Hi, everyone,

My first posting is about the word " Pygmy ". It basically means an adult who is very short compared to a man of average height. Among different meanings and usages of the word, it usually refers to some specific tribes in Africa. One of the tribes is the Bambuti.

According to a book I read, it is said that the Bambuti hunters has a special metabolism that allows them to move so fast in the forests. In the Egyptian history records, they are even described as guardian spirits of the forests in Africa because it was impossible to capture or track them. Their agilty has confused the strangers to a level that people believed they could disappear into thin air. I will try to put more information resources about the word. Below is the data from Wikipedia.

"A Pygmy is a member of any human group whose adult males grow to less than 59 in. (150 cm) in average height. The name is also sometimes loosely applied to the Bushmen (San) of southern Africa and the so-called Negrito peoples of Asia (such as the Philippine Ilongot). Besides their short stature, Pygmies are notable in having the highest basal-metabolism rate in the world and a high incidence of sickle-cell anemia. The Bambuti of the Ituri Forest are a well-studied example."

>Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy)