Pic source : https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/the-pygmies-plight-93401092/

The word “Pygmy” always fascinated me; I wanted to find more about the people behind the word “Pygmy”. The more I started reading and researching about it, my fascination increased.

"Pygmy" a term with numerous mythological and ethnographic referents, derives from the Greek word Pygmaîos (via the Latin Pygmaeus), meaning approximately "one cubit high" (slightly less than 50 cm, or 18 inches, the distance from the elbow to the knuckles or fingertips).

Paul Belloni Du Chaillu was a French-American traveler, zoologist, and anthropologist. He became famous in the 1860s as the first modern European outsider to confirm the existence of the Pygmy people of central Africa.The earliest known reference to a Pygmy—a “dancing dwarf of the god from the land of spirits”—is found in a letter written around 2276 B.C. by Pharaoh Pepi II to the leader of an Egyptian trade expedition up the Nile. In the Iliad, Homer invoked mythical warfare between Pygmies and a flock of cranes to describe the intensity of a charge by the Trojan army. In the fifth century B.C., the Greek historian Herodotus wrote of a Persian explorer who saw “dwarfish people, who used clothing made from the palm tree” at a spot along the West African coast.

Much of the land traditionally lived in by ‘Pygmy’ communities is rich in timber and minerals.Though excessive mining and deforestation , especially mining of Coltan - which is in every laptops, cell phones and electronics  and there is nothing we can do about it. As ABC mentioned that A highly controversial U.N. Security Council report recently outlined the alleged exploitation of natural resources, including coltan, from Congo by other countries involved in the current war. There are reports that forces from neighboring Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi are involved in smuggling coltan from Congo, using the revenues generated from the high price of coltan to sustain their efforts in the war. By one estimate, the Rwandan army made at least $250 million over a period of 18 months through the sale of coltan, even though no coltan is mined in Rwanda. All countries involved in the war deny exploiting Congo's natural resources.

Modern relict populations of pygmy race are found not only in Africa, but also in many parts of southern Asia: Aeta in Philippines, Semang in Malaya, Mani in Thailand, the Andamanese tribes from the Andaman archipelago, Rampasasa from Flores island and many pygmy tribes inhabiting the mountains of New Guinea or in Vanuatu archipelago. A pygmy population went extinct in the middle of the 20th century in northeastern Australia (Queensland). ( sofpedia)

We will loose these beautiful people if we dont look after them.

A ‘Pygmy’ loves the forest as she loves her own body - “MBENDJELE SAYING”