Negrito

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Ati woman

Negrito refers a dwindling ethnic group which is now restricted to parts of Southeast Asia. Possibly originating in Africa, they once occupied parts of India and Sri Lanka, and all of Sundaland during the Stone Age. Their current populations include the Aeta, Ati and at least 25 other tribes of the Philippines, the Semang of the Malay peninsula, the Mani of Thailand and 12 Andamanese tribes of the Andaman Islands.

Etymology

The term "Negrito" is the Spanish diminutive of Negro, i.e. "little black person", referring to their small stature, and was coined by early European invaders and explorers who assumed that the Negritos were from Africa. Occasionally, some Negrito are referred to as pygmies, bundling them with peoples of similar physical stature in Central Africa.

According to James J.Y. Liu, a professor of Chinese and comparative literature, the Chinese term for negrito is Kun-lun (Chinese: 崑崙).[1]

Origins

Negrito Woman

Being among the least-known of all living human groups, the origins of the Negrito people is a much debated topic. The Malay term for them is orang asli, or original people. They are likely descendants of the indigenous populations of the Sunda landmass and New Guinea, predating the Mongoloid peoples who later entered Southeast Asia from the north. [2]

Dark skin and woolly hair would seem to suggest an African origin for the Negritos, especially in the Andamanese Islanders who have been isolated from incoming waves of Asiatic peoples. Genetic testing, however, allies them only occasionally with African Negroids. Cranial tests place Negritos in the Australo-Melanesian branch of humanity who later arrived from the Asian mainland. [3] However, this can largely be attributed to a level of interbreeding between the two anatomically distinct populations, and is not necessarily an indication of ancestry.

Their origins may lie in India and Sri Lanka where Paleolithic hominid remains of a diminutive stature have been uncovered. It would appear that a population of proto-Negritos existing in the tropical jungles of the subcontinent were later overlain by waves of Caucasoid peoples from the north-west. [4] A likely line of descent for the Indian homunculi could theoretically be traced to the Pygmies of Central Africa as much as 60,000 years ago.

The Negrito peoples have one of the purest genetic pools of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) among anyone in humankind so their mtDNA serves as a baseline in studying Genetic Drift.[5]

Culture

Due to their relative isolation on the islands of Southeast Asia, Negritos maintained their semi-nomadic hunting lifestyles up until recent times.

The Negritos of the Philippines could make fire, whereas the Andamanese could not. [citation needed]. The Semang are recorded to have made clothing of pounded tree bark, and to have lived in both caves and leaf-covered shelters.

In the 1212 there was a purchase of rights by some Malay peoples to settle on the island of Panay from the chief of the Negritos there.

Media

Literature

Kunlun Nu (Chinese: 崑崙奴 - "The K’un-lun Slave") was a romance written by P’ei Hsing (Chinese: 裴鉶) (c. 880) during the Tang Dynasty. It takes place during the Ta-li reign era (766-80) of Emperor Daizong and follows the tale of a young man named Ts’ui who enlists the aide of Mo-lê,[6] his negrito slave, to help free his beloved who was forced to join the harem of a court official. At midnight, Mo-lê kills the guard dogs around the compound and carries Ts’ui on his back while easily jumping to the tops of walls and bounding from roof to roof. With the lovers reunited, Mo-lê leaps over ten tall walls with both of them on his back. Ts’ui and his beloved are able to live happily together in peace because the official believes she was kidnapped by Chinese knights-errant and did not want to make trouble for himself by pursuing them. However, two years later, one of the official’s attendants sees the girl in the city and reports this. The official arrests Ts’ui and, once he hears the entire story, sends men to capture the negrito slave. But Mo-lê escapes with his dagger (apparently his only possession) and flies over the city walls to escape apprehension. He is seen over ten years later selling medicine in the city, not having aged a single day.[1]

Mo-lê’s gravity defying abilities and agelessness suggests the fictional character might have been a practitioner of esoteric life-prolonging exercises akin to Chinese immortals. According to a tale attributed to the Taoist adept Ge Hong, some hunters in the Zhongnan Mountains saw a naked man whose body was covered in black hair. Whenever they tried to capture him he “leapt over gullies and valleys as if in flight, and so could not be overtaken."[7] After finally ambushing the man, the hunters learned it was in fact a 200 plus year old woman who had learned the arts of immortality from an old man in the forest.[7] Still, it was popular in folktales for immortals to sell medicine in the city, just like Mo-lê did. The hagiography of the immortal Hu Gong (Sire Gourd) says he sold medicine in the market place during the day and slept in a magic gourd hanging in his stall at night.[7]

Film

  • The Promise (2005). This is a very loose film adaptation of The K’un-lun Slave. Instead of being called Mo-lê, the slave is simply called “Kun-lun” and he is portrayed by Korean actor Jang Dong-gun.[8]
  • Kunlun Nu Yedao Hongxiao (Chinese: 昆仑奴夜盗红绡 - "The Kunlun Slave Steals Hung-siu by Night") (1956).[9]

Further Reading

  • Snow, Philip. The Star Raft: China's Encounter With Africa. Cornell Univ. Press, 1989 (ISBN 0801495830)
  • Schebesta, P., & Schütze, F. (1970). The Negritos of Asia. Human relations area files, 1-2. New Haven, Conn: Human Relations Area Files.

Notes

Public Domain This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)

  1. ^ a b Liu, James J.Y. The Chinese Knight Errant. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967 (ISBN 0-2264-8688-5)
  2. ^ [Getting Here: The Story of Human Evolution, William Howells, Compass Press, 1993]
  3. ^ [Getting Here: The Story of Human Evolution, William Howells, Compass Press, 1993]
  4. ^ [The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, Joseph Campbell, Penguin Books, 1959]
  5. ^ nytimes on Early human migration
  6. ^ Prof. Liu states “This is the modern pronunciation. The T’ang pronounciaton was something like ‘Mua-lak’ and is said to have been taken from Arabic.” (Liu 1967: 88).
  7. ^ a b c Campany, Robert Ford. To Live As Long As Heaven and Earth: Ge Hong’s Traditions of Divine Transcendents. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002 (ISBN 0-520-23034-5)
  8. ^ The Promise movie review
  9. ^ KUNLUN NU YEDAO HONGXIAO
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