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.[1] 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.[1] (Historically, the label Negrito has also been used to refer to African pygmies.)[2] The appropriateness of bundling peoples of different
ethnicities by similarities in stature and complexion has been challenged.[1]
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.[3]
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 that migrated from southern East Asia into Mainland and Insular Southeast Asia with the Neolithic expansion. The remainders form minority groups in geographically isolated regions.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]
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.[12][13][14][15]
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 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".[16]
^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)
^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.
PMID29383489.
S2CID253969988. 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)...
^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.
PMC8826522.
PMID34940850. 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).
^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.
PMC378623.
PMID12478481. D-loop and protein-coding data reveal that phenotypic similarities with African pygmoid groups are convergent.
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.
OCLC2966355.
Mirante, Edith (2014). The Wind in the Bamboo: A Journey in Search of Asia's 'Negrito' Indigenous People. Orchid Press Publishing Limited.
ISBN978-974-524-189-3.
Schebesta, P., & Schütze, F. (1970). The Negritos of Asia. Human relations area files, 1–2. New Haven, Conn: Human Relations Area Files.