Negritos

Oral tradition, with its huge and precious heritage of legends, tales, songs and riddles, is one of the fields where cultural identity is usually best preserved and perceived. Specific genres can be witnesses of determined historical contact and influence from external groups, or represent an original, indigenous form of expression. Loanwords and other external syntactic or morphological elements, if present, can be analyzed as traces of contact, while the context in which these phenomena appear (religious or not, for example) can give the researcher important hints about the socio-political weight of external groups in the daily life of the people he/she is studying.

The double canoe which was brought by ancestors of present-day Negritos to Southeast China and Taiwan served as original watercraft of the Malayo-Polynesian dispersal, the first waves of which were carried out by people with equatorial (dark) complexion. A tradition of maritime communication and trade seems to have developed in the South China Sea, with exchange of material culture between indochina and the Philippines, leading up to a metal-age Sahuynh-Kulanay complex. A boat-burial rite seems to likewise have developed, transmitted as far east as Hawaii, bt also into the mainland up the Mekong as mell as Salween, Irrawady, and Brahmaoutra. A further development, already in the metal age, was apparently the ship-of-the-dead cult. Meanwhile Negrito (and Papuan) westward shipping, already since before the Malayo-Polynesian dispersal, apparently brought the banana and the coconut to India. Negrito seafarers who, like also subsequently arrived Malayo-Polynesians, settled on the Bay of Bengal coast, may have been referred to in early Indian literature as Nagas.

The compilation of Austronesian data, the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary (ACD) of the late Robert Blust remains a tremendous achievement. However, Robert Blust had strong views on both the reconstruction of Austronesian and the patterns of lexical cognacy which underlay his starred forms. An aspect of the ACD which remains underanalysed are what are termed ‘Formosanisms’, words which were restricted to the island of Taiwan and are not reflected in broader Austronesian. Blust relates these to hypothetical proto-forms and then reconstructs them to PAN. This is somewhat surprising, since the Austronesian phylum is closely-knit compared with almost all other world phyla and many items found in Taiwan have reflexes in Maori. Yet the Formosan lexicon is quite extensive.

There are several possible explanations for this. The first is that these words developed subsequent to the expansion out of Taiwan, and then spread from language to language in the era when early seagoing contact had reduced in significance. The second and related hypothesis is that the Formosanisms reflect the indigenous languages of the populations inhabiting the island prior to the immigration of the Austronesians, some 5500 years ago. We know that relics of these populations survived until recent times and indeed their culture is still celebrated by the surviving Austronesian peoples. It would surely be unsurprising if the incomers picked up words from the indigenous populations, especially for words related to the natural world, flora and fauna etc.

A third hypothesis is that the Formosanisms derive from the languages of other peoples who were in contact with the island subsequent to the first wave of Austronesian expansion. That such contacts existed is uncontroversial. We know there was interaction with the Philippines, whence the techniques if iron-smelting must have arrived. The stone shouldered adzes found in northern Taiwan seem to have come from the Red River area of Northern Vietnam.

However, all of these models have one feature in common, namely that if the Formosanisms are a consequence of lexical diffusion, then by definition they would not be PAN, but rather a mosaic of loanwords. We would therefore expect a lack of regular sound correspondences, since the words would have spread from one language to another.

The archaeology of Taiwan goes back a considerable period. Modern humans have been settled on the island from at least 25,000 BP. It is generally supposed that phenotypically these were of the Negrito type common in Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) and recent osteoarchaeological work has confirmed this. We cannot know what languages these people spoke. The only languages of such populations still surviving in SE Asia are those spoken in the Andaman Islands, which remain underdocumented. Surviving phenotypic Negritos, such as those in the Philippines today, speak Austronesian languages.

This paper then sets out to suggest how we can detect the substrate lexicon in modern Formosan languages. The focus is on animals, since Taiwan is home to a large number of endemic species, and incoming migrants plausibly adopt names from resident populations. It tabulates a series of Formosanisms, identified by Li (1994) and Blust (ACD), together with newly identified cognate datasets to establish a hypothesis for their origins.

While people elsewhere just began developing maritime mobility during the Late Pleistocene – Mid Holocene period of the rising seas, equatorial populations in Insular Southeast Asia (ISEA) looked back on many millennia of experience since the crossing of Wallacea from the Sunda to the Sh‡hul Shelf, making further steps in watercraft construction. Moving Northwards, they brought the double canoe to Southeast China, from where it was transmitted to the Han Chinese and the Austronesians. The possible transmission of earliest constructional sophistications of the raft — the tapered raft and the multiple dugout — to the west coast of South India are considered. Common distinctive features of Indian, Chinese. and Malayo-Polynesian shipping are seen as reflecting their common origin from Ausraloid (mainly Negrito) maritime mobility.

The primary focus of this article is on the so-called Negritos of Peninsular Malaysia and southern Thailand, but attention is also paid to other parts of Southeast Asia. I present a survey of current views on the “negrito” phenotype—is it single or many? If the phenotype is many (as now seems likely), it must have resulted from parallel evolution in the several different regions where it has been claimed to exist. This would suggest (contrary to certain views that have been expressed on the basis of very partial genetic data) that the phenotype originated recently and by biologically well-authenticated processes from within the neighbouring populations. Whole-genome and physical-anthropological research currently support this view. Regardless of whether the negrito phenotype is ancient or recent—and to the extent that it retains any valid biological reality (which is worth questioning)—explanations are still needed for its continued distinctiveness. In the Malay Peninsula, a distinctive “Semang” societal pattern followed by most, but not all, so-called Negritos may have been responsible for this by shaping familial, breeding and demographic patterns to suit the two main modes of environmental appropriation that they have followed, probably for some millennia: nomadic foraging in the forest, and facultative dependence on exchange or labour relations with neighbouring populations. The known distribution of “negritos” in the Malay Peninsula is limited to areas within relatively easy reach of archaeologically authenticated premodern transpeninsular trading and portage routes, as well as of other non-negrito, Aslian-speaking populations engaged in swidden farming. This suggests that their continued distinctiveness has resulted from a wish to maintain a complementary advantage vis-à-vis other, less specialised populations. Nevertheless, a significant degree of discordance exists between the associated linguistic, societal-tradition and biological patterns, which suggests that other factors have also been at play.

The so-called negritos adapt not just to a tropical forest environment but also to an environment characterized by perturbations and fluctuations. As with other hunter-gatherers in the region and, indeed, throughout the world, they use both social and ecological methods to enhance their chances of survival in this changing environment: socially, they have developed networks of trading and marriage partners; ecologically, they maintain patches of key resources that are available for future harvesting. As evidenced in the case of the Batek (Orang Asli), patterns of forest structure and composition are sometimes direct outcomes of intentional resource concentration and enrichment strategies.

This study reports a cranio-morphometric analysis of female human remains from seven archaeological sites in China, Vietnam and Taiwan that date between 16,000 and 5300 BP. The aim of the analysis is to test the "two-layer" model of human dispersal in eastern Eurasia, using previously unanalysed female remains to balance the large sample of previously-analysed males. The resulting craniometric data indicate that the examined specimens all belong to the "first layer" of dispersal, and share a common ancestor with recent Australian and Papuan populations, and the ancient Jomon people of Japan. The analysed specimens pre-date the expansion of agricultural populations of East/ Northeast Asian origin-that is, the "second layer" of human dispersal proposed by the model. As a result of this study, the two-layer model, which has hitherto rested on evidence only from male skeletons, is now strongly supported by female-derived data. Further comparisons reveal that the people of the first layer were closer in terms of their facial morphology to modern Africans and Sri Lankan Veddah than to modern Asians and Europeans, suggesting that the Late Pleistocene through Middle Holocene hunter-gatherers examined in this study were direct descendants of the anatomically modern humans who first migrated out of Africa through southern Eurasia.

Adding to the very few pre-1900 accounts of the Maniq groups of
Thailand, this paper presents new information from archives and ethnographic collections at the Smithsonian about two visits by William Louis Abbott at the end of the 19th century to the group now generally called the Maniq, considered a subgroup of the Semang and the northernmost Negrito group of the peninsular region of southern Thailand and Malaya. These sources indicate the position, within 19th century theories about evolutionary sequences of societies, that Thailand’s “Chow pah” came to serve, for Abbott himself and for the Smithsonian anthropologists with whom he corresponded.

Anthropologists have long been fascinated by the isolated hunter-gatherer populations in Southeast Asia (SEA) collectively known as ''Negritos.'' However, the origins and affinities of these groups remain unresolved. Negritos are characterized by their short stature, dark skin color, and wiry hair, and they inhabit the Philippines, Malay Peninsula, and the Andaman Islands. Among Philippine Negritos, the Batak are of particular interest in understanding population interactions in the region due to their location on Palawan Island, which likely formed a corridor by which human migrations entered the rest of the Philippine archipelago from Island SEA. Here, we extend current understanding of the distribution of genetic diversity in Negritos by presenting the first analysis of mitochondrial DNA and

Die bizarre Welt der Träume entwickelte im Abendland eine eigene Faszinationskraft, die häufig eng an eigene kollektive Sehnsüchte geknüpft ist. Am Beispiel der ‚träumenden Senoi’ zeige ich Facetten einer solchen Faszinationsgeschichte. Das Urwaldvolk der Senoi (Malaysia), so wurde behauptet, verfüge über eine einzigartige Traumkultur. Allgemein verbreitet seien die Fähigkeit Träume zu kontrollieren, d.h. Gefahren und Ängsten in Träumen aktiv zu begegnen, und das allmorgendliche „Traumgespräch“. Die Friedfertigkeit der Senoi sei das Ergebnis dieser Traumpraxis. In den Zeiten des Kalten Krieges und später während der „counter culture“-Bewegung der 60er und 70er Jahre wurden die „non-violent dream people“ zum utopischen Gegenbild des Eigenen stilisiert, trotz offenkundiger Widersprüche und mangelnder ethnographischer Evidenz. Die Geschichte der „träumenden Senoi“ wirft somit Licht auf Heilserwartungen westlicher Gesellschaften, in denen das Fremde zur Projektionsfläche eigener Bedürfnisse wird.

Este ensayo se enfoca en las representaciones de la homosexualidad en el trabajo de Gilberto Freyre (1900-1987), particularmente, en la manera en que tales figuraciones alteran las nociones de contacto racial y mestizaje. Al echar una mirada a la configuración de los “deseos homosociales” en algunos de los textos de Freyre, se puede entender el rol que las narrativas de relaciones interraciales y homosexuales desempeñan en la estructuración de lo que él llama “la familia patriarcal brasilera” y, de este modo, en la representación canónica de Brasil como nación mestiza.

Anthropologists have long been fascinated by the isolated hunter-gatherer populations in Southeast Asia (SEA) collectively known as "Negritos". However, the origins and affinities of these groups remain unresolved. Negritos are characterized by their short stature, dark skin color, and wiry hair, and they inhabit the Philippines, Malay Peninsula, and the Andaman Islands. Among Philippine Negritos, the Batak are of particular interest in understanding population interactions in the region due to their location on Palawan Island, which likely formed a corridor by which human migrations entered the rest of the Philippine archipelago from Island SEA. Here, we extend current understanding of the distribution of genetic diversity in Negritos by presenting the first analysis of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome diversity among the Batak. We show that the Batak are genetically distinct from Negritos of the Andaman Islands and Malay Peninsula and instead bear most resemblance to geographically proximate Philippine Negritos and to non-Negrito populations from the Philippines and Island SEA. An extensive degree of recent admixture between the Batak and their neighbors is indicated by the high frequency of recently coalescing haplogroups in the Batak that are found throughout Island SEA. The comparison of results from these two loci further lends support to the hypothesis that male-biased admixture has, in particular, been a prominent feature of the interactions between the Batak and surrounding non-Negrito populations.

Neste artigo é esboçada uma descrição etnográfica das sessões de interpretação pública e colectiva de sonhos em acampamentos Atta de caçadores e recolectores, que vivem e nomadizam nas florestas do extremo norte de Luzon, nas Filipinas. O estudo tem como base várias histórias de caso recolhidas no terreno. É proposta uma análise destas sessões enquanto dispositivos políticos que, recorrendo à obliquidade, dão sentido às representações enunciadas e enformam e dirigem práticas dos actores sociais envolvidos. Mecanismos deste tipo são particularmente importantes, é aqui argumentado, como expressão e forma de legitimação política em agrupamentos sociais caracterizáveis por uma marcada informalidade e por um igualitarismo não-competitivo.

Anthropologists have long been fascinated by the isolated hunter-gatherer populations in Southeast Asia (SEA) collectively known as ''Negritos.'' However, the origins and affinities of these groups remain unresolved. Negritos are characterized by their short stature, dark skin color, and wiry hair, and they inhabit the Philippines, Malay Peninsula, and the Andaman Islands. Among Philippine Negritos, the Batak are of particular interest in understanding population interactions in the region due to their location on Palawan Island, which likely formed a corridor by which human migrations entered the rest of the Philippine archipelago from Island SEA. Here, we extend current understanding of the distribution of genetic diversity in Negritos by presenting the first analysis of mitochondrial DNA and

Anthropologists have long been fascinated by the isolated hunter-gatherer populations in Southeast Asia (SEA) collectively known as ''Negritos.'' However, the origins and affinities of these groups remain unresolved. Negritos are characterized by their short stature, dark skin color, and wiry hair, and they inhabit the Philippines, Malay Peninsula, and the Andaman Islands. Among Philippine Negritos, the Batak are of particular interest in understanding population interactions in the region due to their location on Palawan Island, which likely formed a corridor by which human migrations entered the rest of the Philippine archipelago from Island SEA. Here, we extend current understanding of the distribution of genetic diversity in Negritos by presenting the first analysis of mitochondrial DNA and

Anthropologists have long been fascinated by the isolated hunter-gatherer populations in Southeast Asia (SEA) collectively known as ''Negritos.'' However, the origins and affinities of these groups remain unresolved. Negritos are characterized by their short stature, dark skin color, and wiry hair, and they inhabit the Philippines, Malay Peninsula, and the Andaman Islands. Among Philippine Negritos, the Batak are of particular interest in understanding population interactions in the region due to their location on Palawan Island, which likely formed a corridor by which human migrations entered the rest of the Philippine archipelago from Island SEA. Here, we extend current understanding of the distribution of genetic diversity in Negritos by presenting the first analysis of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome diversity among the Batak. We show that the Batak are genetically distinct from Negritos of the Andaman Islands and Malay Peninsula and instead bear most resemblance to geographically proximate Philippine Negritos and to non-Negrito populations from the Philippines and Island SEA. An extensive degree of recent admixture between the Batak and their neighbors is indicated by the high frequency of recently coalescing haplogroups in the Batak that are found throughout Island SEA. The comparison of results from these two loci further lends support to the hypothesis that male-biased admixture has, in particular, been a prominent feature of the interactions between the Batak and surrounding non-Negrito populations.