Was it fun? Man, I don't know...

Look how curious. Just this Monday, the day we learned that Lamine Yamal's 18th birthday celebrations would include a performance by a group of dwarfs, I started reading Albert Sánchez Piñol's latest book. It's titled The Darkness of the Heart , and it's about pygmies. For many years, Sánchez Piñol has been, by far, one of my favorite books.

Among other stories, Sánchez Piñol tells us the story of Ota Benga.

In 1904, critics mocked Ota Benga, a supposed pygmy, for throwing the three-meter shot put.

Samuel Verner had encountered Ota Benga at the beginning of the 20th century. Among other things, Verner was “a son of a bitch,” or so Sánchez Piñol describes him. Verner was also an American trader, and he had ventured into the Congo in search of “African pygmies” to bring back. He was tasked with including them in the events of the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.

It turns out that Verner's expedition came across a Bashilele caravan dragging several captives, including Ota Benga. The Bashilele were cannibals and intended to devour the terrified Ota, a teenager who stood no more than five feet tall.

Verner said:

–There I have my pygmy.

And he opened negotiations with the Bashilele. They went well. In exchange, he won by a landslide: Verner took Ota for a bolt of cloth and a pound of salt (five dollars...). Months later, he landed in the United States with his pygmy .

In reality, Ota Benga wasn't a pygmy, but a rather short African, but that didn't matter. Verner said the boy was a pygmy, period.

The 1904 St. Louis World's Fair included the Olympic Games and other parallel Games conceived by a foolish soul: the latter was dubbed Anthropology Days. Hundreds of individuals from exotic ethnic groups competed there. Inuits, Zulus, Igorots, and even the pygmy Ota Benga. In the shot put, Ota threw the ball three meters. Criticism was fierce. The official bulletin of the Games was also torn to shreds.

Perhaps in retaliation, some time later, Ota Benga was caged in the Bronx Zoo. Thousands of curious onlookers paid to see him. They spat at him from the other side of the fence, threw peanuts at him, and poked him with reeds. He regained his physical freedom years later, but his soul remained imprisoned. His English was excellent, but his condition made it impossible for him to metabolize in that Western universe. In 1916, he took his own life by shooting himself in the heart. Samuel Verner, his kidnapper, a son of a bitch to the end, said: “Apparently, Ota suffered a sudden dementia in the face of the wonders of civilization.”

PS: No one kidnapped anyone at Lamine Yamal's party. But I don't know if the dwarves had fun.