are entrusted with the responsibility of kindling a redemptive fire, without which there will be no successful hunt.

The high mobility of pygmies also leads to the unstable nature of social organization. Since the composition and size of groups changes all the time, they cannot have leaders or individual leaders, since they, like other people, can leave and leave the group without a leader. And since the Mbuti do not have a lineage system, it would be difficult to share leadership when the group splits into smaller units once a year. Here, age also plays an important role in the system of government, and everyone except children has their own responsibilities. But even children play a certain role: bad behavior (laziness, grumpiness, selfishness) is corrected not with the help of a punishment system - it does not exist among the pygmies - but simply by ridiculing the offender. Children can do this very well. For them, this is a game, but through it they comprehend the moral values ​​of adult life and quickly correct the behavior of the offender, making him laugh. Young people are more likely to influence the lives of adults, in particular they may express their dissatisfaction with a group or their approval of the group as a whole rather than individuals during the religious holiday of Molimo. Adult hunters have the final say in economic matters, but that’s all. The elders act as arbiters and make decisions on the most important issues of the group, and the elders are respected by everyone.

The closeness that exists between the Mbuti pygmies and their forest world is manifested in the fact that they humanize the forest, calling it father and mother, since it gives them everything they need, even life. They do not try to control the world around them, but adapt to it, and this is the fundamental difference between their attitude towards the forest and the attitude towards the forest of its other inhabitants - fishermen and farmers. The Mbuti's technique is very simple, and other tribes that have a certain amount of material wealth consider hunters to be poor. But such material wealth would only hinder the Mbuti nomads, and the technology they have sufficiently satisfies their needs. They do not burden themselves with any excess. They make clothes from bark broken by a piece of elephant tusk, from skins and vines they make bags in which they carry children on their backs, quivers for arrows, bags, jewelry and ropes for weaving hunting nets. The Mbuti build shelters in a few minutes from young shoots and leaves, cutting them with metal machetes and knives that they receive from farmers living nearby. They say that if they did not have metal, they would have used stone tools, but this is doubtful - the pygmies are gradually entering the Iron Age.

The abundant gifts of the forest can be judged at least from the kasuku tree - the resin from its top is needed for cooking, and the resin taken from the roots of the tree is used to illuminate homes. The Mbuti also use this resin to seal the seams of the bark boxes in which they collect honey. From an early age, a child learns to use the world around him so as not to destroy it, but only to take everything that is needed at the moment. His education comes down to imitation of adults. His toys are replicas of objects that adults use: a boy learns to shoot slow-moving animals with a bow, and a girl goes into the forest and picks mushrooms and nuts in her tiny basket. Thus, children provide economic assistance by obtaining a certain amount of food, although for them it is just a game.

Thanks to a sense of interdependence and community, cultivated from birth, the pygmies stand together as a united group against neighboring tribes of forest farmers, who have a completely different attitude towards the forest and consider it a dangerous place that must be cleared in order to survive. The pygmies trade with these farmers, but not for economic reasons, but simply to prevent farmers from entering their forest in search of meat and other forest products that the peasants always need. Villagers are afraid of both the people of the forest and the forest itself, protecting themselves from them with rituals and magic.

The only magical means of hunters is of a “sympathetic” nature - a talisman made from forest vines, decorated with tiny pieces of wood, or mastic from the ashes of forest fires, mixed with the fat of some animal and placed in the horn of an antelope; it is then smeared on the body to ensure a successful hunt. The idea of ​​such a talisman is simple: if the Mbuti comes into even closer physical contact with the forest, then his needs will certainly be satisfied. These acts are more religious than "magical" in nature, as can be seen in the example of the mother who swaddles her newborn child in a special robe made from a piece of bark (although now the mother could get soft cloth) and decorates the baby with amulets made from vines, leaves and pieces of wood, and then bathes him in the forest water that accumulates in some thick vines. With the help of this physical contact, the mother, as it were, devotes the child to the forest and asks for his protection. When trouble comes, as the Mbuti say, all they have to do is sing the sacred songs of the molimo ceremony, “wake up the forest with them” and draw its attention to their children - then everything will be all right. It is a rich but simple faith, presenting a striking contrast with the beliefs and practices of neighboring tribes.

But otherwise, the life of the Mbuti has not changed in any way; they, as in past centuries, remain the same gatherers and nomadic hunters, preserving their traditional culture.

Video: Ritual dances of African pygmies.

- (Pygmaei, Πυγμαι̃οι). Mythical people of dwarfs, the size of πηγμή, τ. i.e. height no more than the distance from elbow to fist. According to Homer, they lived on the shores of the Ocean; Subsequently, the sources of the Nile, as well as India, began to be considered their location. Current... ... Encyclopedia of Mythology

PYGMIES- a group of peoples belonging to the Negrill race, the indigenous population of tropical Africa. They speak the languages ​​Bantu (Twa, 185 thousand people, 1992; Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire), Adamaua of the eastern group (Aka, Binga, etc., 35 thousand people; Congo, Central African Republic) and Shari... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Pygmies- (foreign language) people are morally insignificant. Wed. For the crowd he is great, for the crowd he is a prophet; For himself he is nothing, for himself he is a pygmy!... Nadson. “Look, there he is!” Cf. In the midst of his wanderings, he loved his poor Fatherland. She is surrounded by blizzards, She is surrounded by pygmies... ... Michelson's Large Explanatory and Phraseological Dictionary (original spelling)

PYGMIES Modern encyclopedia

Pygmies- From ancient Greek: Pigmaios. Literally: The size of a fist. In ancient Greek mythology, pygmies were the name given to a fairy-tale people of dwarfs who were so small that they often became victims of cranes, like frogs. Therefore, the dwarfs had to... ... Dictionary of popular words and expressions

PYGMIES- a people of dwarfs who, according to the legendary tales of the Greeks, lived on the shores of the ocean (Homer) and on the sources of the Nile (late writers), where they waged a constant struggle with cranes. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Pavlenkov F., 1907. Pygmies ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Pygmies- (Pugmaioi), own. people the size of a fist in Greek mythology, a fabulous people of dwarfs living in Libya. The Iliad (III, 6) tells about their battles with the cranes (cf. L. v. Sybel, Mythologie der Ilias, 1877, and L. F. Voevodsky, Introduction to Mythology ... ... Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron

Pygmies- PYGMIES, a group of peoples: Twa, Binga, Bibaia, Gielli, Efe, Kango, Aka, Mbuti with a total number of 350 thousand people belonging to the Negrill race, the indigenous population of Tropical Africa. The name comes from the Greek pygmaios (literally the size of... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

pygmies- a group of peoples in Central Africa. Total number 390 thousand people (1995). They speak Bantu languages. Many pygmies retain a wandering lifestyle, archaic culture, and traditional beliefs. * * * PYGMIES PYGMIES, a group of peoples belonging to ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

PYGMIES- (from the Greek “fist” or “distance” from the fist to the elbow) in Greek mythology, a tribe of dwarfs, symbolizing the barbaric world. The name is associated with the small stature of the pygmies and symbolizes a distorted perception of the true ethnic group. The Greeks determined... ... Symbols, signs, emblems. Encyclopedia

Books

• Kremlin pygmies against the titan Stalin, Sergei Kremlev. Although Putin and Medvedev are the same height as Stalin, in comparison with the titanic achievements of the Leader, the current owners of the Kremlin look like mere dwarfs. And the pygmies will always envy the political ones... Buy for 210 rubles
• Kremlin pygmies against the titan Stalin, or Russia, which must be found, Sergei Kremlev. Although Putin and Medvedev are the same height as Stalin, in comparison with the titanic achievements of the Leader, the current owners of the Kremlin look like mere dwarfs. And the pygmies will always envy political...