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Negrito

A 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

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.

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. Contemporary usage of an alternative Spanish epithet, Negrillos, also tended to bundle these peoples with the pygmy peoples of Central Africa, based on perceived similarities in stature and complexion. (Historically, the label Negrito has also been used to refer to African pygmies.) The appropriateness of using the label "Negrito" to bundle peoples of different ethnicities based on similarities in stature and complexion has been challenged.

Culture

Most Negrito groups lived as hunter-gatherers, while some also used agriculture. Today most Negrito groups live assimilated to the majority population of their homeland. Discrimination and poverty are often problems.

Origins

Based on perceived physical similarities, Negritos were once considered a single population of closely related people. However genetic studies suggest that they consist of several separate groups, as well as displaying genetic heterogeneity. The 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.

See also

• Andamanese peoples – People of Andaman archipelagoPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
• Australo-Melanesian – Outdated grouping of human beings
• Mbabaram people – Aboriginal Australian people of the Atherton Tableland
• Melanesians – Indigenous inhabitants of Melanesia

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. ^ 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. Genetics and material culture support repeated expansions into Paleolithic Eurasia from a population hub out of Afri, Vallini et al. 2021 (October 15, 2021) Quote: "Taken together with a lower bound of the final settlement of Sahul at 37 kya (the date of the deepest population splits estimated by 1) it is reasonable to describe Oceanians as an almost even mixture between East Asians and a basal lineage, closer to Africans, which occurred sometimes between 45 and 37kya."

Further reading

• Evans, Ivor Hugh Norman. The Negritos of Malaya. Cambridge : University Press, 1937.
• Benjamin, Geoffrey. 2013. 'Why have the Peninsular "Negritos" remained distinct?’ Human Biology 85: 445–484.
• 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.

External links

• Negritos of Zambales—detailed book written by an American at the turn of the previous century holistically describing the Negrito culture
• Andaman.org: The Negrito of Thailand
• The Southeast Asian Negrito

• Negritos
• Demographics of the Philippines
• Ethnic groups in Malaysia
• Ethnic groups in Thailand
• Ethnic groups in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands
• Ethnic groups in the Philippines
• Indigenous peoples of South Asia
• Indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia
• Austronesian peoples