Negrito: Difference between revisions

The Negrito peoples are believed to descend from ancient [[Australoid race|Australoid-Melanesian]] settlers of Southeast Asia. Genetically, these peoples also show similarities to their neighboring populations. The appropriateness of using the label 'Negrito' to bundle together peoples of different [[ethnicity]] based on similarities in stature and complexion has been challenged.<ref name=Manickham-2009/>

The word "Negrito" is the Spanish [[diminutive]] of ''[[negro]]'', used to mean "little black person". This usage was coined by 16th-century Spanish [[Catholic Church and the Age of Discovery|missionaries]] operating in the Phillipines, and was borrowed by other European travellers and colonialists across southeast Asia to label various peoples perceived as sharing relatively small physical stature and dark skin.<ref name=Manickham-2009>{{cite book|last=Manickham|first=Sandra Khor|editor=Hägerdal, Hans|title=Responding to the West: Essays on Colonial Domination and Asian Agency|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Onr3-thtL2MC&pg=PA69|year=2009|publisher=Amsterdam University Press|isbn=978-90-8964-093-2|pages=69–79|chapter=Africans in Asia: The Discourse of 'Negritos' in Early Nineteenth-century Southeast Asia}}</ref> 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.<ref name=Manickham-2009/> (Historically, the label ''Negrito'' has occasionally been used also to refer to African Pygmies.)<ref> 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 [[Aka (Pygmy tribe)|Akkas]], [[Batwa]]s, [[Wochua]]s and others..." (p. 851)</ref>

It has frequently been postulated that Negrito peoples descend from [[Australoid race|Australoid]] [[Melanesians|Melanesian]] settlers of Southeast Asia. Despite being isolated, the different peoples do share [[Population genetics|genetic similarities]] with their neighboring populations.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Genetic affinities of the Andaman Islanders, a vanishing human population.|journal=[[Current Biology]]|pmid=12546781 | doi=10.1016/S0960-9822(02)01336-2|volume=13|date=January 2003|pages=86–93}}</ref><ref name=Stock-2013>{{cite journal| last=Stock | first=JT| title=The skeletal phenotype of "negritos" from the Andaman Islands and Philippines relative to global variation among hunter-gatherers |journal=[[Human Biology (journal)|Human Biology]]| pmid=24297221 |volume=85 |issue=1-3 |pages=67–94 |year=2013 | doi=10.3378/027.085.0304 |url=http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2052&context=humbiol}}</ref> They also show relevant [[phenotypic]] (anatomic) variations which require explanation.<ref name=Stock-2013/>