The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1928, Page 156

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156

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

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Immanuel Lutheran College Chronicle.

Immanuel Lutheran College opened on Tuesday,
September 4. Students from the following States
have registered: North Carolina, South Carolina,

Georgia, Virginia, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New

York, Alabama, Ohio, and Illinois.

This year a larger number of applications were
received by Dr. Nau than ever before in the history
of the institution; but so far not all prospective
students have arrived.

Prof. Walter Beck, who because of a nervous
breakdown was given a leave of absence last Decem-
ber, returned from Oregon in good health.

In addition to their regular classroom work,
members of the faculty have the following duties:

DDN GU Seeticisicciricicic cc clelere > Inspection, Bible class, ser-
vices in the college chapel
Prof. W. H. Kampschmidt..Buyer, financial secretary

Prof. Walter Beck......... Secretary, registrar, athletics
Prof. W. H. Gehrke........ Stationery, library, literary
societies

When the history of the wives of Lutheran
pastors is written, Mfrs. H. Naether will undoubtedly
be given honorable mention. For three years she
taught the primary classes of Luther Memorial day-
school at Greensboro without a cent of pay.

The kind of letters Dr. Nau likes to get: “Dear
Sir: Just a line to say I’ve had my son reenter
your school. He seemed a little behind in history
last term. Please have him study that he may catch
up in everything. I wish the school much success.”

Wx. H. GEHRKE.

The Negrilloes, or Pygmies, of Africa.

Africa is inhabited by no fewer than 150,000,000
blacks. Scattered among the ordinary tribes are
those whom historians consider as the last rem-
nants of the aboriginal people of Africa — the
Negrilloes, or Pygmies, belonging to a human race
distinct from the black one.

The size of these Negrilloes is seldom more
than four feet eight inches. They are characterized
by a prominent chin, a rather light complexion,
and comparatively long upper limbs. True children
of nature, they lead a life apart, in fear and
loneliness.

The present Negroes reached the continent of
Africa from the southwest and found the Pygmies
in possession when they arrived. The Negro, or
Bantu, tribes now occupying the southern part of
the continent have a tradition that they are not

the first inhabitants of the soil and that they have
conquered it from a wild race of men who lived
in trees, in which they used to build their huts,
in caves, or on islands in lakes.

“Tven nowadays it is not rare, in the equatorial
forest of the Gabon, of the Middle Congo, of
Kamerun, of the Belgian Congo, on the White
Nile, to meet such as would acknowledge any kind
of relationship with the invaders. They lead the
life of wandering tribes, here one day and more
than fifty miles off on the morrow. Consequently
they cannot cultivate the ground, they have no
plantations, and there is no cattle-breeding, no
industry. They live on the products of hunting
and fishing. The boldness they display when hunt-
ing is hardly credible. They do not hesitate to hem
in a troop of elephants, crawling under the bellies
of those animals and piercing them with spears and
javelins. They will, if necessary, follow for several
days a wounded animal until it falls down ex-
hausted.

“They know the denizens of the forest so per-
fectly that they can imitate their cries. They are
thus enabled to approach within arrow-shot and
kill them more easily.

“The snares they set vary with each kind of
animal. They make use of the pit, the noose, and
the club. The latter, reserved for elephant hunting,
is rather curious. It consists of a huge log fastened
a few yards above the ground at a tree and pro-
vided at its lower end with an iron spear two or
three feet long. Some bait — bananas or maize —
is fixed to it. When the elephant tries to seize
the bait, the snare falls on the animal, pierces it
through, and knocks it down at the same time.

* “Their weapons are, besides javelins and spears,
small bows, which they use with remarkable skill.
Those bows are about one foot long for rat-hunting
and one foot six inches for antelope-hunting.

“Their language possesses words undeniably
Bantu that are used as well by other Negroes who
live in countries far distant in some cases. Thus,
among certain Negrilloes of the Kamerun and of
Gabon we come across Bondjo and Banzir words.
Now the Bondjos live on the banks of the River
Congo while the latter dwell in the region of Upper
Oubangui. However, it is certain that their lan-
guage is their own and does not belong to the
group of the Bantu tongues. :

“Some of them, urged by the wants of existence,
have been obliged to become the ‘clients’ —in the
meaning the Romans imparted to the word — of
certain villages that they supply mostly with game