BATWA

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 1880 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). batyphone (ger. and fr. _batyphon_), a contrabass clarinet which was the outcome of f.w. wieprecht's endeavour to obtain a contrabass for the reed instruments. the batyphone was made to a scale twice the size of the clarinet in c, the divisions of the chromatic scale being arranged according to acoustic principles. for convenience in stopping holes too far apart to be covered by the fingers, crank or swivel keys were used. the instrument was constructed of maple-wood, had a clarinet mouthpiece of suitable size connected by means of a cylindrical brass crook with the upper part of the tube, and a brass bell. the pitch was two octaves below the clarinet in c, the compass being the same, and thus corresponding to the modern bass tuba. the tone was pleasant and full, but not powerful enough for the contrabass register in a military band. the batyphone had besides one serious disadvantage: it could be played with facility only in its nearly related keys, g and f major. the batyphone was invented and patented in 1839 by f.w. wieprecht, director general of all the prussian military bands, and e. skorra, the court instrument manufacturer of berlin. in practice the instrument was found to be of little use, and was superseded by the bass tuba. a similar attempt was made in 1843 by adolphe sax, and met with a similar fate. a batyphone bearing the name of its inventors formed part of the snoeck collection which was acquired for berlin's collection of ancient musical instruments at the technische hochschule fur musik. the description of the batyphone given above is mainly derived from a ms. treatise on instrumentation by wieprecht, in 1909 in the possession of herr otto lessmann (berlin), and reproduced by capt. c.r. day, in _descriptive catalogue of the musical instruments of the royal military exhibition, london, 1890_ (london, 1891), p. 124. (k. s.) bauan (or baun), a town of the province of batangas, luzon, philippine islands, at the head of batangas bay, about 54 m. s. of manila. pop. (1903) 39,094. a railway to connect the town with manila was under construction in 1908. bauan has a fine church and is known as a market for "sinamay" or hemp cloth, the hemp and cotton being imported and dyed and woven by the women in their homes. palm-fibre mats and hats, fans, bamboo baskets and cotton fish-nets are woven here. there is excellent fishing in the bay. hogs and horses are raised for the manila market. the surrounding country is fertile and grows cacao, indigo, oranges, sugar-cane, corn and rice. the language is tagalog. bauble (probably a blend of two different words, an old french _baubel_, a child's plaything, and an old english _babyll_, something swinging to and fro), a word applied to a stick with a weight attached, used in weighing, to a child's toy, and especially to the mock symbol of office carried by a court jester, a baton terminating in a figure of folly with cap and bells, and sometimes having a bladder fastened to the other end; hence a term for any triviality or childish folly.