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Negrito

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This article is about the ethnic groups. For the shrub, see Citharexylum berlandieri. For the municipality, see El Negrito. For the bird genus, see Lessonia (bird).
Not to be confused with Pygmy peoples.

Negrito
A Luzon Negrito with spear
Regions with significant populations
Isolated geographic regions in India and Maritime Southeast Asia
Languages
Andamanese languages, Aslian languages, Philippine Negrito languages
Religion
Animism, folk religion, Christianity

The term Negrito (/nɪˈɡriːtoʊ/) refers to several diverse ethnic groups who inhabit isolated parts of Southeast Asia and the Andaman Islands. Populations often described as Negrito include: the Andamanese peoples (including the Great Andamanese, the Onge, the Jarawa, and the Sentinelese) of the Andaman Islands, the Semang peoples (among them, the Batek people) of Peninsular Malaysia, the Maniq people of Southern Thailand, as well as the Aeta of Luzon Island, Ati, and Tumandok of Panay Island, Agta of Sierra Madre and Mamanwa of Mindanao Island and about 30 other officially recognized ethnic groups in the Philippines.

Historically they engaged in trade with the local population but were also often subjected to slave raids while also paying tributes to the local Southeast Asian rulers and kingdoms since 724 AD.[1]

Etymology

The word Negrito is the Spanish diminutive of negro, used to mean "little black person." This usage was coined by 16th-century Spanish missionaries operating in the Philippines, and was borrowed by other European travellers and colonialists across Austronesia to label various peoples perceived as sharing relatively small physical stature and dark skin.[2] Contemporary usage of an alternative Spanish epithet, Negrillos, also tended to bundle these peoples with the pygmy peoples of Central Africa on the basis of perceived similarities in stature and complexion.[2] (Historically, the label Negrito has also been used to refer to African pygmies.)[3] The appropriateness of using the label "Negrito" to bundle peoples of different ethnicities by similarities in stature and complexion has been challenged.[2]

Culture

Batek family in Malaysia.

Most groups designated as "Negrito" lived as hunter-gatherers, while some also used agriculture, such as plant harvesting. Today most live assimilated to the majority population of their respective homeland. Discrimination and poverty are often problems, caused either by their lower social position, and or their hunter-gatherer lifestyles.[4]

Origins

Position of various ethnic groups considered "Negrito". Negritos and Oceanians are most closely related to East Asians followed by Native Americans.

Based on perceived physical similarities, Negritos were once considered a single distinct population of closely related people. However genetic studies showed that they descended from the same ancient East Eurasian meta-population which gave rise to modern East Asian peoples and Oceanian peoples, and consist of several separate groups, as well as displaying genetic heterogeneity. The groups designated as "Negritos", form the indigenous population of Southeast Asia, but were largely absorbed into the more recent Austronesian peoples. The remainders form minority groups in geographically isolated regions.[5][6][7][8][9][10][11]

It has been found that the physical and morphological phenotypes of Negritos, such as short stature, a wide and snub nose, curly hair and dark skin, "are shaped by novel mechanisms for adaptation to tropical rainforests" through convergent evolution and positive selection, rather than a remnant of a shared common ancestor, as suggested previously by some researchers.[12][13][14][15]

See also

Notes

  •  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Negritos". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

References

  1. ^ Lyons, Elizabeth (1965). "The Traders of Ku Bua". Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America. 19. Chinese Art Society of America.: 55. JSTOR 20067084.
  2. ^ a b c Manickham, Sandra Khor (2009). "Africans in Asia: The Discourse of 'Negritos' in Early Nineteenth-century Southeast Asia". In Hägerdal, Hans (ed.). Responding to the West: Essays on Colonial Domination and Asian Agency. Amsterdam University Press. pp. 69–79. ISBN 978-90-8964-093-2.
  3. ^ See, for example: Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, 1910–1911: "Second are the large Negrito family, represented in Africa by the dwarf-races of the equatorial forests, the Akkas, Batwas, Wochuas and others..." (p. 851)
  4. ^ "The succesful [sic] revival of Negrito culture in the Philippines". Rutu Foundation. 6 May 2015. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
  5. ^ Sofwan Noerwidi (2017). "Using Dental Metrical Analysis to Determine the Terminal Pleistocene and Holocene Population History of Java". In Piper, Philip J.; Matsumura, Hirofumi; Bulbeck, David (eds.). New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory. Acton, Australian Capital Territory: ANU Press. p. 92. ISBN 978-1-76046-095-2.
  6. ^ Chaubey, Gyaneshwer; Endicott, Phillip (2013). "The Andaman Islanders in a Regional Genetic Context: Reexamining the Evidence for an Early Peopling of the Archipelago from South Asia". Human Biology. 85 (1): 153–72. doi:10.3378/027.085.0307. PMID 24297224. S2CID 7774927.
  7. ^ Basu, Analabha; Sarkar-Roy, Neeta; Majumder, Partha P. (2016). "Genomic reconstruction of the history of extant populations of India reveals five distinct ancestral components and a complex structure". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 113 (6): 1594–1599. Bibcode:2016PNAS..113.1594B. doi:10.1073/pnas.1513197113. PMC 4760789. PMID 26811443.
  8. ^ Larena, Maximilian; Sanchez-Quinto, Federico; Sjödin, Per; McKenna, James; Ebeo, Carlo; Reyes, Rebecca; Casel, Ophelia; Huang, Jin-Yuan; Hagada, Kim Pullupul; Guilay, Dennis; Reyes, Jennelyn (2021). "Multiple migrations to the Philippines during the last 50,000 years". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 118 (13). e2026132118. doi:10.1073/pnas.2026132118. PMC 8020671. PMID 33753512.
  9. ^ Carlhoff, Selina; Duli, Akin; Nägele, Kathrin; Nur, Muhammad; Skov, Laurits; Sumantri, Iwan; Oktaviana, Adhi Agus; Hakim, Budianto; Burhan, Basran; Syahdar, Fardi Ali; McGahan, David P. (2021). "Genome of a middle Holocene hunter-gatherer from Wallacea". Nature. 596 (7873): 543–547. Bibcode:2021Natur.596..543C. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-03823-6. hdl:10072/407535. PMC 8387238. PMID 34433944.
  10. ^ Tagore, Debashree; Aghakhanian, Farhang; Naidu, Rakesh; Phipps, Maude E.; Basu, Analabha (2021). "Insights into the demographic history of Asia from common ancestry and admixture in the genomic landscape of present-day Austroasiatic speakers". BMC Biology. 19 (1): 61. doi:10.1186/s12915-021-00981-x. PMC 8008685. PMID 33781248.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  11. ^ Yang, Melinda A. (6 January 2022). "A genetic history of migration, diversification, and admixture in Asia". Human Population Genetics and Genomics. 2 (1): 1–32. doi:10.47248/hpgg2202010001. ISSN 2770-5005.
  12. ^ Stock, Jay T. (February 2013). "The skeletal phenotype of "negritos" from the Andaman Islands and Philippines relative to global variation among hunter-gatherers". Human Biology. 85 (1–3): 67–94. doi:10.3378/027.085.0304. ISSN 1534-6617. PMID 24297221. Although general similarities in size and proportions remain between the Andamanese and Aeta, differences in humero-femoral indices and arm length between these groups and the Efé demonstrate that there is not a generic "pygmy" phenotype. Our interpretations of negrito origins and adaptation must account for this phenotypic variation.
  13. ^ Zhang, Xiaoming; Liu, Qi; Zhang, Hui; Zhao, Shilei; Huang, Jiahui; Sovannary, Tuot; Bunnath, Long; Aun, Hong Seang; Samnom, Ham; Su, Bing; Chen, Hua (27 April 2021). "The distinct morphological phenotypes of Southeast Asian aborigines are shaped by novel mechanisms for adaptation to tropical rainforests". National Science Review. 9 (3). doi:10.1093/nsr/nwab072. ISSN 2095-5138.
  14. ^ Deng; et al. (February 2022). "Genetic Connections and Convergent Evolution of Tropical Indigenous Peoples in Asia". Molecular Biology and Evolution. Retrieved 31 October 2022. We hypothesize that phenotypic convergence of the dark pigmentation in TIAs could have resulted from parallel (e.g., DDB1/DAK) or genetic convergence driven by admixture (e.g., MTHFD1 and RAD18), new mutations (e.g., STK11), or notably purifying selection (e.g., MC1R).
  15. ^ Endicott, Phillip; Gilbert, M. Thomas P.; Stringer, Chris; Lalueza-Fox, Carles; Willerslev, Eske; Hansen, Anders J.; Cooper, Alan. "The Genetic Origins of the Andaman Islanders". D-loop and protein-coding data reveal that phenotypic similarities with African pygmoid groups are convergent. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Further reading

  • Evans, Ivor Hugh Norman. The Negritos of Malaya. Cambridge [Eng.]: University Press, 1937.
  • Benjamin, Geoffrey. 2013. 'Why have the Peninsular "Negritos" remained distinct?’ Human Biology 85: 445–484. [ISSN 0018-7143 (print), 1534-6617 (online)]
  • Garvan, John M., and Hermann Hochegger. The Negritos of the Philippines. Wiener Beitrage zur Kulturgeschichte und Linguistik, Bd. 14. Horn: F. Berger, 1964.
  • Hurst Gallery. Art of the Negritos. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Hurst Gallery, 1987.
  • Khadizan bin Abdullah, and Abdul Razak Yaacob. Pasir Lenggi, a Bateq Negrito Resettlement Area in Ulu Kelantan. Pulau Pinang: Social Anthropology Section, School of Comparative Social Sciences, Universití Sains Malaysia, 1974.
  • Mirante, Edith (2014). The Wind in the Bamboo: Journeys in Search of Asia's 'Negrito' Indigenous Peoples. Bangkok, Orchid Press.
  • Schebesta, P., & Schütze, F. (1970). The Negritos of Asia. Human relations area files, 1–2. New Haven, Conn: Human Relations Area Files.
  • Armando Marques Guedes (1996). Egalitarian Rituals. Rites of the Atta hunter-gatherers of Kalinga-Apayao, Philippines, Social and Human Sciences Faculty, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
  • Zell, Reg. About the Negritos: A Bibliography. Edition blurb, 2011.
  • Zell, Reg. Negritos of the Philippines. The People of the Bamboo - Age - A Socio-Ecological Model. Edition blurb, 2011.
  • Zell, Reg, John M. Garvan. An Investigation: On the Negritos of Tayabas. Edition blurb, 2011.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Negrito.
Wikisource has the text of the 1879 American Cyclopædia article Negritos.
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