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Religion of Tamils before Hinduism

Yes, there were indigenous animistic faiths amongst the ancient Tamils and other ethnic groups in Southern India. Todays version of Hinduism in Southern India is a mixture of indigenous faiths and Vedic faiths to an extent. The reason you are going on this campaign is the fact that you cannot stomach the idea that we are all indigenous aboriginals of South Asia. All you have to do is take a look at our distant cousins in Australia and parts of the Indonesian archipelago. Apart from that, I would like to leave a famous quote:

"We are fit to think of `Self-Respect' only when the notion of superior and inferior caste is banished from our land." - Periyar Ramaswamy
Wiki Raja 20:54, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

LOL, yeah right. Gnanapiti 21:07, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

This is the most weakest come back I have ever heard. Enough with this nonsense. Wiki Raja 21:25, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Comeback? Do you even expect a comeback for your cruft stemmed out of illusions? Gnanapiti 21:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

At least I support my info with legitimate sources. End of discussion. Wiki Raja 23:22, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Legitimate sources where? Are we provided with different versions of Misplaced Pages here? Gnanapiti 16:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Hindu.net

User:0scalefactor has tried to add back the Hindu.net website as a reliable source. It is not a reliable source. Its arguments for Dravidians and Aryans being the same race are primarily religious. The physical anthropology reasons it gives are uncited and do not explain their reasonings. They state that it is well-known that Dravidians are Mediterranean Caucasoids. The expertise of the author to assert such a statement is in question.----Tea© 05:54, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

User:0scaelfactor has a sockpuppet named User:Excel 2008 who made this edit which reverted the article. I am sure that the citations it removed were accidental and were just a part of the reversion. The other parts misrepresent the sources. --Tea© 07:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

This statement about Blumenbach is uncited original research.--Tea© 07:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

This misrepresents Huxley. Huxley considered Mongoloids, Australoids, and Mesochroi to exist in India. He didn't say they were all Australoids.--Tea© 07:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

This is uncited original research.----Tea© 07:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

0scalefactor added back Egon Eickstadt's racial classification of India. The problem is I made that map and I did not cite it, making it original research. I can't trust the map I made, because I realize that even if Eickstadt says Mediterraneans live in India, it doesn't necessarily mean all of India. The source I found the map was a poor summary and a secondary source. From that source, I could not gather the extent of Mediterraneans in India. Also, Eickstadt never said Oesteropoids, Mediterraneans, Alpines and Nordics belong to the same race. Not all anthropologists recognize a grand racial classification that includes Nordics and Mediterraneans.----Tea© 08:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

This is in reference to Chandler claiming that "Ethiopian Negritos" founded India. While it may be true that the term "Ethiopian" may not imply membership in the black race, Chandler specifically says these Ethiopian Negritos are a part of the black race, making the above critical distinction irrelevant.----Tea© 08:04, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

0scalefactor is misrepresenting Gobineau. Indians were classified as racially "degenerative" by Gobineau because they incorporated the black, yellow and white races. Gobineau did not define a "Degenerative Race".----Tea© 12:11, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Racial classifications

the "Racial classifications" part is too long, even longer than Genetic classification, as for these are just theories. And have nothing to do with serious science. Someone should re-edit it or just remove it.Asian2duracell 01:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

It seems to be part of the scope of this article. I see no reason for removing it.----Tea© 15:39, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah its a part of this article but way to long for its relevance, most of this statement have nothing to do with science. Some are political and some racist statement. If Dravidians fall under Caucasoid/Asiatic (we talk about scinece, not ones own opinion)....why do we need a statement from the 18th century which sais that they are negroid or veddoid or australoid or whatever. A few sentences like.... "the Dravidians have been mistaken or classified as other races in the past".. is enough.Asian2duracell 21:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Your original research opinion that all past and present anthropologists have been wrong is irrelevant.----Tea© 21:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

It is indeed quite long, and is covered in detail in the main article Historical definitions of races in India. The summary in this article should be limited to a length and level of detail comparable to the other topics in this article per WP:Summary_style. --JWB 03:17, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Many of these citations are just about Dravidians without racial classifications about the rest of India. In places where I can find the characterizations for the rest of India by the anthropologists, I will add them to the races of India article. When all the anthropologists here are represented in the "Historical definitions of races in India" article, I will make a summary in the Dravidian article. The summary will be, "Although the historical racial classifications of Dravidians have differed, they were by and large regarded as a type of black race whether it be a Negrito, Negro, Malay or Australoid or some mixture of the three often with Caucasoid admixture from the Aryan invader and less frequently ascribed Mongoloid admixture."----Tea© 04:04, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Negro? when were Dravidians ever thought to have Negro admixture?. I mean from phenotypes from what ive seen (being a dravidian and having been to South India) there are Australoid influences (possibly from mixture with Mundas and Adivasis) and prevalently caucasoid phenotypes but no Negroid at all. It is highly unlikely we have any negroid admixture, I don't see the point of putting such a misleading statement whether a dated scientifically racist view now changed or not. People claiming Dravidian speakers are of the Negroid race or have a mixture of Negro because of their overall slightly darker skin than Indo-Aryans is like saying that Mongoloids are more prone to down syndrome due to their appearance similarity with people from other races who suffer down syndrome. I would think that genetic facts and phenotypes would suggest that Dravidians are overall of the same stock as our Indo-Aryan counterparts and that the dark skin is partly due to the evolution occurring within a close proximity to the equator, also that "regarded as a type of black race whether it be a Negrito, Negro, Malay or Australoid or some mixture of the three often with Caucasoid admixture from the Aryan invader and less frequently ascribed Mongoloid admixture. " is misleading, false to a point, and falsely suggesting all Dravidian language speakers as distinct race from Indo-Aryans of India. Is this largely outdated and mostly false appearing information on racial classifications of Dravidians worth putting in this article? i.e are previous overridden claims worth knowing about by readers of this article? or at least a statement about actual phenotypes should be made at the end of the section or a stress on the greater credibility of genetic classification over historical racial classifications to give a better idea to readers about the peoples who historically speak Dravidian languages. Please reassess the relevance of your edits Dark. Cheers 211.30.222.155 13:08, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

The term "negro" is Spanish for "black". Many Indians have a glaring similarity to other blacks. It is generally undisputed that Dravidians came from Africa, thus having Negroid ancestry. They have Negroid ancestry and a Negroid appearence, ergo they are Negroids. The Mongoloid analogy is poor, because it compares a disorder which could be found on all peoples with a permanent racial classification. In your point of view, the Aryan invasion theory is false, but many experts endorse the theory. I find the arguments for the homogeneity of the Indian populace unconvincing. I doubt the genetic classifications if they do not verify the black racial nature of Dravidians. Anyways, geneticists are not anthropologists and they are talking outside of their field of expertise when they try to define race.----Tea© 13:45, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow, now I'm convinced you are POV, how Dravidians have a Negroid appearance, i can never fully understand, honestly ive seen many Dravidians and at most ive seen a Dravidian who looks like a full blood Australian Aboriginal but no African appearance ie not the same hair, physical stature, size of lips and roundness of head, people like that can be spotted of a mile away, figuratively speaking, in a Dravidian area. If you mix Dravidians with a cross -section of Indo-Aryan peoples you genuinely cant really tell who's what. I mean its a fact that Adivasis in Kerala are racially abused. In fact Dravidian speakers are also multi-racial, Kodagu people are Dravidians speculated to be of Indo-Scythian racial origin and gonds(Dravidian speakers) are of the Aboriginal race. I mean look at the variability, some look like Aishwarya Rai, most look like Mohan Lal and Anil Kumble i.e Caucasoid with Australoid influence, though some have none and some can have a large amount (i.e some Tamils and South Keralites), a minority look like I.M Vijayan (a dalit), and Kerala Nasrani have Syrian-Arab blood. I mean i understand from a foreigners perspective that we can somewhat resemble Africans ( how can we fully? i mean some are Australoid looking but Indigenous Aboriginals are not racially Africans)the same way as it is hard for most people except maybe natives themselves to tell apart racially east and south-east Asians. I agree we are not homogeneous but racial variability in India cant be grouped by language family, but more by caste or smaller communities.. racial variability isn't even important as Indians are all mixed. Overall Dravidian speakers resemble more their Indo-Aryan counterparts than anyone else and are largely Caucasoid from phenotypes. "Many Indians have a glaring similarity to other blacks. It is generally undisputed that Dravidians came from Africa, thus having Negroid ancestry. They have Negroid ancestry and a Negroid appearence, ergo they are Negroids". This is laughable, im sure few Dravidians have ever thought this but please show me the proof apart from the fact that all humanity came out of Africa. I hope you will refrain from placing such rubbish, in my view, in the main article. I never said Aryan-Invasion was false so i dont understand how you came to that conclusion, though speaking of that i personally believe in group by group "Aryan" migration not invasion. Besides the concept of race has largely been abandoned by modern scientists as the term race is a social construct and you seem to be very keen on it judging by you talk page211.30.222.155 14:48, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I was just summarizing the anthropologists I cited. They back my assertion and they are the evidence. The Dravidian race can either be conceived as the culmination of the racial mixes which formed it (Wayne Chandler) or the first black migrants who formed it (K Than). Anthropologists, not all mind you, have classified the original stock of the Dravidians as Negroid. Now, they may not look exactly like West Africans, but it is not clear that that is a requirement to be part of the Negroid race. I have certainly seen people from India who are tall, black-skinned, round-headed and with large lips, but with straight hair. Contrary to your assertion, Indians with a strong West African appearence can't be discerned from West Africans a "mile away". The Dravidian language is different from the Dravidian race. The Indo-Aryans in India are mixed with the Dravidians and likewise the Dravidians are mixed with the Aryans, so if you juxtaposed a community of Indo-Aryan speakers and Dravidian speakers you couldn't necessarily tell them apart. Maybe our bone of contention is my definition of a Dravidian as the original Negroids of the Indian Subcontinent whose civilization was invaded by the Aryans and your definition of Dravidians as people who speak the Dravidian languages today.----Tea© 16:54, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, in that case your definition is less relevant as the article itself states, Dravidian people refers to populations who speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. Populations of speakers are found mostly in Southern India and some minor populations are found in Brahui-speaking parts of Pakistan, Kurukh-speaking parts of Bangladesh, and Tamil-speaking parts of Sri Lanka. "I have certainly seen people from India who are tall, black-skinned, round-headed and with large lips, but with straight hair". Are you sure you are not confusing Dravidians with Munda peoples? Munda peoples are the indigenous peoples of India and have a different racial origin to Dravidians. I have never seen a Dravidian matching your description, perhaps a Gond or Kurukh (Adivasis) might match that description but they are the tiny minority of Dravidians in India with possible different origins and you cannot apply that to all Dravidians. Anyway the whole racial classifications section should be removed and if you feel you must, be placed into a different article called, Proto-Dravidian race(theories) or Dravidian race(theories). Like the Indo-Aryan peoples page racial origin theories should not be more than barely mentioned as race is not relevant to the more than average mixed Indian races and the fact that race itself is a vague social construct and genetics is more valid as a description: "Many anthropologists contend that while the features on which racial categorizations are made may be based on genetic factors, the idea of race itself, and actual divisions of persons into groups based on selected hereditary features, are social constructs.", to dispute your earlier point concerning genetics and race. 211.30.222.155 03:51, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The anthropologists cited do not define the Dravidian people as the people who speak the Dravidian languages. You cite this same Misplaced Pages article as defining the term "Dravidian" to be solely linguistic which may not even be cited, but many more citations in this article define Dravidians as purely racial in nature. I don't know whether the black-appearing Indian was Dravidian. S/he was from Bombay and I didn't pry any further. Regardless of his/her ancestral location or the language s/he spoke, Dravidians are the founding black race of India who were dispersed and mixed into the Aryans. Therefore, this person is probably also a Dravidian. I have seen someone from Kerala who matches Huxley's description of a Dravidian, "have dark, usually chocolate-colored skins; fine dark wavy hair; dark eyes overhung by beetle brows;coarse, projecting jaws;broad and dilated but not especially flattened noses, and lips which, though prominant, are eminantly flexible. The skulls of these people are always long and narrow... or the most part, fair stature, erect and well built, except for an unusual slenderness in the lower limbs". In Chandler's hypothesis, some Dravidians may have more Negrito or Australoid typological features due to being less mixed with later Mongoloid and Caucasoid stocks, so there may be no fine distinction between thse Munda Dravidians and other Dravidians. If there were a new article which soley dealt with the Dravidian racial theories it couldn't be called "Proto-Dravidian" anything since all of the citations are for the term "Dravidian". It also couldn't be called "Dravidian race", since the citations are not for a distinct Dravidian race. The citations are for Dravidians being constituted of the black race or races i.e. the Malays, Negritos, Australoids, Negroids or a combination of the four, often with Mediterranean Caucasoid, Nordic Caucasoid, and Southern Mongoloid racial admixture.----Tea© 04:24, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Well don't know what Huxley is talking about when he says prominent lips, haven't seen anything like that. Also Munda peoples are as different to Dravidians as Dravidians are to Indo-Aryans. "Dravidians are the founding black race of India who were dispersed and mixed into the Aryans", i dont believe this is true because Dravidians are not the indigenous peoples of India, the Mundas and tribals are, also that Dravidians are not a black race, whatever that suggests. I am from the Nair race, which I believe within most sub-castes are pure-blood Dravidians also like Bunts, Naidus etc, because of our separate long history and our policy of only marrying within the community with the penalty of exclusion from the community if marrying outside it, even till lately, unlike other people classified in the Dravidian race, who were probably wrongly being studied by anthropologists as a representative sample of the Dravidian population, such as most Tamils who i believe have racial mixture from Adivasis and Mundas. Which means that Nairs, Bunts and Naidus have no tribal Adivasi or Munda mixture. Nair people can exhibit very "Aryan" looks, I have people in my family with very light brown skin and rare occurrences of light eyes(green, hazel) with most having aquiline noses and medium brown skin, with a minority of people having very dark skin with flared wide bulbous noses, hooked noses and rounded small foreheads. I believe based on these phenotypes that the real unmixed Dravidian race are an earlier version of Indo-Aryan ie a proto-Caucasoid, such as the Ancient Egyptians, who settled the Indus Valley from West Asia, possibly linked to the Elamites, and later moved to south India. The Indo-Aryans Caucasoids who evolved differently from the Dravidians, from the common proto-Caucasoid ancestor, due to stronger sexual selection who also came from West Asia migrated later group by group. The Kerala Brahmins are a mixture of both which gives them an overall Mediterranean Caucasoid appearance. I think there is proof of this theory of mine, because I have read the many facts supporting this on wikipedia, and other sources. It is not likely people like Aishwarya Rai(Bunt), Shilpa Shetty(Bunt) and Shashi Tharoor(Nair) have any Indo-Aryan admixture due to the facts concerning their communities histories, with the only other likely possibility that Dravidians are descended from proto-Caucasoids who are closely related to todays Indo-Aryans. 211.30.222.155 05:14, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Your caste rules, I gather from, "our policy of only marrying within the community", only suggests endogamy after the caste system was imposed by the Aryans. If the "Nair people can exhibit very "Aryan" looks", then their caste or ethnic group were formed from a mixture of the Dravidian and Aryan races. Since this happened long ago, the Nairs may have reached an equilibrium of Dravidian and Aryan traits without a sharp distinction of races. Your theory about Egyptian origins is very interesting. Maybe you'll find an anthropologist you can cite to get it in the article. I agree with your statement, "Dravidians are descended from proto-Caucasoids". These proto-Caucasoids are called Negroids. Dravidians are descended from Negroids and are still Negroids.----Tea© 05:42, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

"By 50,000 years ago the population that had remained in southern Iran had evolved into proto-Caucasoids and began to expand -- to the east into Pakistan and northern India". I highly doubt any populations in Iran belonged to the Negroid race and your statement "These proto-Caucasoids are called Negroids. Dravidians are descended from Negroids and are still Negroids" is POV and possibly entirely inaccurate, please refrain from placing such ridiculous claims on the main article. All the racial theories that place Negroid elements in the Dravidian peoples are dated to the early 20th century and are not relevant to the description of Dravidian people.211.30.222.155 06:35, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Understand that the acronym "POV" means point of view. On Misplaced Pages, multiple point of views are welcome. Also note that the policy for a neutral point of view abbreviated NPOV does not stand for "no point of view". Too often people unfamiliar with the policy confuse its meaning. I confused the prefix "Proto" which means "first". The proto-Caucasoids were not Negroids. The pre-Caucasoids were Negroids.----Tea© 17:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Confusion of language and race is typical of late 19th and early 20th century racial ideas up through the Nazis. After WWII it was scrupulously avoided, like the typological view of race.

"Aryan" was used originally for the Indo-Aryan languages and then for Proto-Indo-European and then for the race supposed to have spoken Proto-Indo-European. It was placed in opposition to "Semitic" which is also a language family and was then also assumed to be a racial type. Both concepts went out of fashion with the Nazis and the words have very restricted use today.

"Dravidian" was another term coined to name a language family and then applied to race. The usage for the language family is the original meaning, is precise, and has persisted to the present. The usage for a racial type is derivative, imprecise, varies with each writer, and has fallen out of use, though it is not as stigmatized in the West as "Aryan" simply because Westerners are less familiar with it and its political implications. I have seen people from India stiffen at the mention of the word "Dravidian", apparently due to its political associations.

DT says "Dravidian" for race was used by W. E. B. Du Bois in 1972, when the biographical article says in the first sentence that he lived 1868-1963. The other writers quoted from 1985 to the present are racist extremists with marginal views contrary to present and post-WWII science.

There is no alternative name for the language family, as "Indo-European" is alternative to "Aryan", so "Dravidian" continues to be the name of the language family. However, the history of the various ideas of a black race in India belongs in the articles on the history of racial ideas. Not all of these ideas used the word "Dravidian", and the word is not basic to the idea. "Dravidian" only makes sense in the eras and places where Dravidian languages are known to have been spoken. --JWB 06:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

The 1972 date was probably the date the original book was reprinted. If this is in error, then change it. The citations which do not use the word "Dravidian" shouldn't be in the article, because it is considered original research to equate other terms with "Dravidian". I don't see evidence that all the writers from 1985 to the present are "racist extremists". McCulloch and Loganathan may be considered extremists for their racial politics, but I do not know of evidence for Naidu's role in racial politics. Than and Chandler seem to be good sources.----Tea© 18:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not equipped to correct your DuBois citation - you're the one in possession of the source! It is your responsibility to understand the source and what it says and cite it correctly, rather than leaving a trail of incorrect, pseudo-cited material for other editors to clean up. I've corrected your stuff many times when the source is available online, which this is not.

DuBois is given considerable attention, often more than any other author, in most introductory courses on African-American literature or Black Studies, and having a little basic knowledge of these fields would avoid howlers like getting his era completely wrong.

Many of your quotes themselves equate other terms with "Dravidian". Almost all of them only mention "Dravidian" in conjunction with other "racial types".

On Uthaya Naidu, "Sudroid", "Sudrastan", "Dalitstan" etc. are coinages of some of the most far-out parts of the Dravidian and Dalit movements who want to ally with worldwide Black or Afrocentric movements. If you had followed the wikilink Dravidian movement from this article you would have read about "ethnocentrism consisted of pseudohistory,national mysticism,hate-speech". The Dalitstan article mentions Uthaya Naidu by name.

Chandler is in the same Afrocentrist anthology we discussed earlier. I won't repeat that discussion; if there is some statement you can actually find scientific justification for, feel free to bring it up.

Use of "Malay" to refer to all Southeast Asians is a tipoff that material is very old or or is someone with little knowledge of the field parroting very old material. In the latter case, uncritical citation and a late citation date is misrepresenting obsolete material as current.

Than's book appears to be a personal essay covering religious/spirituality topics that incidentally quotes some old anthropological material as background.

McCulloch appears to be getting the "Australoid Subspecies" etc. from Coon. The phrasing is typical of Coon, and this would be consistent with the rest of his site which reproduces large parts of Coon's work. --JWB 20:03, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Chandler is an anthropologist who is a reliable source. Than's book which he refers to as an "ethno-historical journey" appears to be a book about history and ethnography, making it a reliable source. If McCulloch merely republishes Coon, then we shouldn't have Coon reprsented twice. Indian historian Uthaya Naidu seems to have enough notability that his/her detractors feel threatened enough to call his/her reconstructed timeline of Aryan invasions the work of an "ethnocentrist consisted of pseudohistory, national mysticism, hate-speech".----Tea© 23:15, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and you supply the reductio ad absurdum yourself with your banal description of McCulloch as a history and anthropology major, instead of what he is actually notable for, which is being the leader of a well-known racist extremist organization. Just because someone identifies themself as an anthropologist does not mean that their statements can be taken uncritically as representative of the relevant scientific community. There are all kinds of cranks, and most of them claim some credential or other. Reporting on the current scientific consensus or viewpoints with credibility in the scientific community takes critical thinking and evaluation.

Uthaya Naidu does seem to be notable - as a political extremist, not as a scientist, much less a scientist with views respected by the scientific community. Documenting extremist racial ideologies can certainly be material for Misplaced Pages, but it should be presented as such, in the appropriate articles. --JWB 02:51, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I have already conceded that McCulloch's racial classification scheme is a redundant recitation of Coon and that he is a racial separatist who is not a reliable source. Naidu also does not have expertise in classifying race as far as I know at this time, however, I don't see how his political activity invalidates him as a source.----Tea© 08:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Unless he has notable scientific expertise, or is a secondary source reliably reporting such expertise, he is not a reliable and notable scientific source. He may well be a notable source for a certain fringe political viewpoint. --JWB 10:53, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Strange, Tea seems to be only interested in unreliable sources that claim Dravidians are of the "Negroid" or "Black race". I am sure there should be more sources claiming that Dravidians are caucasoid(as visible from dravidian populations) migrants from the west, like their proto-Caucasoid descended cousins the Indo-Aryans, but i understand that racial science is barely interested in the actual racial origins/grouping of Dravidians and racial extremists/separatists and Afrocentric Anthropologists or others who claim, will only study samples concerning their only hypothesis of interest to them: of a black race or element present in Indian populations, and since race is such a vague concept and work on race is few and far between, these few fringe theories presented as facts are the mostly all the data available on the "Dravidian race". I'm sure David Frawley's conclusion on the "Dravidian race" as Mediterranean Caucasoid will be shot down by Tea because of his/her POV(not NPOV mind you), thanks for explaining, and commitment to falsely show the Dravidian race, for whatever motive, as "These proto-Caucasoids are called Negroids. Dravidians are descended from Negroids and are still Negroids", I mean this is not a valid description of the Dravidian populations of India at all, the Australoid past classifications are heavily doubted, but Negroid, apart from Naidu, the only valid source, who obviously has some political motivation(Dalitstan, Afrocentric) for claiming outright that Dravidians are Negroids, is completely inaccurate. There should be more work done, or more work to be found, done by politically neutral individuals and I would bet my life savings, so to speak, that they would find the "Dravidian race" as predominantly Caucasoid, however this is unlikely as racial work has mostly been abandoned due to its out-of-favor status among scientists due to its social construct nature, and no one would be interested except for somehow proving the Black/Negroid element in Indian populations it seems. B Nambiar 01:43, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I earlier used the term black race or races to include Malays, Negroids, Australoids, Veddoids or Negritos. Later on, I stated that Dravidians were Negroid which I understood to be casually synonymous with the black race. Some of the anthropologists cited used the term "Negroid" broadly while some used it exclusively. Frawley is primarily a Hindu researcher who is not an expert in race and is not a reliable source for determining race. I grant that Naidu may not have expertise in defining race. You claim that there exists Afrocentric anthropologists, but have you considered the possibility of Eurocentric anthropologists' having their bias pervade so broadly that it makes it seem normative? Chiekh Diop clarified the over differentiation of black typological racial groups as follows,

The primary reason I think they are Negroid is because they look like other blacks. Now, you're going to recollect a "Dravidian" who doesn't look like a black who bore predominantly Aryan physical traits. In this instance when I talk about the Dravidians, I'm talking primarily about the original black racial group(s) of India. Any anecdotal Dravidian speaker from South India with Aryan features who you would consider a poster child for the proto-Caucasoid theory on Dravidians the Aryan Invasion camp sees as a partially Aryan multiracial.----Tea© 08:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I definately agree about the phenotypes determining the social construct racial type and disagree about the negroid/black phenotypes of South Indians, if you go to South India you will see for yourself, and I dont think you are in any position to judge based on phenotypes until then. Also most Non-Brahmin South Indian Dravidians do not have any Aryan admixture, which is a fact, and still look prevalently Caucasoid. Also i sense some confusion from you differentiating from the indigenous Black/Mongoloid race Adivasis(origins in South-East Asia), "Ādivāsīs (in Devanagari script: आदिवासी), literally "original inhabitants" who comprise a substantial indigenous minority of the population of India", who predominantly speak Munda languages, a different language family to Dravidian, with a minority speaking Dravidian languages and a minority speaking Indo-Aryan languages, and Dravidians, who Frawley accurately based on facts, which has as much credibility as the forgotten anthropologists mind you, has concluded that Dravidians are migrants who came along the same way as Aryans, from the west much longer ago. Please take time to read about them and also the races who descend from them, Indo-Aryan/Adivasi Biharies and Bengalis who phenotypically look similar to Dravidian/Adivasi Tamils, the conclusion being that both Indo-Aryans and Dravidians are similar Caucasoids. I have read Naidus work recently, the only source I'm bothered by and there is clear bias and wrongly misinterpreted facts, which is typical of politically motivated individuals of India, who work differently to the rest of the world, such as Ambedkar, Periyar who feast on a communities uncertainty of origin, inferiority complex, or indulging victim mentality to get themselves political support. You can read for yourself the works of Naidu and realize this. There is nothing in the Aryan texts which refer to a different race except for the Dasas (who had no nose), which is heavily disputed and most likely symbolism, or migrated Munda peoples who moved in from the east after the Dravidians migrated south from the abandoned Indus. Adivasis look significantly different from the Dravidians, and the only fact i cant find of this is this fact "Some 63% of Adivasis reside in the eastern districts of Wayanad (where 35.82% are Adivasi), Palakkad (11.05%), and Idukki (15.66%). These groups, including the Irulars, Kurumbars, and Mudugars, speak their own native languages and experience hardships such as racial discrimination, economic exploitation, and poverty." to persons who have not seen many of either ethnic group, but i believe it sufficiently supports my point. Pure Dravidian groups such as Nairs, Bunts and Naidus, with no Aryan or no likely Adivasi admixture as facts dictate, phenotypically resemble Caucasoids most of which though pure Dravidians can pass for an Indo-Aryan North Indian. This seems to support numerous facts and Dravidian migration from the same area. And though you earlier mentioned caste, pre-caste Nairs and Bunts were still an endogamous community before being converted to a caste, then upon which other ethnic groups joined the caste (for the Nair, Bunts are still a community)such as Tamil Padam Nairs, though still a minority, anyways excluding them from my phenotypical argument. I would like David Frawley cited in the racial classifications as most would agree he is as or more credible then early 20th century "scientific" anthropologists or Naidu. You should read for yourself how how he interprets his facts and the facts used and conclusion he derives from them and see if there are any faults in the process or conclusion, tell me what you think. You predictably will say he is not in the field and has Hindu ulterior motives but please see if there is any problems with his conclusion and how he has arrived to them. Only Hindu scholars would not be studying with the motive of proving black/Negroid elements in the population. That reminds me that this article assumes the disputed Aryan Migration Theory which is not fact even after the Indus script has been deciphered, and there are quotes concerning the "Dravidian race" from other Hindu scholars such as Sri Aurobindo and Sri Swami Vivekananda that can be included if the racial classification theories section is. Anyways you earlier claimed current Dravidian speakers now resemble Aryans due to Aryan mixture. Even if thats the case, though not true, then what relevance is this whole racial classification section of "ancient Negroid Dravidians" to todays Dravidian speaking populations i.e Dravidian peoples. It should be deleted because of irrelevance or moved to another theoretical article if you just cant let it go.According to you are Southern Europeans, Italians a different race to Northern Europeans due to their slight difference in melanin production, quite possibly due to their being in closer proximity to the equator, which is known as a fact to darken unrelated populations over generations ? "racialists" like McCulloch would agree, maybe you do too. I would like to juxtapose this similarity to Indo-Aryans and Dravidians. Anyways black is not synonymous with Negroid, it can be Australoid too, such as the Munda/Adivasis and Dravidian/Adivasi mixes, who are a different race and I believe the only Negroids in Indian history are the Goan Arab slave migrant community, the Siddis, so again you make wild claims. Also how would you explain the racist word "kafir" used by Indians(including Dravidians) on Africans? are you suggesting that Indians are mass deluded to not realise that they themselves are Negroids?. Please take time to process what I have written and hopefully you will realize some truths.B Nambiar 10:24, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I've seen a bunch of blacks whose origins are from India, some of whom have stated South Indian origin. There are pictures on the internet of whole villages where everyone looks black. I doubt that these are all Adivasis. Frawley is a Hindu researcher who is not a reliable source in determining race. Hindu religous texts are not a reliable source for determining if the indigenous black racial group was invaded by Aryans. These purported pure Dravidian groups, "Nairs, Bunts and Naidus," are not pure Dravidian if they resemble Aryans. Indo-Aryans speakers are necessarily purer Aryans in name only. If the , "pure Dravidians can pass for an Indo-Aryan North Indian", then it shows the extent of the mixture between the Aryan and black races. How do you know that the Nairs and Bunts have remained endogamous before the imposition of the caste sytem? The Aryan Invasion Theory is largely regarded as a fact outside of Hinducentric biased literature promoted on such sites as Hindu.net. The fact that you can recall examples of black Indians being racist toward black Africans does not make you whites. The term "Negroid" can either be used broadly for an inclusive black race or exclusively for one of the black races or subraces such as Australoids, Veddoids, Malays, Negroids and Negritos. With regards to your edit on the Dravidian article, one point of view is that genetics is more reliable than past racial classifications while the other point of view, supported by the likes of Diop and others, is that physical appearence is the most reliable way to classify race.----Tea© 20:07, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

You may think all blacks look alike, but don't be surprised if the people involved disagree with you. South Indians (or any other group I know of in India) who would be mistaken for African-Americans are the exception, and those who would be mistaken for actual Africans are even rarer. I do not have details of the anthropometric differences between Indians and Africans at hand, but they were recognized by traditional physical anthropology.

The extremely broad redefinition of Negroid or Negro or African is not the standard meaning of the word. It is a polemical device of Afrocentrists and not used at all outside that small circle. It is appropriate to mention this definition when discussing Afrocentric writing, but not appropriate to use the nonstandard definition in articles in general. At a minimum, it is confusing and dilutes the meaning of the words. There is adequate existing terminology to describe darker-skinned people in general, and the "Afrocentric" redefinition of "African" to redundantly mean all dark-skinned people ironically erases any terminology to refer to Africans in particular.

Both the Indo-European and Dravidian language families are thought to have entered India from the northwest (see Elamo-Dravidian languages) and if so the original speakers would have been non-Indian Caucasoids. However Genetics and Archaeogenetics of South Asia makes it clear that except possibly in the far northwest, the genetic impact (as opposed to linguistic) of all the immigrations combined was slight and the great majority of the genetic legacy is native to South Asia on a scale of tens of thousands of years. --JWB 02:41, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I know there are differences within the black race or races. I didn't say that all the blacks looked alike. I can certainly distinguish between two black people if I was introduced to them. There are many Indians who are blacks. They are mistaken for real Africans. Measurements mean nothing if you can barely discern their features because they are really black. First, you see a black silohoutte in the distance, then you can discern their features when they are close. Anthropologists who are of African descent have been fighting an uphill battle against Eurocentrism by correcting the over differentiation of the black races. JWB, quit tossing away the opinions of anthropologists of African descent due to their race. For your information, everything made by the European anthropologists is Eurocentric. The bias is just so pervasive that it is considered normative. It is embaressing to our intellect that your rejection of thoughts created by Africans due to their racial background passes off as a legitimate argument. If most of the ancestry in India is indigenous, then the Aryan component is rather small after all.----Tea© 03:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

You didn't say they looked alike, but now you say "you can barely discern their features because they are really black"??? Please stop embarrassing yourself.

You are the one who can't even place one of the most major figures in Black Studies in the right era, and doesn't seem to have knowledge of or interest in Africa, Africans, or African thought other than a small group of crackpots who are preoccupied with discussing Asians, who are your basic interest.

There have been both European anthropologists who see a "small" white race (e.g. Nordic supremacists), as well as ones who see a "big" inclusive Caucasoid category. There have also been both Africans who see an African race consisting of Africans (the obvious and most common viewpoint), as well as some who are interested in global solidarity with people of color and even appropriate the term "African" itself for this purpose.

"If most of the ancestry in India is indigenous, then the Aryan component is rather small after all." Yes, and if both the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian language families were brought by immigrants, than both the Aryan and Dravidian genetic components are rather small, and the label "Dravidian" for the preexisting genetic component is imprecise and confusing. This is different from the distribution of Indo-Aryan speakers (about 3/4 of Indians) and Dravidian speakers (about 1/4 of Indians) today, which is tangible and is this article's primary subject. --JWB 08:13, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

"This is also the case with some "Caucasoid" peoples of the Indian subcontinent, whom some Afrocentrists regard as Africoid, as well.", "Negroid is a general term referring to the people of Sub-Saharan Africa.". Well I see you have confused me with your wording, you probably meant to say Africoid peoples rather than Negroid whom I picture as the Maasai etc. If Australoid falls under Africoid then there can be no doubt phenotypically there is that element among the primarily Indigenous peoples of India i.e the Munda, Adivasis and some parts of the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan peoples of India who have mixed with these types ie Dalits all over India, Biharies and some Dravidian communities. My argument at this point is that Dravidians are not the indigenous black race of India, they are an earlier migratory group who moved in, similar to the Aryans from the west, into a land sparsely populated by South-East Asian originated Munda/Adivasi groups. You say Hindu religious tests are not reliable, well they are the only written records of the supposed "Aryan Invasion period" and it is very likely if there has been a huge invasion to see some reference to an Invasion in the texts or at least destroyed remains of war, neither of which is available. There are political motivations for the Aryan Invasion, ie left wingers will leap on to it as a way to say the minorities of India as as foreign as the founders and thus deserve their special status and their homeland as India as much as anyone, which of course left-wingers have done very early even till now, and that Eurocentrics get to have some credit from the Indian civilization. Also there are political motivations for the Afrocentric, though I agree with their view that historically Eurocentrics try to belittle their race, though Afrocentrics make huge unlikely claims with little evidence such as Ancient Egypt belonged to Africoid peoples etc and most Africoid claims are generally rubbish, just a hearted but little evidenced claim for glory for the "Africoid race",on the other hand though you don't see the Persian people taking glory in the achievements of the British people even though they are as closely related as peoples within the Africoid group who seem thrown together based on their skin colour. "Chief among these physical characteristics are limited or nonexistent prognathism, a brachycephalic cranium". This is quite variable even in South Indian Dalit populations so I think non-Adivasi/Munda peoples of India are out their possible claiming reach, though I guess they can claim a small Africoid element in some different non Munda/Adivasi populations of India. Finally to take Diops view on phenotypes discerning race, which is a convenient view for his political motivations, then that would falsely suggest Southern Europeans or Iranians to be of a different race to Northern Europeans. Also the problems with phenotypes is that members of an community or even a family can still vary in esp Indian populations i.e a dark skinned person and a light skinned person, also in Southern Europeans, a middle eastern looking person and a northern European resembling person. So this can distort the facts i.e if you see the dark skinned odd one out of the family such as a dark Chinese person and assume him/her to be of the Thai ethnicity. Therein lies the flaw within phenotypical jugdement of "race" also that the judgement can vary slightly depending on the eye of the beholder. Genetics would therefore be more accurate as it precisely shows a communities genetic racial inputs, and racial/biological history and origins. If you mind taking the time to read Indian genetic studies i don't think you will see any Black/Africoid links, apart from the intial migration from Africa of course, and you cant argue because genetics are facts, it even suggest the origins of Eurasian MtDNA, R1a1, is India (including the South), which obviously disagrees with the "Aryan Invasion Theory". "The fact that you can recall examples of black Indians being racist toward black Africans does not make you whites" what kind of an idiotic assumption is that. That's like saying "just because white East Asians are racist towards the dark South-East Asians, it does not make them even remotely Caucasoid or much different", it has no relevance to the aims of this argument. The populations of India are a unique melting pot some are "white" i.e in the North-West some are Africoid i.e tribal groups and others, most are not either. To conclude genetics are more relevant that phenotypes to determine "race". In fact it is wrong that anthropologists are studying Dravidian people with the underlying assumption of a different race, the same race, i.e the neighboring Finns and Swedes, can also belong to different language families.B Nambiar 03:57, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The terms "Africoid", "Australoid" and "Negroid" are vague, but they all connote a black race or races. Hindu religious texts and other religious texts are not reliable sources on history. I think Munda and Adivasis are indigenous, because I have no reason at this point in time which shows that they aren't indigenous. That being said, I haven't looked into it. I don't believe that lack of written evidence for an Aryan invasion necessarily indicates that there was no Aryan invasion. The Spanish destroyed the indigenous writing in Mexico as part of a Christian cleansing mission. The Aryans, being of a separate religious persuasion than the Dravidians, probably destroyed Dravidian religious writings. Like the Spanish who recorded the history of their invasion in terms that would aggrandize their bravery and minimize their brutality, the Aryans likely didn't desire to record the exact process of their invasion. In India, people may use the Aryan invasion theory as a political tactic to vilify the Brahmins and Indo-Aryan speakers and to nudge sympathy for the Adivasis, Dalits, Dravidians and others. Diop's reasonings for his functional definition of race may imply that the majority of Southern Europeans are a different race from other Europeans. This does not "falsify" his reasoning. They may, in fact, be considered a separate race. Generally Persians don't take pride in English accomplishments because they don't consider themselves the same race; however, I'm sure some Persians do consider themselves the same race and take pride in English accomplishments. Yes, everybody looks different and a "dark skinned odd one out of the family" may be considered racially different from the rest of the family. I have known two siblings from the same parents, a family of my relatives, and they look like separate races. This happens a lot. I consider my cousins who come from the same family to be separate races, one being a white due to having fair skin, brown hair and green eyes and the other being a non-white due to having black hair, black eyes and dark skin. If the difference between the siblings is large enough to qualify as a typological difference, then they are different races, typologically speaking. I don't think that genetic similarity is a good way to determine race. For instance, if you got a Norwegian and altered only their DNA that dealt with color to make them look black, then I will consider them black or Negroid.----Tea© 05:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Munda languages are part of the Austro-Asiatic family and distantly related to Vietnamese and Cambodian. They are thought to have come with an early migration from the east. This is even said already in the Dravidian people article, so you haven't even read the article you're editing.

"The terms "Africoid", "Australoid" and "Negroid" are vague, but they all connote a black race or races." They are not interchangeable except in the jargon of the Afrocentric school who are determined to obscure the differences. "Australoid" was coined specifically to recognize the separate features of some Indians and Native Australians and the similarity of the two. "Australoid" and "Negroid" were both coined to refer to traits not restricted to color, such as body or skeletal measurements, so it is incorrect and confusing to use "Negroid" merely to say someone's skin color is dark. --JWB 08:38, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I sense two POV's here firstly Negroid: "Negroid is a general term referring to the people of Sub-Saharan Africa." to which you respond: "The terms "Africoid", "Australoid" and "Negroid" are vague, but they all connote a black race or races.", this implies you don't really care what actual race and racial origins one belongs to, if they have dark skin, eyes and hair they automatically get placed into the black race or races. The people of Sub-Saharan Africa can look substantially different to an Australian Aboriginal or a Polynesian, I have seen groups of each, with the only similarity being skin,eye and hair color (though some Australian Aboriginal communities have occurrences of blond hair), so i sense a deliberate ignorance, perhaps underlying racism, to pigeonhole all these peoples into a similar group based on the dark skin, eyes and hair phenotype only(ignoring build, facial features, skull shape, cephalic index and hair type which can vary from community to community) which similarly Afrocentrics and Eurocentrics both also indulge to support their political/ideological purposes. Secondly your rather interesting unique POV "If the difference between the siblings is large enough to qualify as a typological difference, then they are different races, typologically speaking", well "race" is basically determined by loose typology, so you are always talking about typology when talking about race, but to consider the two examples of the same genetic stock as different races depending on phenotypes is illogical, and not really what most people are talking about when they mean race. A half European half Native American who looks European and his/her sibling who looks Native American does not mean one is racially Caucasoid and one is racially Mongoloid(maybe to you they do) and they are both equally likely to produce a child phenotypically resembling either race with another similar multi-racial. Therein lies the futility of phenotype determined "race" with genetics a more accurate description of the actual general racial group an individual or community belongs to. I don't know how you would consider two siblings different races and I hope these two POV's do not influence any of the information on the Dravidian peoples article. Also what you claim above concerning the "Aryan Invasion" is a loose theory with no real facts supporting it whereas they actually are facts countering the theory, Im sure if you actually read the Aryan Invasion article objectively you would realize there are more that tips the scale against "Aryan Invasion" then for and in fact a lot of the Aryan Invasion theory is supported by far-fetched misinterpretations of what you claimed " Hindu religious texts and other religious texts are not reliable sources on history.".B Nambiar 06:06, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The terms Negroid, Veddoid, Australoid, and Negrito are all ambiguous, but they all connote the black race or races. The actual race or races are sometimes confused with the over differentiation of the black race as identified by Diop and Rahsidi. They do not look substantially different. West Africans, East Africans, Australians, Negritos and the original, unmixed Dravdians primarily look the same. They are all blacks or Negroids. Native North Americans are not Mongoloids. According to morphological anthropologists P. Menozzi and A. Piazza The History of Geography of Human Genes. Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1994. Native North American are morphologically closest to French and Scandinavians. Unless you are arguing that French and Scandinavians are also Mongoloid, I would have to say that typologically-speaking based on experts in morphology North American Indians are not Mongoloids. These two morphologists group South American Indians as morphologicaly similar to East Asians, so they would be properly classified as Mongoloid. Probably to the same degree of Mongoloid as South Africans and Southeast Asians are Mongoloid, seeing as they differ primarily in their skin color. The Aryan Invasion theory is a well-established fact, some of which is supported by Hindu religious texts.----Tea© 19:00, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

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