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'Negrito' refers a dwindling ethnic group which is now restricted to parts of Southeast Asia. Possibly originating in Africa, they once occupied parts of India and Sri Lanka, and all of Sundaland during the Stone Age. Their current populations include the Aeta, Ati and at least 25 other tribes of the Philippines, the Semang of the Malay peninsula, the Mani of Thailand and 12 Andamanese tribes of the Andaman Islands.

Contents

Etymology

Origins

Culture

Further Reading

See also

Notes

External links

Etymology

The term "Negrito" is the Spanish diminutive of Negro, i.e. "little black person", referring to their small stature, and was coined by early European invaders and explorers who assumed that the Negritos were from Africa. Occasionally, some Negrito are referred to as pygmies, bundling them with peoples of similar physical stature in Central Africa.
According to James J.Y. Liu, a professor of Chinese and comparative literature, the Chinese term for negrito is ''Kun-lun'' ().Liu, James J.Y. The Chinese Knight Errant. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967 (ISBN 0-2264-8688-5)

Origins

Being among the least-known of all living human groups, the origins of the Negrito people is a much debated topic. The Malay term for them is ''orang asli'', or ''original people''. They are likely descendants of the indigenous populations of the Sunda landmass and New Guinea, predating the Mongoloid peoples who later entered Southeast Asia from the north. ^[1]
Dark skin and woolly hair would seem to suggest an African origin, especially in the Andamanese Islanders who have been isolated from incoming waves of Asiatic peoples. Genetic testing, however, allies them only occasionally with African Negroids. Cranial tests place Negritos in the Australo-Melanesian branch of humanity that later arrived from the Asian mainland. ^[1] However, this can largely be attributed to a level of interbreeding between the two anatomically distinct populations, and is not necessarily an indication of ancestry.
Their origins may lie in India and Sri Lanka where Paleolithic hominid remains of a diminutive stature have been uncovered. It would appear that a population of proto-Negritos existing in the tropical jungles of the subcontinent were later overlain by waves of Caucasoid peoples from the north-west. ^[3] A likely line of descent for the Indian homunculi could theoretically be traced to the Pygmies of Central Africa as much as 60,000 years ago.
The Negrito peoples have one of the purest genetic pools of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) among anyone in humankind so their mtDNA serves as a baseline in studying Genetic Drift.^[4]

Culture

Due to their relative isolation on the islands of Southeast Asia, Negritos maintained their semi-nomadic hunting lifestyles up until recent times.
The Negritos of the Philippines could make fire, whereas the Andamanese could not. . The Semang are recorded to have made clothing of pounded tree bark, and to have lived in both caves and leaf-covered shelters.
In the 1212 there was a purchase of rights by some Malay peoples to settle on the island of Panay from the chief of the Negritos there.

Further Reading

★ Snow, Philip. ''The Star Raft: China's Encounter With Africa.'' Cornell Univ. Press, 1989 (ISBN 0801495830)

★ Schebesta, P., & Schütze, F. (1970). ''The Negritos of Asia''. Human relations area files, 1-2. New Haven, Conn: Human Relations Area Files.

See also

★ Kunlun Nu

Notes

1. [Getting Here: The Story of Human Evolution, William Howells, Compass Press, 1993]
2. [Getting Here: The Story of Human Evolution, William Howells, Compass Press, 1993]
3. [The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, Joseph Campbell, Penguin Books, 1959]
4. nytimes on Early human migration

External links

★ The Negrito of Thailand

★ Negritos in the Philippines A detailed book written by an American at the turn of the previous century holistically describing the Negrito culture. Online document processed by Filipiniana.net

★ Africans and Asians: Historiography and the Long View of Global Interaction