BATWA  , a tribe of

African pygmies living in the mountainous country around Wissmann Falls in the Kasai district of the Belgian Congo . They were discovered in 188o by Paul Pogge and Hermann von Wissmann, and have been identified with Sir H . M . Stanley's Vouatouas . They are typical of the negrito family south of the Congo . They are well made, with limbs perfectly proportioned, and are seldom more than 4 ft. high . Their complexion is a yellow-brown, much lighter than their Bantu-Negroid neighbours . They have short woolly hair and no beard . They are feared rather than despised by the Baluba and Bakuba tribes, among whom they live . They are nomads, cultivating nothing, and keeping no animals but a small type of hunting-dog . Their weapon is a tiny bow, the arrows for which are usually poisoned . They build themselves temporary huts of a bee-hive shape .

As hunters they are famous, bounding through the

jungle growth " like grasshoppers " and fearlessly attacking elephants and buffalo with their tiny weapons . Their only occupation apart from hunting is the preparation of palm-wine which they barter for grain with the Baluba . They are monogamous and display much family affection . See further PYGMY; AKKA; WOCHUA; BAMBUTE . See A. de Quatrefages, The Pygmies (Eng. ed., 1895) ; Sir H . H . Johnston, Uganda Protectorate (1902) ; Hermann von Wissmann, My Second Journey through Equatorial Africa (London, 1891) .