In
anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
, pygmy peoples are
ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the
phenotype
In genetics, the phenotype () is the set of observable characteristics or traits of an organism. The term covers the organism's morphology or physical form and structure, its developmental processes, its biochemical and physiological pr ...
of endemic
short stature
Short stature refers to a height of a human which is below typical. Whether a person is considered short depends on the context. Because of the lack of preciseness, there is often disagreement about the degree of shortness that should be called ' ...
(as opposed to disproportionate
dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a population) for populations in which adult men are on average less than tall.
The term is primarily associated with the
African Pygmies
The African Pygmies (or Congo Pygmies, variously also Central African foragers, "African rainforest hunter-gatherers" (RHG) or "Forest People of Central Africa") are a group of ethnicities native to Central Africa, mostly the Congo Basin, tra ...
, the
hunter-gatherers of the
Congo Basin (comprising the
Bambenga
The African Pygmies (or Congo Pygmies, variously also Central African foragers, "African rainforest hunter-gatherers" (RHG) or "Forest People of Central Africa") are a group of ethnicities native to Central Africa, mostly the Congo Basin, tra ...
,
Bambuti
The Mbuti people, or Bambuti, are one of several indigenous pygmy groups in the Congo region of Africa. Their languages are Central Sudanic languages and Bantu languages.
Subgroups
Bambuti are pygmy hunter-gatherers, and are one of the oldest ...
and
Batwa
Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with F ...
).
The terms "Asiatic Pygmies" and "Oceanian pygmies" have been used to describe the
Negrito
The term Negrito () refers to several diverse ethnic groups who inhabit isolated parts of Southeast Asia and the Andaman Islands. Populations often described as Negrito include: the Andamanese peoples (including the Great Andamanese, the O ...
populations of
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
and
Australo-Melanesian
Australo-Melanesians (also known as Australasians or the Australomelanesoid, Australoid or Australioid race) is an outdated historical grouping of various people indigenous to Melanesia and Australia. Controversially, groups from Southeast Asia an ...
peoples of short stature. The
Taron people
The Taron or Trone (တရုမ်း ) are an ethnic group in the Himalayan foothills of northern Kachin, Myanmar, whose population is declining to the point where they may disappear entirely. They have been referred to as the "East Asian pygm ...
of
Myanmar
Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
are an exceptional case of a "pygmy" population of
East Asian phenotype.
Etymology
![DR Congo pygmy family](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/DR_Congo_pygmy_family.jpg)
The term ''pygmy'', as used to refer to diminutive people, derives from
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
πυγμαῖος ''pygmaios'' via
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''Pygmaei'' (sing. ''Pygmaeus''), derived from πυγμή – meaning a short forearm cubit, or a measure of length corresponding to the distance from the wrist to the elbow or knuckles. (See also
Greek πῆχυς ''pēkhys''.) In
Greek mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the origin and nature of the world, the lives and activities ...
the word describes a tribe of
dwarfs, first described by
Homer
Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...
, the ancient Greek poet, and reputed to live in India and south of modern-day Ethiopia.
The term ''pygmy'' is sometimes considered
pejorative
A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
. However, there is no single term to replace it. In French speaking Africa, they are sometimes referred to as autochthon,
(''autochtone''), referring to 'native' or 'indigenous'. Many prefer to be identified by their ethnicity, such as the
Aka (Mbenga),
Baka,
Mbuti
The Mbuti people, or Bambuti, are one of several indigenous pygmy groups in the Congo region of Africa. Their languages are Central Sudanic languages and Bantu languages.
Subgroups
Bambuti are pygmy hunter-gatherers, and are one of the old ...
, and
Twa
Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with ...
.
The term ''Bayaka'', the plural form of the Aka/Yaka, is sometimes used in the
Central African Republic
The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of th ...
to refer to all local pygmies. Likewise, the
Kongo word ''Bambenga'' is used in
Congo. In parts of Africa they are called Wochua or Achua.
Short stature
Various theories have been proposed to explain the short stature of pygmies. Some studies suggest that it could be related to adaptation to low
ultraviolet
Ultraviolet (UV) is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelength from 10 nm (with a corresponding frequency around 30 PHz) to 400 nm (750 THz), shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays. UV radiation ...
light levels in
rainforests. This might mean that relatively little
vitamin D
Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble secosteroids responsible for increasing intestinal absorption of calcium, magnesium, and phosphate, and many other biological effects. In humans, the most important compounds in this group are vitamin D3 (c ...
can be made in human skin, thereby limiting
calcium
Calcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar t ...
uptake from the diet for bone growth and maintenance and leading to the evolution of the small skeletal size.
Other explanations include lack of food in the rainforest environment, low calcium levels in the soil, the need to move through dense jungle, adaptation to heat and humidity, and as an association with rapid reproductive maturation under conditions of early mortality. Other evidence points towards unusually low levels of expression of the genes encoding the
growth hormone receptor
Growth hormone receptor is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''GHR'' gene. GHR orthologs have been identified in most mammals.
Structure
Growth hormone receptor (GHR) is a transmembrane protein consisting of 620 amino acids. The recep ...
and
growth hormone
Growth hormone (GH) or somatotropin, also known as human growth hormone (hGH or HGH) in its human form, is a peptide hormone that stimulates growth, cell reproduction, and cell regeneration in humans and other animals. It is thus important in h ...
compared to the related tribal groups, associated with low serum levels of
insulin-like growth factor 1
Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), also called somatomedin C, is a hormone similar in molecular structure to insulin which plays an important role in childhood growth, and has anabolic effects in adults.
IGF-1 is a protein that in humans ...
and short stature.
[
]
Africa
African Pygmies
The African Pygmies (or Congo Pygmies, variously also Central African foragers, "African rainforest hunter-gatherers" (RHG) or "Forest People of Central Africa") are a group of ethnicities native to Central Africa, mostly the Congo Basin, tra ...
live in several ethnic groups in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo (ROC), Central African Republic, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Madagascar, and Zambia.
There are at least a dozen pygmy groups, sometimes unrelated to each other. The best known are the
Mbenga (Aka and Baka) of the western
Congo basin, who speak
Bantu and
Ubangian languages
The Ubangian languages form a diverse linkage of some seventy languages centered on the Central African Republic. They are the predominant languages of the CAR, spoken by 2–3 million people, and include the national language, Sango. They are ...
; the
Mbuti
The Mbuti people, or Bambuti, are one of several indigenous pygmy groups in the Congo region of Africa. Their languages are Central Sudanic languages and Bantu languages.
Subgroups
Bambuti are pygmy hunter-gatherers, and are one of the old ...
(Efe ''etc.'') of the
Ituri Rainforest
The Ituri Rainforest is a rainforest located in the Ituri Province of northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. The forest's name derives from the nearby Ituri River which flows through the rainforest, connecting firstly to the Aruwimi Ri ...
, who speak Bantu and
Central Sudanic languages
Central Sudanic is a family of about sixty languages that have been included in the proposed Nilo-Saharan language family. Central Sudanic languages are spoken in the Central African Republic, Chad, South Sudan, Uganda, Congo (DRC), Nigeria and ...
, and the
Twa
Trans World Airlines (TWA) was a major American airline which operated from 1930 until 2001. It was formed as Transcontinental & Western Air to operate a route from New York City to Los Angeles via St. Louis, Kansas City, and other stops, with ...
of the
African Great Lakes
The African Great Lakes ( sw, Maziwa Makuu; rw, Ibiyaga bigari) are a series of lakes constituting the part of the Rift Valley lakes in and around the East African Rift. They include Lake Victoria, the second-largest fresh water lake in th ...
, who speak Bantu
Rundi and
Kiga. Most pygmy communities are partially hunter-gatherers, living partially but not exclusively on the wild products of their environment. They trade with neighbouring farmers to acquire cultivated foods and other material items; no group lives deep in the forest without access to agricultural products.
It is estimated that there are between 250,000 and 600,000 Pygmies living in the
Congo rainforest.
However, although Pygmies are thought of as forest people, the groups called Twa may live in open swamp or desert.
Origins
Expansion to Central Africa by the ancestors of African Pygmies most likely took place before 130,000 years ago, and certainly before 60,000 years ago.
A commonly held belief is that African Pygmies are the direct descendants of
Late Stone Age hunter-gatherer peoples of the central African rainforest, who were partially absorbed or displaced by later immigration of agricultural peoples, and adopted their
Central Sudanic,
Ubangian
The Ubangian languages form a diverse linkage of some seventy languages centered on the Central African Republic. They are the predominant languages of the CAR, spoken by 2–3 million people, and include the national language, Sango. They ar ...
, and Bantu languages. This view has no archaeological support and ambiguous support from genetics and linguistics.
Some 30% of
Aka language is not Bantu, and a similar percentage of
Baka language is not Ubangian. Much of pygmy vocabulary is botanical, dealing with honey collecting, or is otherwise specialized for the forest and is shared between the two western pygmy groups. It has been proposed that this is the remnant of an independent western pygmy (Mbenga or "Baaka") language. However, this type of vocabulary is subject to widespread borrowing among the Pygmies and neighboring peoples, and the "Baaka" language was only reconstructed to the 15th century.
African Pygmy populations are genetically diverse and extremely divergent from all other human populations, suggesting they have an ancient indigenous lineage. Their
uniparental markers represent the second-most ancient divergence, after those typically found in
Khoisan peoples.
[ Also see ] Recent advances in genetics shed some light on the origins of the various Pygmy groups. Researchers found "an early divergence of the ancestors of Pygmy hunter–gatherers and farming populations 60,000 years ago, followed by a split of the Pygmies' ancestors into the Western and Eastern pygmy groups 20,000 years ago."
New evidence suggests East and West African Pygmy children have different growth patterns. The difference between the two groups may indicate the Pygmies’ short stature did not start with their common ancestor but instead evolved independently in adapting to similar environments, which adds support that some sets of genes related to height were advantageous in Eastern Pygmy populations, but not in Western Pygmy populations.
However,
Roger Blench
Roger Marsh Blench (born August 1, 1953) is a British linguist, ethnomusicologist and development anthropologist. He has an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and is based in Cambridge, England. He researches, publishes, and work ...
argues that the Pygmies are not descended from residual hunter-gatherer groups but rather are offshoots of larger neighboring ethnolinguistic groups that had adopted forest subsistence strategies. Blench notes the lack of clear linguistic and archaeological evidence for the antiquity of pygmy cultures and peoples and also notes that the genetic evidence can be problematic. Blench also notes that there is no evidence of the Pygmies have hunting technology distinctive from that of their neighbors, and argues that the short stature of pygmy populations can arise relatively quickly (in less than a few millennia) due to strong selection pressures.
Culture
![Baka dancers June 2006](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Baka_dancers_June_2006.jpg)
The African Pygmies are particularly known for their usually vocal music, usually characterised by dense contrapuntal communal improvisation.
Simha Arom
Simha Arom (born 1930) is a French-Israeli ethnomusicologist who is recognized as a world expert on the music of central Africa, especially that of the Central African Republic. His books include '' African Polyphony and Polyrhythm: Musical Stru ...
says that the level of polyphonic complexity of pygmy music was reached in Europe in the 14th century, yet Pygmy culture is unwritten and ancient. Music permeates daily life and there are songs for entertainment as well as specific events and activities.
Violence against Pygmies
Reported genocides
The pygmy population was a target of the
Interahamwe
The Interahamwe ( or ) is a Hutu paramilitary organization active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. The Interahamwe was formed around 1990 as the youth wing of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND ...
during the 1994
Rwandan genocide
The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed H ...
. Of the 30,000 Pygmies in Rwanda, an estimated 10,000 were killed and another 10,000 were displaced. They have been described as "forgotten victims" of the genocide.
["In Rwanda, an estimated 10,000 of the 30,000-strong pygmy community was slaughtered during the Rwandan genocide, making them the "forgotten victims" of the Rwandan genocide."]
From the end of 2002 through January 2003 around 60,000 Pygmy civilians and 10,000 combatants were killed and often
cannibalized in an extermination campaign known as "
Effacer le tableau
''Effacer le tableau'' (, literally "erase the board" or "clean the slate") was the operational name given to the systematic extermination of the Bambuti pygmies by rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
History
The ex ...
" during the
Second Congo War.
["Between October 2002 and January 2003, two the rebel groups, the MLC and RCD-N in the East of the Congo launched a premeditated, systematic genocide against the local tribes and Pygmies nicknamed operation "]Effacer le tableau
''Effacer le tableau'' (, literally "erase the board" or "clean the slate") was the operational name given to the systematic extermination of the Bambuti pygmies by rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
History
The ex ...
" ("erase the board"). During their offensive against the civilian population of the Ituri region, the rebel groups left more than 60,000 dead and over 100,000 displaced. The rebels even engaged in slavery and cannibalism. Human Rights Reports state that this was due to the fact that rebel groups, often far away from their bases of supply and desperate for food, enslaved the Pygmies on captured farms to grow provisions for their militias or when times get really tough simply slaughter them like animals and devour their flesh which some believe gives them magical powers.11. Fatality Level of Dispute (military and civilian fatalities): 70,000 estimated"see: Human rights activists have made demands for the massacre to be recognized as
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
.
=Forced removal
=
In a strategy referred to as
fortress conservation, in national parks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, such as
Kahuzi-Biéga National Park
The Kahuzi-Biega National Park is a protected area near Bukavu town in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is situated near the western bank of Lake Kivu and the Rwandan border. Established in 1970 by the Belgian photographer and conserv ...
; Messok Dja protected area in the Republic of the Congo;
and Cameroon's
Lobéké National Park
Lobéké National Park (alternate: Lake Lobake National Park) is a national park of southeastern Cameroon within the Moloundou Arrondissement of East Province. Located in the Congo Basin, it is bounded on the east by the Sangha River which serve ...
,
heavily armed park rangers come into deadly conflict with the Pygmy inhabitants who often cut the trees down to sell charcoal.
[ The conservation efforts of national parks in the country are often financed by international organizations such as the ]World Wildlife Fund
The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wo ...
and often involve removing native inhabitants off the land. Some have argued that the most efficient conservation methods involve giving land rights to the land's indigenous inhabitants.
Reported slavery
In the Republic of the Congo, where Pygmies make up 2% of the population, many Pygmies live as slaves to Bantu masters. The nation is deeply stratified between these two major ethnic groups. The Pygmy slaves belong to their Bantu masters from birth in a relationship that the Bantus call a time-honored tradition. Even though the Pygmies are responsible for much of the hunting, fishing and manual labor in jungle villages, Pygmies and Bantus alike say that Pygmies are often paid at the master's whim: in cigarettes, used clothing, or simply not paid at all. As a result of pressure from UNICEF
UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to ...
and human-rights activists, in 2009, a law that would grant special protections to the Pygmy people was awaiting a vote by the Congo parliament. According to reports made in 2013, this law was never passed.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, during the Ituri conflict
The Ituri conflict (french: Guerre d'Ituri) is an ongoing conflict between the agriculturalist Lendu and pastoralist Hema ethnic groups in the Ituri region of the north-eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). While the two groups had ...
, Ugandan-backed rebel groups were accused by the UN of enslaving Mbutis to prospect for minerals and forage for forest food, with those returning empty handed being killed and eaten.
Ethnic conflict
In Northern Katanga Province starting in 2013, the Pygmy Batwa people, whom the Luba people
The Luba people or Baluba are an ethno-linguistic group indigenous to the south-central region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The majority of them live in this country, residing mainly in Katanga, Kasai and Maniema. The Baluba Tribe ...
often exploit and allegedly enslave,[ rose up into militias, such as the "Perci" militia, and attacked Luba villages.] A Luba militia known as "Elements" counterattacked. More than a thousand people were killed in the first eight months of 2014 alone with the number of displaced people estimated to be 650,000 as of December 2017. The weapons used in the conflict are often arrows and axes, rather than guns.[
]
Discrimination
Historically, the pygmy have always been viewed as inferior by both colonial authorities and the village-dwelling Bantu tribes. Pygmy children were sometimes captured during the period of the Congo Free State, which exported Pygmy children to zoos throughout Europe, including the world's fair in the United States in 1907. Pygmies are often evicted from their land and given the lowest paying jobs. At a state level, Pygmies are sometimes not considered citizens and are refused identity cards, deeds to land, health care and proper schooling. ''The Lancet
''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823.
The journal publishes original research articles, ...
'' published a review showing that Pygmy populations often had worse access to health care than neighboring communities.
Asia and Pacific
Southeast Asia
Negrito
The term Negrito () refers to several diverse ethnic groups who inhabit isolated parts of Southeast Asia and the Andaman Islands. Populations often described as Negrito include: the Andamanese peoples (including the Great Andamanese, the O ...
s in Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainlan ...
(including the Batak and Aeta
The Aeta (Ayta ), Agta, or Dumagat, are collective terms for several Filipino indigenous peoples who live in various parts of the island of Luzon in the Philippines. They are considered to be part of the Negrito ethnic groups and share common ...
of the Philippines, the Andamanese
The Andamanese are the indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, part of India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands union territory in the southeastern part of the Bay of Bengal in Southeast Asia. The Andamanese peoples are among the various groups ...
of the Andaman Islands, and the Semang
The Semang are an ethnic-minority group of the Malay Peninsula. They live in mountainous and isolated forest regions of Perak, Pahang, Kelantan and Kedah of Malaysia and the southern provinces of Thailand. The Semang are among the different eth ...
of the Malay Peninsula) are sometimes called pygmies (especially in older literature). Negritos share some common physical features with African pygmy populations, including short stature and dark skin
Dark skin is a type of human skin color that is rich in melanin pigments. People with very dark skin are often referred to as " black people", although this usage can be ambiguous in some countries where it is also used to specifically refer to ...
. The name "Negrito", from the Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
adjective meaning "small black person", was given by early explorers. The explorers who named the Negritos assumed the Andamanese they encountered were from Africa. This belief was, however, discarded by anthropologists who noted that apart from dark skin, peppercorn hair, and steatopygia, the Andamanese had little in common with any African population, including the African pygmies. Their superficial resemblance to some Africans and Melanesians
Melanesians are the predominant and indigenous inhabitants of Melanesia, in a wide area from Indonesia's New Guinea to as far East as the islands of Vanuatu and Fiji. Most speak either one of the many languages of the Austronesian language f ...
is thought to be from living in a similar environment, or simply retentions of the initial human form.
Their origin and the route of their migration to Asia is a matter of great speculation. They are genetically distant from Africans and have been shown to have separated early from Asians, suggesting that they are either surviving descendants of settlers from the early out-of-Africa migration of the Great Coastal Migration
In the context of the recent African origin of modern humans, the Southern Dispersal scenario (also the coastal migration or great coastal migration hypothesis) refers to the early migration along the southern coast of Asia, from the Arabian Pe ...
of the Proto-Australoids, or that they are descendants of one of the founder populations of modern humans.
Frank Kingdon-Ward
Francis Kingdon-Ward, born Francis Kingdon Ward OBE, (6 November 1885 in Manchester – 8 April 1958) was an English botanist, explorer, plant collector and author. He published most of his books as Frank Kingdon-Ward and this hyphenated for ...
in the early 20th century reported a tribe of pygmy Tibeto-Burman
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people spea ...
speakers known as the Taron inhabiting the remote region of Mt. Hkakabo Razi in Southeast Asia on the border of China (Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...
and Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...
), Burma, and India. A Burmese survey done in the 1960s reported a mean height of an adult male Taron at 1.43 m (4'6") and that of females at 1.40 m (4'5"). These are the only known "pygmies" of clearly East Asian descent.
The cause of their diminutive size is unknown, but diet and endogamous
Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting those from others as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships.
Endogamy is common in many cultu ...
marriage practices have been cited. The population of Taron pygmies has been steadily shrinking and is now down to only a few individuals. In 2013, a link between the Taron and the Derung people
The Derung (also spelt ''Drung'' or ''Dulong'') people (; endonym: ) are an ethnic group. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by China. Their population of 6,000 is found in the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture of Yun ...
in Yunnan
Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the C ...
, China, was uncovered by Richard D. Fisher, which may indicate the presence of pygmy populations among the Derung tribe.
Disputed pygmy presence in Australia
Australian anthropologist Norman Tindale
Norman Barnett Tindale AO (12 October 1900 – 19 November 1993) was an Australian anthropologist, archaeologist, entomologist and ethnologist.
Life
Tindale was born in Perth, Western Australia in 1900. His family moved to Tokyo and lived ther ...
and American anthropologist Joseph Birdsell suggested there were 12 Negrito-like tribes of short-statured Aboriginal peoples living on the coastal and rainforest areas around Cairns on the lands of the Mbabaram people
Mbabaram or Mbabaɽam, often referred to as the Barbaram people, are an Indigenous Australian people living in Queensland in the rainforests of the Atherton Tableland.
Language
For a long time mystery surrounded the Mbabaram language. The litt ...
and Djabugay people. Birdsell found that the average adult male height of Aboriginal people in this region was significantly less than that of other Aboriginal Australian groups; however, it was still greater than the maximum height for classification as a pygmy people, so the term ''pygmy'' may be considered a misnomer. He called this short-statured group ''Barrineans'', after Lake Barrine.
Birdsell classified Aboriginal Australians into three major groups, mixed together to varying degrees: the Carpentarians, best represented in Arnhem Land; the Murrayans, centred in southeastern Australia; and the Barrineans. He argued that people related to Oceanic Negritos were the first arrivals, and had been absorbed or replaced over time by later incoming peoples; the present-day Barrineans retained the greatest proportion of ancestry from this original Negrito group, " t this is not to say that the Barrineans are Negritos ... the Negritic component is clearly subordinate, and ... the preponderant element is Murrayian." This trihybrid model is generally considered defunct today; craniometric, genetic, and linguistic evidence does not support a separate origin of Barrinean or other Aboriginal groups, and physical differences between Aboriginal groups can be explained by adaptation to differing environments.
In 2002 the purported existence of short-statured people in Queensland was brought into the public eye by Keith Windschuttle
Keith Windschuttle (born 1942) is an Australian historian and former board member of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
He was editor of '' Quadrant'' from 2007 to 2015 when he became chair of the board and editor-in-chief. He was the pub ...
and Tim Gillin in an article published by the right-wing Quadrant magazine (edited by Windschuttle himself). The authors argued that these people were evidence for a distinct Negrito population in support of Birdsell's theory, and claimed that "the fact that the Australian pygmies have been so thoroughly expunged from public memory suggests an indecent concurrence between scholarly and political interests", because evidence of descent from earlier or later waves of origin could lead to conflicting claims of priority by Aboriginal people and hence pose a threat to political co-operation among them. This and other publications promoting the trihybrid model drew several responses, which went over the current scientific evidence against the theory, and suggested that attempts to revive the theory were motivated by an agenda of undermining Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander claims to native title
Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...
.
Some Aboriginal oral histories
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...
and oral tradition
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985) ...
s from Queensland tell of "little red men". In 1957 the last remaining survivor of the Jinibara (the Dalla people
The Dalla, also known as Jinibara, are an indigenous Australian people of southern Queensland whose tribal lands lay close to Brisbane.
Language
The term Dalla refers to a variety of staghorn fern, which was said to be applied also the language ...
) tribe of SE Queensland, Gaiarbau, who was born in 1873 and had lived for many years traditionally with his tribe, said that he knew of the "existence of these “little people – the Dinderi", also known as "Dimbilum", "Danagalalangur" and "Kandju". Gaiarbau claims he saw members of a "tribe of small people ... and said they were like dwarfs ... and ... not ... any of them stood five feet .5m" The Dinderi are also recorded in other stories, such as one concerning a platypus
The platypus (''Ornithorhynchus anatinus''), sometimes referred to as the duck-billed platypus, is a semiaquatic, egg-laying mammal endemic to eastern Australia, including Tasmania. The platypus is the sole living representative or mono ...
myth and another, ''The Dinderi and Gujum - The Legend of the Stones of the Mary River''.
Susan McIntyre-Tamwoy, archaeologist and Adjunct Professor at James Cook University, has written of the northern Cape York Aboriginal people's belief of the ''bipotaim'', which is when “the landscape as we know it today was created”. ''Bipotaim'' was formed “before people, although not perhaps before the short people or the red devils as these were also here before people”. She writes, “many ethnographers recorded stories of ‘short people’ or what they referred to as ‘pygmy tribes’", such as Lindsey Page Winterbotham. She used information collected both through oral accounts (including those of Injinoo
The Injinoo were an Indigenous Australian people of the Cape York Peninsula, and their name now applies to a tribal aggregation of remnants of various tribes of the Cape York Peninsula.
Country
The traditional lands of the Injinoo Community ext ...
people), observation and archival research. McIntyre-Tamwoy recounts a ''bipotaim'' story: "We are the short people ygmies? Red devils occupy parts of the adjacent stony coast but our home is here in the sand dunes and forest. Before the Marakai white people'came to our land the people were plentiful and they roamed the land. They understood the land and called out in the language of the country to seek permission, as they should ...".
According to Nathan Sentance, a librarian from the indigenous Wiradjuri nation employed by the Australian National Museum, there is no known archaeological or biological evidence such a people existed. Sentance claims it is a myth used to justify the colonisation of Australia
Colonization, or colonisation, constitutes large-scale population movements wherein migrants maintain strong links with their, or their ancestors', former country – by such links, gain advantage over other inhabitants of the territory. When ...
as well as other countries by Europeans.
Micronesia and Melanesia
Norman Gabel mentions that rumours exist of pygmy people in the interior mountains of Viti Levu
Viti Levu (pronounced ) is the largest island in the Republic of Fiji. It is the site of the nation's capital, Suva, and home to a large majority of Fiji's population.
Geology
Fiji lies in a tectonically complex area between the Australian ...
in Fiji, but explains he had no evidence of their existence.
E. W. Gifford reiterates Gabel's statement and claims that tribes of pygmies in the closest proximity to Fiji would most likely be found in Vanuatu.
In 2008, the remains of at least 25 miniature humans, who lived between 1,000 and 3,000 years ago, were found on the islands of Palau
Palau,, officially the Republic of Palau and historically ''Belau'', ''Palaos'' or ''Pelew'', is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the ...
in Micronesia.
During the 1900s, when Vanuatu
Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...
was known as New Hebrides
New Hebrides, officially the New Hebrides Condominium (french: link=no, Condominium des Nouvelles-Hébrides, "Condominium of the New Hebrides") and named after the Hebrides Scottish archipelago, was the colonial name for the island group ...
, sizable pygmy tribes were first reported throughout northeastern Santo. It is likely that they are not limited to this region of New Hebrides. Nonetheless, there is no anthropological evidence linking pygmies to other islands of Vanuatu.
Archaic humans
The extinct archaic human
A number of varieties of '' Homo'' are grouped into the broad category of archaic humans in the period that precedes and is contemporary to the emergence of the earliest early modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') around 300 ka. Omo-Kibish I (Omo I) f ...
species ''Homo luzonensis
''Homo luzonensis'', also locally called "Ubag" after a mythical caveman, is an extinct, possibly pygmy peoples, pygmy, species of archaic human from the Late Pleistocene of Luzon, the Philippines. Their remains, teeth and phalanges, are known on ...
'' has been classified as a pygmy group. The remains used to identify ''Homo luzonensis'' were discovered in Luzon
Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...
, the Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
in 2007, and were designated as a species in 2019. ''Homo floresiensis
''Homo floresiensis'' also known as "Flores Man"; nicknamed "Hobbit") is an extinct species of small archaic human that inhabited the island of Flores, Indonesia, until the arrival of modern humans about 50,000 years ago.
The remains of an in ...
'', another archaic human from the island of Flores in Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
, stood around 1.1 m (3 ft 7 in) tall. The pygmy phenotype evolved as a result of island syndrome
Island syndrome describes the differences in morphology, ecology, physiology and behaviour of insular species compared to their continental counterparts. These differences evolve due to the different ecological pressures affecting insular speci ...
which, amongst other things, results in reduced body size in insular humans.
See also
* Koro-pok-guru
Korpokkur ( ain, コㇿポックㇽ; ja, コロポックル, translit=Koropokkuru), also written Koro-pok-kuru, korobokkuru, korbokkur, or koropokkur,Ainu-Grammatik, vol.2 Hans Adalbert Dettmer, O. Harrassowitz, 1997 koro-pok-guru, are a race of ...
, small people in Ainu folklore
* Ota Benga
Ota Benga ( – March 20, 1916) was a Mbuti ( Congo pygmy) man, known for being featured in an exhibit at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, and as a human zoo exhibit in 1906 at the Bronx Zoo. Benga had been pur ...
, man taken as slave and zoo exhibit to the U.S.
* Vazimba
The Vazimba (Malagasy ), according to popular belief, were the first inhabitants of Madagascar. While beliefs about the physical appearance of the Vazimba reflect regional variation, they are generally described as smaller in stature than the aver ...
, possible first inhabitants of Madagascar
* ''Homo floriensis
''Homo floresiensis'' also known as "Flores Man"; nicknamed "Hobbit") is an extinct species of small archaic human that inhabited the island of Flores, Indonesia, until the arrival of modern humans about 50,000 years ago.
The remains of an in ...
'', an extinct species of short humans
* Island syndrome
Island syndrome describes the differences in morphology, ecology, physiology and behaviour of insular species compared to their continental counterparts. These differences evolve due to the different ecological pressures affecting insular speci ...
, the set of conditions which develop in island-dwelling organisms, including the pygmy phenotype in human people
* Dwarfs and pygmies in ancient Egypt
References
External links
{{Scholia, topic
African Pygmies: Hunter-Gatherer Peoples of Central Africa
Smithsonian Magazine, December 2008 by Paul Raffaele
Survival International: Pygmies
Pygmy Survival Alliance
Undated footage of Pygmy tribe constructing a vine bridge
Mbuti Net Hunters of the Ituri Forest, story with photos and link to Audio Slideshow
By Todd Pitman, The Associated Press, 2010.
Pygmyism
In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a pop ...
Pygmyism
In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a pop ...
Hunter-gatherers of Oceania
Hunter-gatherers of Asia
Ethnonyms