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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, Anito, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism

The term Negrito (/nɪˈɡriːtoʊ/; lit. 'little black people') 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, the Ati and Tumandok of Panay, the Mamanwa of Mindanao, and about 30 other officially recognized ethnic groups in the Philippines.

Etymology

The word Negrito, the Spanish diminutive of negro, is 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 on the basis of perceived similarities in stature and complexion. (Historically, the label Negrito has also been used to refer to African pygmies.) The appropriateness of bundling peoples of different ethnicities by similarities in stature and complexion has been called into question.

Population

There are over 100,000 Negritos in the Philippines. In 2010, there were 50,236 Aeta people in the Philippines. The Ati people 55,473 (2020 census) Officially, Malaysia had approximately 4,800 Negrito (Semangs). This number increases if we include some of the populations or individual groups among Orang Asli who have either assimilated Negrito population or have admixed origins. According to the 2006 census, the number of Orang Asli was 141,230 Andamanese of India with just c. over 500. Thailand Negrito Maniq is estimated 300, divided into several clans. Other puts it at 382 or less than 500.

Culture

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.

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 descended from the same ancient East Eurasian meta-population that gave rise to modern East Asian peoples and Oceanian peoples, as well as displaying genetic heterogeneity. The Negritos form the indigenous population of Southeast Asia, but were largely absorbed by Austroasiatic- and Austronesian-speaking groups who migrated from southern East Asia into Mainland and Insular Southeast Asia with the Neolithic expansion. The remainders form minority groups in geographically isolated regions.

Genetic studies provided mixed evidence of modern Negrito populations, with admixtures in different. Studies indicate that Negrito populations are closer to their neighboring non-Negrito communities in their paternal heritage and overall DNA on average.

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.

A Negrito-like population was most likely also present in Taiwan before the Neolithic expansion and must have persisted into historical times, as suggested by evidence from morphological features of human skeletal remains dating from around 6,000 years ago resembling Negritos (especially Aetas in northern Luzon), and further corroborated by Chinese reports from the Qing period rule of Taiwan (1684 to 1895) and from tales of Taiwanese indigenous peoples about people with "dark skin, short-and-small body stature, frizzy hair, and occupation in forested mountains or remote caves".

See also

• 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. ^ 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.
2. 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)
3. "2010 Census of Population and Housing, Report No. 2A: Demographic and Housing Characteristics (Non-Sample Variables) - Philippines" (PDF). Philippine Statistics Authority. Archived (PDF) from the original on 7 June 2020. Retrieved 19 May 2020.
4. "Ethnicity in the Philippines (2020 Census of Population and Housing)". Philippine Statistics Authority. Retrieved 6 July 2023.
5. Kirk Endicott (27 November 2015). Malaysia's Original People: Past, Present and Future of the Orang Asli. Introduction. NUS Press, National University of Singapore Press. 2016, pp. 1-38. ISBN 978-9971-69-861-4. Retrieved 12 January 2019. (in English)
6. "JAKOA Program". Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli (JAKOA). Archived from the original on 23 September 2017. Retrieved 28 March 2021.
7. Thonghom; Weber, George. "36. The Negrito of Thailand; The Mani". Andaman.org. Archived from the original on 20 May 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
8. Primal Survivor: Season 5, episode 1
9. "Calls for Maniq tribe to get their own patch". Bangkok Post.
10. 2016 https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/special-reports/1139777/no-common-ground
11. "The succesful [sic] revival of Negrito culture in the Philippines". Rutu Foundation. 6 May 2015. Retrieved 19 July 2019.
12. 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.
13. Chaubey, Gyaneshwer; Endicott, Phillip (June 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 (1–3): 153–172. doi:10.3378/027.085.0307. PMID 24297224. S2CID 7774927.
14. 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.
15. 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. Bibcode:2021PNAS..11826132L. doi:10.1073/pnas.2026132118. PMC 8020671. PMID 33753512.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. Yang, Melinda A. (6 January 2022). "A genetic history of migration, diversification, and admixture in Asia". Human Population Genetics and Genomics: 1–32. doi:10.47248/hpgg2202010001.
19. Yew, Chee-Wei; Lu, Dongsheng; Deng, Lian; Wong, Lai-Ping; Ong, Rick Twee-Hee; Lu, Yan; Wang, Xiaoji; Yunus, Yushimah; Aghakhanian, Farhang; Mokhtar, Siti Shuhada; Hoque, Mohammad Zahirul; Voo, Christopher Lok-Yung; Abdul Rahman, Thuhairah; Bhak, Jong; Phipps, Maude E.; Xu, Shuhua; Teo, Yik-Ying; Kumar, Subbiah Vijay; Hoh, Boon-Peng (February 2018). "Genomic structure of the native inhabitants of Peninsular Malaysia and North Borneo suggests complex human population history in Southeast Asia". Human Genetics. 137 (2): 161–173. doi:10.1007/s00439-018-1869-0. PMID 29383489. S2CID 253969988. The analysis of time of divergence suggested that ancestors of Negrito were the earliest settlers in the Malay Peninsula, whom first separated from the Papuans ~ 50-33 thousand years ago (kya), followed by East Asian (~ 40-15 kya)...
20. Aghakhanian, Farhang; Yunus, Yushima; et al. (14 April 2015). "Unravelling the Genetic History of Negritos and Indigenous Populations of Southeast Asia". Genome Biology and Evolution. 7 (5): 1206–1215. doi:10.1093/gbe/evv065. ISSN 1759-6653. PMC 4453060. PMID 25877615. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
21. Endicott et al. 2003; Thangaraj et al. 2005; Wang et al. 2011), Y chromosome (Delfin et al. 2011; Scholes et al. 2011), and autosomal (HUGO Pan-Asia SNP Consortium 2009) studies indicate that Negrito populations are closer to their neighboring non-Negrito communities.
22. Stock, Jay T. (June 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. PMID 24297221. S2CID 32964023. 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.
23. Zhang, Xiaoming; Liu, Qi; Zhang, Hui; Zhao, Shilei; Huang, Jiahui; Sovannary, Tuot; Bunnath, Long; Aun, Hong Seang; Samnom, Ham; Su, Bing; Chen, Hua (31 March 2022). "The distinct morphological phenotypes of Southeast Asian aborigines are shaped by novel mechanisms for adaptation to tropical rainforests". National Science Review. 9 (3): nwab072. doi:10.1093/nsr/nwab072. PMC 8970429. PMID 35371514.
24. Deng, Lian; Pan, Yuwen; Wang, Yinan; Chen, Hao; Yuan, Kai; Chen, Sihan; Lu, Dongsheng; Lu, Yan; Mokhtar, Siti Shuhada; Rahman, Thuhairah Abdul; Hoh, Boon-Peng; Xu, Shuhua (3 February 2022). "Genetic Connections and Convergent Evolution of Tropical Indigenous Peoples in Asia". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 39 (2): msab361. doi:10.1093/molbev/msab361. PMC 8826522. PMID 34940850. 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).
25. Endicott, Phillip; Gilbert, M. Thomas P.; Stringer, Chris; Lalueza-Fox, Carles; Willerslev, Eske; Hansen, Anders J.; Cooper, Alan (January 2003). "The Genetic Origins of the Andaman Islanders". The American Journal of Human Genetics. 72 (1): 178–184. doi:10.1086/345487. PMC 378623. PMID 12478481. D-loop and protein-coding data reveal that phenotypic similarities with African pygmoid groups are convergent.
26. Hung, Hsiao-chun; Matsumura, Hirofumi; Nguyen, Lan Cuong; Hanihara, Tsunehiko; Huang, Shih-Chiang; Carson, Mike T. (4 October 2022). "Negritos in Taiwan and the wider prehistory of Southeast Asia: new discovery from the Xiaoma Caves". World Archaeology. 54 (2): 207–228. doi:10.1080/00438243.2022.2121315. S2CID 252723056.

Further reading

• Evans, Ivor Hugh Norman. The Negritos of Malaya. Cambridge : University Press, 1937.
• Benjamin, Geoffrey (June 2013). "Why Have the Peninsular 'Negritos' Remained Distinct?". Human Biology. 85 (1–3): 445–484. doi:10.3378/027.085.0321. hdl:10356/106539. PMID 24297237. S2CID 9918641.
• 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.
• bin Abdullah, Khadizan; Yaacob, Abdul Razak (1974). Pasir Lenggi, a Bateq Negrito resettlement area in Ulu Kelantan. OCLC 2966355.
• Mirante, Edith (2014). The Wind in the Bamboo: A Journey in Search of Asia's 'Negrito' Indigenous People. Orchid Press Publishing Limited. ISBN 978-974-524-189-3.
• 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 Indonesia
• 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