Comments on: What a Difference a Century Can Make

By: Dan Milton

Dan Milton — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 04:27:35 +0000

This account of crippled and misshapen individuals who serve for no pay reminds me — far from Africa — of the Brownies of Scotland, or at least of what appears to lie behind the folkloric supernatural beings and their Disneyized versions.
All I know of this is from an essay from 1840 or so by John Brown, M.D. “The Black Dwarf’s Bones” and a marvelous poem he includes, “The Brownie of Blednoch”, which (courtesy of Bladnoch Distillery) can be found at http://www.bladnoch.co.uk/aikendrum.htm.

By: Al West

Al West — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:18:10 +0000

I find these glimpses into Africa fascinating, as someone whose only African experience is a stop-over in Cairo. I read your blog and end up with a burning desire to learn KiSwahili and run off to the jungle.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 11:46:56 +0000

Joshua makes a good point about what Russell says, but Russell makes a good point that actually had occurred to me when I first started hearing about Flores being pathological.

Thinkoplex: It is probably, as one would expect, not so simple as “not by biological sex but by social roles?” … the polio men carry bows and arrows, and only men do that, for instance. The polio men with the extreme affliction do not get assigned the gender of “woman.” Indeed, I used the term “wife” in this case very advisedly. We are not talking about a role reversal, but rather, a complexificiation of gender. And, the social role is not the determining thing here, but rather, a physical limitation is determining something.

But yes, there is something to be said for the social role.

By: HalfMooner

HalfMooner — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 04:11:45 +0000

Fascinating story, as usual, Greg!

Of course, I don’t really know, but the people the Victorian described (as you put it: “These strange people had sloping foreheads; they were short of stature, bow-legged and otherwise misshapen”) sound to me like they may have literally been a band of chimpanzees.

Of course, having one of them become a temporary servant is quite unlikely behavior for a chimp!

Could it be there are two things in the account? First, an actual sighting of curious chimps from a distance, and then the Victorian’s conflation of the chimps with a physically deformed “Pygmy” who later joined on as a temporary helper? Otherwise, I’d have to think the Victorian was simply lying in one or both aspects of his tale.

By: Joshua Zelinsky

Joshua Zelinsky — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:23:04 +0000

Russell, the specimens of H. floresiensis are dead and not complete. All we have are skeletal remains. It isn’t exactly comparable.

Moreover, the Victorian referred to by Greg didn’t wonder if maybe the person was from some deformed race and investigate further, he just took it as a given.

By: Russell

Russell — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:25:47 +0000

It’s not just Victorians who sometimes have a hard time distinguishing between those who suffered some malady from those who are possibly a different species. Look at the controversy over Homo floresiensis.

By: thinkoplex

thinkoplex — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:11:12 +0000

I may be misinterpreting what you wrote, but, if not, it is very intriguing. Since you were assigned a man to be your wife, based on his staying with the women in camp and being unable to engage in hunting with the other men, does that imply that, among the Pygmies, gender is determined not by biological sex but by social roles?

If so, that is a fascinating concept, and I wonder if the reverse were at least theoretically possible: that a woman who engaged in hunting with the men would also be considered a man.

If this is even partly the case, I would love to read more about it. Perhaps you could address gender among the Pygmies in a later post, or at least point me to a source on this topic.