Yuri Trukshans from the village of Lielvarde in the Latvian SSR writes: “The history of Latvia is very diverse and replete with a large number of different events. Unfortunately, we, who live in Latvia, were deprived of the opportunity to study our history... As for the Courland settlement at the mouth of the Gambia, I want to note that this period in history was very interesting...”
“I would like to know more about everything that concerns the naval officer Etienne Bottineau. I'm not just curious. I suddenly realized that if I had met Etienne Bottineau two centuries ago, he would have entrusted me with his secret! a reader writes to the editor Lipetsk region A. Tarantsey.
“We know so little about the secrets of Africa - about healers, ostrich people, the army of the Persian king Darius (not Darius, but Cambyses. - N.P.), who died in the sands of the Sahara, about the Canarian Guanches, the heirs of the Atlanteans,” notes in a letter N. I. Gromov from Kolomna.
“You publish few materials about Africa, its tribes,” writes E. Malgina from Khabarovsk, “once they wrote more. Has anything really changed in the last 10-20 years?”
Alexandre Dumas once said: “There is a certain charm in the word “Africa” that attracts us to it more than to other parts of the world.” But Dumas never saw real Africa - he only visited its north, in Algeria, which, strictly speaking, is not Africa at all, but part of Arab world. What could Dumas write about the rest of Africa! After all, there were their cardinals, their "secrets of the Madrid court", their musketeers and the Count of Monte Cristo!
ostrich people
What associations arise with this phrase? Most likely, the image of a bushman hunter is born, who, skillfully imitating a giant bird with the help of feathers and gait, approaches a group of ostriches and, with a well-aimed throw, twists the bola around the neck of one of the birds. But it's not about the Bushmen. The origins of this ethnographic search go back to ancient times. Even Strabo and Megasthenes wrote about apistodactyls, the mysterious inhabitants of Central Africa, whose feet are “turned back.” Countless drawings of aegipods, satyrs, devils with cloven hooves adorned the works of ancient and medieval authors. Who was the prototype of these creatures?
The first to come close to unraveling, without knowing it, was an American traveler French descent du Chaillou (by the way, he was the first of the white hunters to track down and kill a gorilla). In his book Travels and Adventures in Central Africa (1863) there are these lines: “Everywhere I have been in Northern Gabon, these people are given the same name -“ Sapadi ”. But it was not possible to see them du Chailly.
Years, decades passed. In 1960, the English newspaper The Guardian published an article under the heading "In search of Africans on two fingers."
Mysterious Tribe. From our correspondent. Salisbury, 4 February. And the following information follows: an African tribe, whose members move on two fingers, lives in remote areas of the Zambezi River Valley. Locals say that these people have ordinary feet, but with only two fingers, one larger than the other, and slightly curved. No one has ever studied this phenomenon.
The note was not taken seriously, the newspaper was simply not believed. But the plot of silence was broken. The information kept coming. People with two toes running like the wind have been seen in a distant gorge in the Zambezi valley. They feed on wild cereals, mushrooms. A certain Buster Phillips saw them in the Mpata Gorge, not far from the town of Feira. The height of the man reached 1 meter 50 centimeters. They are wild and unsociable. Philips first noticed several people sitting on the branches, they plucked something from the tree, but at his approach they quickly ran away. Local residents, their neighbors, were afraid of two-toed, considered sorcerers ...
After some time - new information. "Rodigia Herald" publishes a note "A new theory about the two-toed". The famous American paleontologist J. Desmond Clark suggests that we are talking about ordinary local residents who wear sandals and their footprints in the sand make it look like they only have two toes.
Clark seemed to reassure the scientists. But then, as luck would have it, two photographs arrived, albeit fuzzy, taken by a certain Allson in the town of Hartley - two Africans with “ostrich paws”. The pictures were accompanied by Allson's own exclamations: "It's just fantastic how high and dexterously they fly up a tree using these fingers!" But photos can be faked. That's exactly what they decided - a hoax!
The next publication significantly shook the positions of skeptics. It was called "X-rays prove that ostrich people really exist." one of the members mysterious tribe managed to deliver to Salisbury and subjected to examination. According to the conclusion of the doctors, they have not yet encountered such a pronounced manifestation of such an anomaly - syndoctylia. The exact reason for it is not clear - either the disturbed nutrition of the parents, or some kind of virus ...
It was then, in the mid-60s, that this definition was born - claw syndrome. But they saw only one person, and nothing was known about the whole tribe. Until finally, military pilot Mark Mullin managed to get a good picture of one person from the tribe in the vicinity of Kanyembe, west of Feira. Mullin claimed that the two-toed live right here, between the Kanyembe and Shevora rivers. Neighbors call them vadoma.
We turned to M. Gelfand, an expert on local African tribes. He said that he had not heard anything about them and would believe in two-toed when the expedition returned with the results. Other scientists joined the research and found out that this is not about vadoma, but about wanyai, known since the time of the early Portuguese travelers, whose homeland is the area where the dam and the Cabora Bassa hydroelectric power station in Mozambique are now located. It is estimated that there are about 300-400 of them, and one in four suffers from claw syndrome.
In 1971, they finally organized an expedition. The local chief, who was approached by the scientists, categorically stated that he knew only one such family, where one of the three sons died, and the other lives near the Kanyembe police station. His name is Mabarani Karume.
He was a 35-year-old man, father of five children, and none of them had foot problems!
Karume was born at the foot of Mount Wadoma. The father used to live in the mountains, and the mother was from the Korekore tribe. From their marriage five children were born (3 boys and 2 girls) and five more died. One of the three boys was two-toed - Maborani. His mother's sister had the same son, but he died early. Maborani claimed that there were no more people like him in the district. His feet really ended in two fingers - 15- and 10-cm long, located perpendicular to each other. The Maborani was brought to Salisbury and made x-rays. The first and fifth fingers were developed, the second, third and fourth were undeveloped. With a height of 1 meter 65 centimeters, he was distinguished by noticeable abilities in running.
But what about other testimonies that mentioned other "two-toed"? It turned out that both the leader and Maborani were wrong. Many ostrich people were found in Central and South Africa - in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana ... They met back in 1770 among the Maroons of Suriname, taken out of Africa, and A. Humboldt himself wrote about them. Jan Jacob Hartsings in his book "Description of Guyana" called them "tuvingas" - most likely from the corrupted English phrase "Two-fungers" - "two-fingered" ...
Whether the two-toed Africans were really the prototypes of the strange satyrs and aegipodes is hard to say now. However, they could be brought to North Africa and the countries of the Mediterranean as a curiosity from distant expeditions, and they were probably painted by Egyptian and Greek artists. You just have to look harder...
Radar Man from Port Louis
This parcel from the distant island of Mauritius - just a small package with photocopies of some archival materials - I was looking forward to.
For more than a century, there has been the secret of Etienne Bottineau, who lived on the island of Mauritius in the second half of the 18th century and the beginning of the last century. The mystery is still unsolved... My friends got hold of the cherished documents in the vaults of the capital of the Mascarene Islands - the city of Port Louis. Before that, I knew only the lines of Botino's confession, quoted by the South African writer and historian L. Green in the book “Islands Untouched by Time”: “If irritation and disappointment cause my death before I can explain my discovery, then the world will lose some time of knowledge of art, which would have done honor to the XVIII century.
Bottineau, Ethiea (1739-1813). Born in Chaatoso, Rien-et-Loire, France. He died in Mauritius on May 17, 1813 at the age of 74. As a young man, he went to Nantes, from where he left for the islands... These are lines from the Dictionary of Mauritian Biographies, published in Port Louis in a small edition. And most importantly: “In 1762, on board one of the ships of the Royal Navy, he came up with the idea that a moving ship should produce some kind of effect in the atmosphere. Some time after training, he was already able to determine the appearance of the ship on the horizon. But he was wrong so often that he soon stopped his experiments ... "
But only for a while. In 1763 he arrived on the island and received a position as an engineer. Good weather most years, as well as the fact that many ships bypassed Mauritius without entering the port, allowed him to exercise to his heart's content. After some time, Botino was already making a bet. “He made a lot of money, because three days before the appearance of the ship on the horizon, without a pipe at all, foreshadowed his arrival.”
In 1780, Bottineau wrote about his amazing abilities to the then Minister of the Navy of France, de Castries. He ordered for two years to record all observations of an unknown employee from Mauritius.
Official observations began on May 15, 1782. Bottino reported that three ships were approaching, which appeared on May 17, 18 and 25. On June 20, he predicted the arrival of "many ships", and on the 29th, the first ships of the French squadron appeared, delayed by the calm.
Bottineau demanded a bonus of 100,000 livres and an annual pension of 1,300 livres from the governor for revealing his secret, recalling that from 1778 to 1782 he predicted the arrival of 575 ships a few days before they appeared on the horizon. But the governor was in no hurry to part with the money.
And now the offended Botino goes home. During the voyage, he “sees” 27 ships that really appear in the distance a little later, and declares that he “can also predict the land.”
He fails to get an audience with the Minister of the Navy. But on the other hand, Bottineau achieves recognition from the public of the city of Lorient, showing her his abilities. Then, in 1785, the newspaper Mercure de France published "Excerpts from the memoirs of Etienne Bottineau on the naus copy" - this is the name he gave to his gift. Judging by the press reports of that time, Jean Paul Marat himself became interested in the abilities of a colonial official, who was then writing a treatise on physics. But they didn't seem to be able to meet. It has not yet been possible to find any mention of Botino in the works and letters of Marat.
In 1793, Botino returned to Mauritius and stubbornly continued his experiments. On June 15, he announced that 20 ships would soon appear, but none of them arrived. They began to laugh at Botino. But soon the scoffers had to apologize, for it turned out that the admiral of the squadron decided not to go to Mauritius and went directly to India.
Another touch that has become known only recently: for some time he lived with Bottino in Ceylon, in Colombo, where he was seen by one of the editors of the book “ New biography contemporaries", published in 1827. In the third volume it says that Bottineau studied "animal magnetism" there. Add to this: he studied at the school of animal magnetism, communicated with the Indians, who "could work miracles," as Bottino himself writes in his memoirs.
As it turned out, he had students! Someone Feiyafe, who served with Botino, learned the abilities of the owner. On November 22, 1810, from the top of Long Mountain, he noticed the English fleet, or rather, a cluster of ships that were heading for Ile-de-France (the old name for Mauritius). Then he clarified that the ships were heading towards the island of Rodrigues. Feiyafe hurried to the governor and announced that in the next 48 hours or a little later the British fleet would appear on the horizon. The city was in turmoil. Feyafé was jailed for spreading rumors. However, the governor still sent the Luten ship to Rodriguez to see what was happening there. But it was already too late. On November 26 at 10 am, 20 ships of the British Royal Navy, and later 34 more, fired onboard artillery fire on Mauritius. Feyafé was released from custody after the island was occupied by the British.
Nevertheless, Botino's visit to France was not in vain. Recently, his notes were found in the archives under the general heading "Secret memoirs serving to illuminate the history of the republic from 1762 to the present day." I found them in the study of the Mauritian scholar L. Pitot "Historical Sketches to 1715-1810". Here are some bitter lines from the memoirs of Etienne Bottineau himself, relating to 1795: organized by the council cities (Port Louis. - N. N.). This did not at all save me from the attacks and tricks of individuals, namely: they mocked me when I predicted the presence of ships near the island, but they did not come at all. The answer is simple: they were not going to our island! These people, who do not have a glimmer of thought, did not believe in anything, doubted everything, saying that I was a charlatan and that this could not be. I am forced to live among this stupid rabble, stupid and cruel people, mired in routine, hostilely accepting any discovery, even one iota falling out of their own primitive understanding of the world. Here is another fragment: “I became another victim, mired in the musty atmosphere of godforsaken islands, suffering from the despotism of officials ...”
L. Pito, after carefully analyzing all the documents, came to the conclusion that Botino was in perfect health, his convictions were firm, and what he wrote clearly indicated that his contemporaries did not understand him.
What kind of gift did Etienne Bottineau have? He never revealed his secret to anyone. Unless to two students, and even then not completely. But in Mauritius, his letter to J.P. Marat was preserved, which, in particular, says:
“A ship approaching the shore produces a certain effect on the atmosphere, as a result of which the approach can be detected by an experienced eye before the ship reaches the limits of visibility. My predictions were favored by a clear sky and a clear atmosphere ... I stayed on the island for only six months, when I was convinced of my discovery and it only remained to gain experience so that nauscopia would become a true science.
Maybe this is due to mirages, so frequent at sea? And not only at sea. The French astronomer Camille Flammarion in his work “Atmosphere” writes about the terrible fata morgana that appeared to the inhabitants of the Belgian town of Verviers on June 15, 1815 - cavalry raced through the air, guns silently fired, infantry attacked. On that day, the Battle of Waterloo began 105 kilometers from Verviers ...
Or is it the subject of a relatively young science - dowsing? But historians do not write anything about whether Botino had any instruments.
He died in 1813, taking the secret of nauscopia with him to his grave. In Mauritius, he is remembered! Of course, there is no monument, but Mount Montagne Long (Long), towering above the blue expanse of the ocean, from where Etienne Bottineau made his observations, reminds today's scientists of their duty to science - to reveal the secret of his gift.
Lost in the sands of the Kalahari
Who discovered South Africa? Agree, the question sounds rather unusual. Indeed, they discovered America, and swam to South Africa, went around it at the cape Good Hope and moved on to India and the islands of Indonesia. The first of the Europeans official version, this was done by the Portuguese Vasco da Gama. On December 25, 1497, he landed on the mountainous shores, where the province of Natal is now located, and told his descendants that the inhabitants of those places build houses from branches and grass, tools are made of iron, and their jewelry is made of copper, that they are friendly and hospitable...
And to the Portuguese sailor? Has no one been here before? The Phoenicians circled the continent in the 6th century BC - this is proven. What about others? The question remains open.
It all started with the surveying expedition of Reinhard Maak in 1907. “In mid-March, we set up camp in Brandberg and went to inspect the Cisab Gorge. And here I am sitting in the shade of a granite rock. In front of me are the best samples rock art. Unable to take his eyes off the colored ensemble on the wall of the cave...” What struck Maak so much? Primitive artists "inhabited" the cave with hunters, armed with bows and arrows, and various animals common in those parts. And in the center... The amazing White Lady is depicted in the center of the exposition. Her costume is strikingly similar to the clothes of matador girls from the palace of King Minos in Knossos (Crete) - a short jacket and something like a tights, stitched with gold threads. Headwear is similar. Some scientists, for example, the famous French archaeologist Abbé A. Bray, who wrote a whole book about the Lady, see in the image not only Cretan, but also ancient Egyptian features. This is not surprising, because the cultures of the two ancient states are intricately intertwined. The lady could be the Egyptian Isis or the Greek Diana. The figure behind is Osiris.
For eight decades, the dispute about the mysterious stranger has been going on. Supporters of the local, proto-Bushmen origin of the rock ensemble put forward equally strong arguments, because there are many African elements in the drawings. For example, the helmets of warriors may be nothing more than the hairstyles or headdresses of the people of the Herero or Ovambo tribes. And the bows painted on the walls of the grotto look like the weapons of warlike matabele...
It may be that North African rock art will help unravel the mystery of the White Lady of Brandberg, because there are interesting parallels between the Saharan and South African centers of primitive art. Maybe it was the people from the far north and Syl that were captured by an unknown artist in a place forgotten by God?
Not so long ago, an expedition of South African scientists visited Brandberg (by the way, in the Herero language this massif is called Omukuruvaro - Mountain of God). They found the ensemble in a deplorable state. Many tourists who got here, wanting to get contrasting pictures, wiped the wall with damp rags every now and then, and individual drawings can only be distinguished today with a magnifying glass...
Archaeologist J. Harding carefully studied the shoes of the Lady and came to the conclusion that she resembles sandals ... Bushmen.
What about the giant foot imprinted in the fossilized clay of the High Weld in the Transvaal province, 30 kilometers from the border with Swaziland? For the first time, white people learned about the mysterious imprint from the inhabitants of one of the villages of the Swazi people. They told about him in 1912 to the farmer Stoffel Koets, whose grandson, Jan, is today the keeper of the trail. It turned out that the stories about this “footprint of the spirit” passed from generation to generation among the Swazi, for them the rock remains a shrine to this day.
The footprint is an exact copy, only many times enlarged, of the left foot of a person. Upon closer inspection, you can even see the clay that has come through between the fingers. It should be added that on the island of Sri Lanka, 44 miles east of Colombo, they found exactly the same trace, only from right foot. There he also became an object of worship. A specialist from Cape Town, geologist A. Reid, said: “It is difficult to find a sufficiently logical explanation for this phenomenon. One thing is clear - carving a footprint in such a rock is almost impossible.
Or maybe this is still a joke of nature, similar to the one that for so long nullified all the searches of travelers and scientists in the Kalahari Desert, who were looking for the legendary city lost in the sands? The enterprising American Farini, returning in 1885 from South West Africa, made a report at the London Royal geographical society about the ruins of an ancient city that he discovered in the sands of the Kalahari. His message caused a sensation, and for decades the search for the lost city of Farini did not stop.
And only today, it seems, a solution has been found. The expedition of the English explorer Clement stumbled in the vicinity of Ritfontein on a ridge of Aierdonkonniz rocks. The landscape matched the description that Farini had left in Across the Kalahari Desert. One of the block-slabs looked like a detail of the ruins depicted in the traveler's drawing. The surface of some pieces of rock could, if desired, be mistaken for corrugated due to weathering. Succumbing to the game of imagination, Farini mistook the vagaries of nature for the creation of human hands ...
Odyssey of the Duke of Courland
The story of this three hundred years ago would have seemed to many fictitious, unreal, if it were not for the indisputable evidence of the authenticity of everything that happened, collected in different years researchers from many countries...
In the second half of the 16th century, having displaced Spain and Portugal, England and the Netherlands became the leading maritime powers. But more and more often thought about their place under the sun and smaller states. The politicians of Sweden, Denmark, and Brandenburg dreamed of long-distance sea voyages. Before their mind's eye stood the untold riches of the New World flooding European markets.
The small duchy of Courland also did not want to lag behind its enterprising neighbors. From 1642 to 1682, Duke Jacob was in power here, “one of the crowned dreamers with great plans, all his life rushing about with plans, the dimensions of which are in inverse proportion to their means” (as one of the later researchers wrote about him). hallmark Jacob's policy was that foreign enterprises were invested mainly in income received from the duke's estates. The navy employed exclusively the labor of serfs.
As often happened, in the preparation of such enterprises, which were unusual for the natives of the northern latitudes, the implementation of their plans was facilitated by the rich imagination of adventuristic organizers, a clear overestimation of the wealth of the discovered lands, but at the same time - underestimation own forces and the difficulties they encountered along the way.
The ideas that the duke hatched corresponded to the state needs of Courland. The duchy needed new markets for its goods. An agreement has already been concluded with France on the supply of wine and salt to Courland. A solution to the "herring problem" has been found: Courland fishermen go to the North Sea themselves, and do not buy fish in Gothenburg, Bergen and the ports of Holland. The import of ready-made dresses from Europe is limited due to the establishment of its own textile manufactories. Yakov intended to do the same with spices - not to depend on Holland, buying them at exorbitant prices there, but to deliver them from Africa and India on his own ships.
Jacob had other goals as well. The brilliance of the untold riches brought to Europe by the Portuguese and Spaniards blinded him. The Duke dreamed of turning Mitava into a northern center for trading in overseas goods. Thoughts of distant campaigns roamed in the Duke's head, one more tempting than the other. In 1650, the duke instructed his agent in Amsterdam to form, with the participation of Dutch merchants, a "Company for trading in Guinea", in order to "cease to depend on the whims of the East India Company." However, the Amsterdam merchants did not dare to take on the defense of the duke's three courts. But he did not abandon his plan and temporarily withdrew the ships.
In September 1651, having taken on board one hundred hired soldiers in Holland, the ship "Kit" set off for the shores of West Africa. On October 25, the ship anchored at the mouth of the Gambia. The duke's agents immediately began negotiations with the African leaders. A small island was bought from the ruler of Kumbo for a pittance ten miles up the river. A little later, through various machinations, the Kurlanders received the use of the Gilfre region on the northern bank of the river, just opposite the island (it was called St. Andreas), and the ruler of Barra sold them the Bayon region at the mouth of the Gambia. The Courland flag was hoisted over the island of St. Andreas - with the image of a black cancer on a red field.
A few months later, another ship of Duke Jacob, the Crocodile, came to the mouth of the Gambia. In the forts there was always a garrison guarding warehouses and living quarters, as well as a Lutheran church. The duke, not without reason, was afraid of the attacks of the Dutch and the British. Deftly playing on their strife, he managed to ensure that his ships sailed unhindered to the shores of West Africa.
Courland's trade with the West African coast reached its peak in 1655 under Captain Otto Stihl, who proved to be a skillful and cunning administrator. Special commissioners reported to the Gambia about those goods that found the greatest demand in Courland. Local residents willingly bought metal products, fabrics in exchange for gold, ivory, wax, animal skins, peppers, roots, vegetable oil, coconuts.
Encouraged by the successful course of trade on the African coast, Yakov began to hatch plans for long-distance trips to the West Indies and the South Seas.
But times were changing quickly. The Courland territories at the mouth of the Gambia have dangerous neighbors.
After the Dutch took most of their possessions from the Portuguese in West Africa, they became the actual owners of the entire Atlantic coast. In 1631, the New African Society, founded in England, established trading posts in Sierra Leone and on the Gold Coast. A little later, the Swedes also appeared here. They were followed by the Danes, then by the French. If we add to this the Brandenburg fortresses of the 80s of the 17th century, then a very colorful and characteristic picture section of the African pie. These states behaved differently: some tried to get along with local leaders peaceful relations, not disdaining, however, with the help of the leaders to extract “living goods” in the deep regions, others openly demonstrated their strength by capturing slaves.
Jacob was frightened by such a neighborhood. He decided to look for new lands - away from aggressive neighbors. In 1651, he asked Pope Innocent X for permission "to embark on a difficult undertaking that would serve the good of catholic church(As you can see, the duke was not embarrassed by the fact that the Courland dynasty was Lutheran). Negotiations were held in Vilna and Polotsk with the papal legate Don Camillo Panfili. Yakov was ready to provide a fleet of 40 ships and several thousand crew members for an expedition to the South Seas, allocating 3-4 million thalers for this. But the plan was not destined to come true. On January 5, 1655, the pope died unexpectedly. In the same year, the Swedish-Polish war broke out, in which Courland was also drawn. The duke and his family were captured by the Swedes. The bondage lasted two years. During this time, trading posts in the Gambia began to fall into disrepair. They lasted until 1666, when in March five English ships entered the mouth of the Gambia and demanded the immediate surrender of the fortress. The territory of the Courlanders passed into the full possession of England.
The duke's possessions lasted a little longer on the island of Tobago in the Caribbean, which was settled in 1654 by Courland peasants and planted here. In 1696, after the death of Jacob, the last colonist returned home from there.
For almost fifteen years, trade relations between trading posts on the West African coast and Courland itself lasted. Many ordinary Courlanders - serfs hired on ships as sailors or soldiers in garrisons - have seen Africa and made contacts with Africans. That was the first acquaintance of the inhabitants of the Baltic with the distant, unknown world of nationalities and tribes, the amazing nature of the tropics. Undoubtedly, fragments of these vivid memories should have been kept in the memory of generations living in the coastal regions of Kurzeme.
Let us remember: after the Battle of Poltava, the Duchy of Courland was already under the influence of Russia. Of course, the participants in the voyages to Africa by that time were no longer alive. But the memory certainly lived on. There were also archival documents. Courland, not far from St. Petersburg, could have rendered considerable service to Peter I in the preparation of his expedition to the Indian Ocean (for a number of reasons, it did not take place).
Who knows, maybe even today live in the old legends of the Latvians, the descendants of those serf sailors and soldiers, memories of the distant African coast and its inhabitants? ..
In the remote lost African jungle in the territory between the states of Zimbabwe and Botswana, a tribe lives, most of whose inhabitants have only two fingers on their feet. Two thumbs, located perpendicular to each other ....
This disease, or hereditary deformity, has received the name "claw syndrome" with someone's light hand. Some doctors believe that it is caused by an unknown virus. Others express the opinion that this is the result of marriages between close relatives.
The first to know about the strange inhabitants of Central Africa was Paul du Chail, an American traveler of French origin. In 1863, he published a book in which he described his adventures in Africa, mentioning in it a tribe of people with two toes, whose name is Sapadi. 
A hundred years later, the English newspaper The Guardian published an article “In search of Africans with two fingers. Mysterious Tribe. The article mentioned a tribe living in remote areas of the Zambezi River, whose people move on two fingers. Most readers considered the article a duck and did not give it much attention. But reports of two-toed people began to appear in other media as well.
After a short time, the ethnographer Buster Philips wrote in one of the geographical journals about an unusual African tribe of ostrich people. He described that one day, not far from the small town of Feira, he noticed two-toed people in the branches of a tree. They were collecting something, but at his approach they quickly descended from the tree and quickly ran away. Phillips pointed out that ostrich people are about one and a half meters tall, completely wild and live apart in their own closed world. They feed on wild cereals, fruits of trees and mushrooms.
The article caused a flurry of publications. Many publications around the world began to publish notes, and even photographs of Africans with “ostrich paws”. Scientists refused to believe, arguing that the hype raised was a pure hoax. 
However, military pilot Mark Mullinu managed to take a great picture of a two-toed man from a tribe living between the Kanyembe and Shevore rivers. The tribes living in the neighborhood called these people vandoma. The number of this tribe was about 300-400 people, and one in four had claw syndrome.
In 1971, a scientific expedition was organized to search for a tribe of two-toed people. It would hardly have been successful if contact with the leaders of neighboring tribes had not been established earlier. It was only through their intervention that the elder of this strange tribe received guests.
Scientists have found that ostrich people consider themselves descendants of immigrants from Mozambique. Historian Dawson Mungeri of the National Archives in Harare suggested that the “ostrich” gene could have been brought to those places by a woman who came, whose descendants later entered into consanguineous marriages.
One of the members of the tribe was brought to England and subjected to examination. Scientists have found that the gene responsible for the appearance of claw syndrome is dominant. It is enough to inherit it from one of the parents, and two fingers instead of five for each foot are provided. 
According to Professor Philips Tobias, this mutation is unlikely to disappear as a result of natural selection, because it does not make a person defective. And this is so: Sapadis are great runners, they climb trees like monkeys, jumping from one tree to another. Sometimes members of the tribe do not get off the trees for several days, collecting fruits, leaves and insect larvae.
Some of the customs of the tribe look strange. For example, before the wedding, the future husband and wife should lie side by side on the hot sand without food and water for a day. At the same time, the guy's hands are tightly tied to the girl's hands.
Or such a ritual: on the new moon, at least a dozen sapadis are buried in the ground up to the waist. Buried all night loudly pronounce prayers and spells, and the rest of the tribe burn fires, enveloping the worshipers in fragrant smoke.
However, these seemingly primitive savages are skilled healers. With antediluvian homemade tools, they are able to conduct so complex operations that an experienced surgeon would not always take them. And their ointments, tinctures, powders have truly miraculous properties.
Over time, ostrich people were found in other parts of Africa. For example, in Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. Most likely, these people were mentioned in ancient writings. Strabo, an ancient Greek geographer and historian, wrote about apistodactyls - the mysterious inhabitants of Central Africa, whose feet are "wrapped back".
This strange tribe is distinguished from other inhabitants of the Earth by an amazing property: they have only two fingers on their feet, and both are big! This disease (but can this unusual structure of the foot be called that?) Is called claw syndrome and is caused, according to doctors, by incest. It is possible that the cause of it is some unknown virus. (By the way, a similar phenomenon was noted in the French Alps. Probably because some villages there are located just as far from large settlements, as well as an abandoned Botswana village, and therefore marriages between close relatives are not uncommon.)
Ostrich people did not appear today. Even the ancient Greek historians Strabo and Megasthenes wrote about apistodactyls, the mysterious inhabitants of Central Africa, whose "feet are wrapped back."
In 1863, a book by the French naturalist du Chaillou was published. In it, he describes his journey and adventures in Central Africa, mentioning the tribe of people with two toes, whose name is Sapadi.
After 100 years, the English newspaper The Guardian published an article under the heading “In search of Africans on two fingers. The Mysterious Tribe”, which spoke of a tribe whose people live in remote areas of the Zambezi River Valley and move on two fingers. Of course, the note was mistaken for a newspaper “duck”, but over time, here and there, information began to appear about two-toed Africans who run as fast as the wind. The press even began a controversy called "A new theory about two-toed", where, along with other opinions, the following was expressed: the famous American paleontologist
J. Desmond Klar believed that we are talking about ordinary local residents who wear special sandals that leave two-toed footprints in the sand.
Soon, a certain ethnographer Buster Philips published information about an unusual African tribe in one of the specialized geographical magazines in England: ostrich people are short, about one and a half meters, they are unsociable and lead a secluded lifestyle. They feed on wild cereals and mushrooms, fruits.
And — it began! Here and there, notes and even pictures of Africans with "ostrich paws" began to appear in various newspapers. But scientists did not believe them, exclaiming one thing: "Hoax!"
Only in 1999, an international scientific expedition was finally organized, which made it possible to lift the veil of secrecy over Sapadi.
... The elder of the village received the guests reluctantly, and only the intervention of the leaders of neighboring tribes, with whom the Europeans had already established contact, allowed the researchers to fulfill their mission.
According to legends, ostrich people are descendants of people from Mozambique, and the "ostrich" gene, according to historian Dawson Mungeri from the National Archives in Harare, was brought to those places by a single woman who came, whose descendants were forced to enter into closely related marriages due to the extreme sparseness of their region.
One of the members of the mysterious tribe managed to be delivered to England for examination. According to the conclusion of the doctors, they have never encountered such a pronounced manifestation of such an anomaly - syndoctylia. It was then that this definition was born: claw syndrome. By the way, the gene that generates this syndrome is dominant, it is enough for one of the parents to have it, and the child will be born with deformity.
“This mutation is unlikely to disappear because it does not make a person defective,” says Professor Philips Tobias from medical school local university. “So ostrich people will continue to exist. And, it’s true: flexible grasping toes are a solid advantage (which is clearly demonstrated by sapadis, bringing a mug of “one left” drink to their mouths)!
Sapadis are excellent runners and climb trees with extraordinary dexterity, moving from one to another, like monkeys. It happens that the people of the tribe do not get down to the ground for several days, collecting fruits, leaves and insect larvae, from which they then prepare their national dishes.
Some of the local rituals of the tribe also puzzled the scientists: for example, before the wedding, the future newlyweds should lie side by side on the hot sand without food and water for a day, and their hands, which were in contact with each other, were tightly tied. Those who did not pass the test had no right to marry.
Another rite involved burying waist-deep during the new moon period at least a dozen sapadis, who had to loudly pronounce spells addressed to helper spirits all night long. The rest of the ostrich people were burning bonfires at that time, enveloping the worshipers with a sweetish fragrant smoke.
Sapadis are skilled healers. With primitive surgical instruments, they perform operations that even an experienced doctor would not always undertake. And their ointments, tinctures, powders work truly miracles!
Over time, ostrich people were found in other areas of Central and South Africa- Zambia, Zimbabwe ... They met back in 1770 among the Maroons of Surinam (descendants of runaway slaves) taken out of Africa, and Alexander Humbold himself wrote about them - the largest naturalist, geographer and traveler of the first half of XIX century. Another travel scientist, Jan Jacob Hartsings, in his book “Description of Guyana” (a former British colony located on the Atlantic coast of South America between Venezuela and Brazil) also wrote about people whose foot ends in a claw, calling them “tuvingas” - rather everything, from the corrupted English phrase Two-fingers "-" two-fingered ".
... Were the two-fingered Africans the prototypes of satyrs or other strange creatures, it's hard to say now. Most likely, they were brought as a curiosity to North Africa and the Mediterranean countries from distant expeditions, and Egyptian and Greek artists were in a hurry to capture this miracle on canvas.
Share with friends: Centuries passed before scientists discovered in Central Africa, in a remote forest region between Zimbabwe and Botswana, a village where the majority of the inhabitants ... the so-called ostrich people, or, as they are also called, sapadis.consanguineous marriages
What distinguishes this strange tribe from other inhabitants of the Earth is that they have only two fingers on their feet, and both are big! This disease (but can such an amazing structure of the foot be called that?) is called claw syndrome and is caused, according to doctors, by some unknown virus. However, the reason for this anomaly may lie in the fact that the villagers enter into marriages between close relatives, and two-toed children can be born as a result of incest. By the way, a similar phenomenon was noted in the French Alps. Some villages there are also located far from other settlements, so local men are sometimes forced to marry their sisters.
The origins of this ethnographic search are rooted in the mists of time. Even the ancient Greek historians Strabo and Megasthenes wrote about apistodactyls, the mysterious inhabitants of Central Africa, whose "feet are turned back." One can also recall countless drawings of Aegipods, satyrs, devils with cloven hooves. Who was the prototype of these creatures?
Two-fingered - fast as the wind
The first to know about the amazing inhabitants of Central Africa was the American traveler of French origin, Paul du Chaillou. In a book that was published in 1863, he describes his adventures on the Black Continent, mentioning a tribe of people with two toes, whose name is Sapadi.
This is what an ostrich's leg looks like
A hundred years later, the English newspaper The Guardian published an article under the heading "Searching for Africans with two fingers. A mysterious tribe," which spoke of a tribe whose people live in remote areas of the Zambezi River valley and move on two fingers. Of course, the note was taken for a newspaper "duck", but over time, here and there, information began to appear about two-toed Africans who run as fast as the wind. The press even began a controversy called "A new theory about two-toed", where, along with other opinions, the following was expressed: the famous American paleontologist J. Desmond Clark believed that it was about ordinary local residents who wear unusual sandals, and their footprints in the sand give the impression that they have only two toes.
Hoax?
Soon, a certain ethnographer Buster Philips published information about an unusual African tribe in one of the geographical magazines in England. He reported that ostrich people are not tall, about one and a half meters, they are completely wild and live in their own closed little world. They feed on wild cereals and mushrooms, fruits from trees. By the way, they climb trees very cleverly.
And - began! Here and there, notes and even pictures of Africans with "ostrich paws" began to appear in various newspapers, but scientists did not believe them, arguing that it was all a hoax.
Only in 1971 was a scientific expedition finally organized (scientists different countries) to these places, which allowed to lift the veil of secrecy.
These are normal people!
... The elder of the village received the guests reluctantly, and only the intervention of the leaders of neighboring tribes, with whom the Europeans had already established contact, allowed the researchers to fulfill their mission.
According to legend, ostrich people are descendants of people from Mozambique, and the “ostrich” gene, according to historian Dawson Mungeri from the National Archives in Harare, was brought to those places by a single woman who came, whose descendants were forced to enter into closely related marriages due to extreme low population region.
One of the members of the mysterious tribe managed to be delivered to England and subjected to examination. According to the conclusion of the doctors, they have never encountered such a pronounced manifestation of such an anomaly - syndactyly. It was then that this definition was born - claw syndrome. By the way, the gene responsible for this syndrome is dominant, and it is enough to inherit it from one of the parents to get two fingers instead of five on each foot.
- This mutation is unlikely to disappear, because it does not make a person defective. says Professor Philips Tobias of the local university's medical school. - So people-ostriches will be born in the future. 
The causes of syndoctyly have not yet been identified.
And the truth is: flexible, dexterous toes can be perceived as an advantage over other people. By the way, sapadis sometimes demonstrate their abilities to researchers by bringing a cup of drink to their mouths with their feet!
Buried to the waist
One of the features of the Sapadis, which we have already mentioned, is that they are excellent runners and unusually deftly climb trees, jumping from one to another, like monkeys. It happens that members of the tribe do not get down to the ground for several days, collecting fruits, leaves and insect larvae, from which they then prepare their national dishes.
Scientists were baffled by some of the rituals of the tribe. For example, before the wedding, the future husband and wife should lie side by side on the hot sand without food and water during the day. Moreover, the guy's hands are tightly tied to the girl's hands. Those who did not pass the test had no right to marry or get married.
Another, no less strange - from the point of view of a newcomer, the rite involves burying at least a dozen sapadis in the ground up to the waist during the new moon. Buried throughout the night loudly pronounce spells and prayers. The rest of the ostrich people burn bonfires at this time, enveloping the worshipers with a sweetish fragrant smoke. 
Life in the village of ostrich people goes on as usual
They live not only in Africa!
Sapadis are skilled healers. With primitive surgical instruments, they perform operations that even an experienced doctor would not always undertake. And their ointments, tinctures, powders work truly miracles!
Over time, ostrich people have been found in other areas of Central and South Africa, such as Zambia and Zimbabwe. They met as early as 1770 among the Maroons of Surinam (descendants of runaway slaves) taken out of Africa. Alexander Humboldt, the greatest naturalist, geographer and traveler of the first half of the 19th century, wrote about these people. Another travel scientist, Jan Jacob Hartsings, in his book "Description of Guyana" (a former British colony located on the Atlantic coast of South America between Venezuela and Brazil) also talked about people whose foot ends in a claw, calling them "tuvingas" - most likely, from the corrupted English phrase twofingers - two-fingered.
Did they write satyrs?
Were two-toed Africans the prototypes of satyrs and other mythical creatures, it's hard to say now. It is possible that ostrich people were brought as a curiosity to North Africa and the countries of the Mediterranean from distant expeditions, and Egyptian and Greek artists were in a hurry to capture this miracle on canvases.
Surely, ancient manuscripts contain records of sapadi, promising scientists to trace the history of this phenomenon more deeply.
White travelers and missionaries trapped in central regions Tropical Africa, without saying a word, noted with surprise one characteristic circumstance, namely, an extremely complex ethnic composition population. Suffice it to say that peoples representing the most ancient anthropological types met here.
These are pygmies and Negroids, Cushite peoples and the Semitic-Hamitic population, next to undersized pygmies, whose height does not exceed 149 centimeters, giants live in Burundi and Rwanda - Tutsis, the tallest people on the planet. Tutsis have average height 186 centimeters. Two-meter women are not uncommon here, and among the men there are "Uncle Styopa" 2.3 meters high.
Although almost 200 years have passed since the time of the great African explorer David Livingston, few scientists - geographers or ethnographers managed to penetrate into the deaf, unexplored edges of the black continent. Therefore, to this day there is no exact information about all the tribes living here.
Moreover, some nationalities are practically unknown, others, such as the Bushmen living in the Kalahari desert, cause great bewilderment among specialists by the mysterious features of the origin of their language, which is more like a bird whistle than speech.
In southern Africa, there have long been rumors about a strange tribe "claw-footed" of people. These tales have never been given more weight than any other such tale. However, representatives of the outlandish tribe were relatively recently found and even photographed.
They turned out to be very shy people, one might say unsociable. They settle away from the outside world, hiding deep in the bush from prying eyes. They lead an almost primitive time of life, raising livestock, and provide themselves with everything necessary. According to some assumptions, the number of the tribe of "knekolegs" can reach several hundred people.
Outwardly, no different from other Bantu peoples, this tribe has only one feature - among them children are born, both with ordinary five-fingered feet and two-fingered ones. But within the tribe itself there is no prejudice towards them, because the same parents are born both.
The main part of the Vadoma tribe lives in Southern Rhodesia, the rest moved to Botswana. Journalists who penetrated the “world” of a strange tribe managed to communicate with some of the inhabitants of a village located fifty kilometers from Francistown, in Botswana.
The name of the Wadoma tribe is plural. And each individual representative of the tribe is called mudoma
The head of the family, in which there are five children, two of them are five-fingered, three are two-fingered, Mkhahlani Malise said:
“When I was little, I didn’t even suspect that there was something unusual in me. My mother was also two-toed, and many of my relatives in the tribe. It seemed to me that all people can have either two or five fingers on their feet, just like, say, some animals have horns, while others do not. My legs don't give me any trouble. Those with five toes walk no better than me; all my life I have felt very strong and not so long ago I regularly walked to and from Francistown.
IN early childhood When I was growing up in my native village, I had to hear from adults the story of how two-toed people appeared in our tribe. They say that a long time ago, when the first child was born in our tribe, who had only two fingers on his feet, people were very scared. They thought it was some kind of witchcraft and killed the newborn. This has always been done with babies who have had any oddities in appearance since birth.
Then a two-toed child was born again to the same woman. And although they did the same to him, people hesitated: maybe this is some kind of sign and worth seeing what it means? Soon the same woman had a third two-toed child. This one was left to live. They reasoned that the will of the Almighty was to create a two-fingered man.
When I was born, the whole story was already considered very old. Among my friends there were many like myself, and never in our tribe were two-fingered people considered special people. As far as I remember, at that time in our village there were about fifty two-toed people.
Mhahlani Malise, having moved to Botswana, married here local girl She bore him five children. The first two were quite ordinary children, the next three had a claw-shaped foot.
“I don’t care what kind of legs they have,” says the father. “I am glad that I have five children, and how many toes they have does not bother me or anyone else in our village.”
However, it turned out that the youngest of the children, Bemba, had hands as unusual from birth as his feet. Two thumbs on left hand forefinger turned out in the first phalanx, and between the middle and ring fingers- underdeveloped joint. On right hand-only two fingers, thumb and forefinger.
At the right moment, he is rescued ... legs, which are very well developed in two-toed people. Taking a glass to the right, and a bottle of beer in left leg, Bemba deftly demonstrated to the photojournalists how he can do without the help of his hands.
In order to understand the reasons for such strange hereditary traits, a thorough study of all representatives of the “claw-legged” tribe is necessary, but this has not yet been undertaken.
Without waiting for conclusions, a number of biologists put forward their assumptions. They proceed from the fact that usually people of the same tribe cannot enter into incestuous marriages with each other. And if the “claw-shaped” adhered to such a rule, then after one or two generations, the “claws” would disappear.
But apparently, the opportunities for marriage were very limited here, and therefore, contrary to tradition, family marriages took root. It was they who caused the appearance of a random mutation, which then developed into a genetic marriage. Another more suitable version regarding the origin of two-toed people does not yet exist.
Irina STREKALOVA
