A striking example of this is to be found in the pigmy races of Central Africa. In his work, “The Pigmies,” Professor A. de Quatrefages has shown us that this miniature people, stunted as they are, mentally, physically and morally, subsist almost entirely upon meat. He says:
“The Mincopies are exclusively hunters and fishermen, living upon the shore of a sea filled with fishes, close to great forests where boars run at large, and which furnish them, besides, honey and nuts, they have not felt the necessity of wringing by labour from the soil, a supplement to their food supply; and this very luxuriance of food, perhaps, has been of influence in keeping them at the lowest point in the social scale. Francis Day informs us that a very small tribe of Mincopies camped near the English establishments, and receiving daily rations, took besides, in a single year, five hundred boars, one hundred and fifty turtles, twenty wild cats, fifty guianas and six bugongs.... All the descriptions agree in attributing to the Akkas, men and women, an extreme abdominal development, which causes the adults to resemble the children of Arabs and negroes.... But it is evident the abnormal development of the abdomen, among the Akkas, is not a true race characteristic, but that it is largely due to their manner of life, the quantity of their food, perhaps also to the general conditions of their habitat. This fact results from some observations of Count Minis Calchi, who has seen, after some weeks of regular and wholesome diet, the extreme development of the abdomen disappear, and the vertebral column resume its normal state.”
These people are described as cruel, cowardly and wanting in all the qualities that would raise them in the scale of evolution: yet their diet consists almost entirely of meat—the supposed “strengthening” and courage-breeding food of civilised nations! Emaciation is very common among them, under certain conditions. It cannot be objected to what I have said that this condition is brought about by their cannibalism, for we read (“The Pigmies,” p. 155) that: “Far from seeking human flesh, the Andamanese regard it as a deadly poison.”
The Esquimaux are another race which is very inferior; and in them nothing is developed, scarcely, save the mere animal nature; hence their stomachs have all the nervous power, almost, of their whole constitutions. They have virtually no mental life beyond that necessary for carrying on the affairs of daily life. One never hears of any mental achievement coming from an Esquimau; more than this, their animal nature is itself actually inferior in muscular power to that of those tribes and races of men whose general régime is comparatively free from fats and animal oils.