what were the likoualas

This question is a bit vague, but I will answer it the best I can using evidence from the story. The Smallest Woman in the World is a short story in which a French explorer, Marcel Pretre, discovers a tribe of pygmies in Africa. He thought that these were the smallest people he had ever seen, but then he went deeper into the jungle and discovered that this was not the case.

He was all the more surprised, then, when informed that an even smaller people existed beyond forests and distances. So deeper still he plunged.

Pretre goes deeper and deeper, finding smaller and smaller people until finally he finds the smallest pigmy woman in the world. She is just eighteen inches tall and is a member of the Likouala tribe. The Likoualas are a group of tiny people who live deep in the African jungle, unknown to most people. The story tells us a bit about them, including the fact that their race is a dying one. They are being wiped out by "disease, infectious vapors from the waters, insufficient food and roving beasts." The beasts in question are the Bantus, who use nets to catch them and eat them.
The Likoualas live in tall trees to protect themselves from predators like the Bantus, and their little society is full of hunters (men) and gatherers/farmers (women). The Likoualas have their own tiny little world deep in the heart of Africa, and this is one of the things Pretre wants to bring to light when he writes the story of the smallest woman in the world.
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/192365/the-smallest-woman-in-the-world