The term Negrito () refers to several diverse ethnic groups who inhabit isolated parts 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 the Andaman Islands. Populations often described as Negrito include: the Andamanese peoples (including the Great Andamanese, the Onge, the Jarawa, and the Sentinelese) of the Andaman Islands, the Semang peoples (among them, the Batek people) of Peninsular Malaysia, the Maniq people of

Southern Thailand Southern Thailand, Southern Siam or Tambralinga is a southernmost cultural region of Thailand, separated from Central Thailand region by the Kra Isthmus. Geography Southern Thailand is on the Malay Peninsula, with an area of around , bounde ...

, as well as the

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 ...

Luzon Island 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, ...

, Ati, and Tumandok of Panay Island, Agta of

Sierra Madre Sierra Madre (Spanish, 'mother mountain range') may refer to: Places and mountains Mexico *Sierra Madre Occidental, a mountain range in northwestern Mexico and southern Arizona *Sierra Madre Oriental, a mountain range in northeastern Mexico *S ...

and Mamanwa of

Mindanao Island Mindanao ( ) ( Jawi: مينداناو) is the second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the island is part of an island group of t ...

and about 30 other officially recognized ethnic groups in the Philippines.

Etymology

The word ''Negrito'' is the Spanish diminutive of ''

negro In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...

'', 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. Contemporary usage of an alternative Spanish epithet, ''Negrillos'', also tended to bundle these peoples with the pygmy peoples of

Central Africa Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo ...

on the basis of perceived similarities in stature and complexion. (Historically, the label ''Negrito'' has also been used to refer to African pygmies.) The appropriateness of using the label "Negrito" to bundle peoples of different

ethnicities An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

by similarities in stature and complexion has been challenged.

Culture

Most groups designated as "Negrito" lived as hunter-gatherers, while some also used

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...

, 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.

Origins

PCA of Orang Asli and Andamanese with world populations in HGDP

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 which 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. 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 Convergent evolution is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different periods or epochs in time. Convergent evolution creates analogous structures that have similar form or function but were not present in the last com ...

and positive selection, rather than a remnant of a shared common ancestor, as suggested previously by some researchers. A Negrito-like population was mostly likely also present in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

before the Neolithic expansion and must have had 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 Taiwanese indigenous peoples (formerly Taiwanese aborigines), also known as Formosan people, Austronesian Taiwanese, Yuanzhumin or Gaoshan people, are the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, with the nationally recognized subgroups numbering about 5 ...

about people with "dark skin, short-and-small body stature, frizzy hair, and occupation in forested mountains or remote caves".

Notes

References

External links

''Negritos of Zambales''
��detailed book written by an American at the turn of the previous century holistically describing the Negrito culture

The Southeast Asian Negrito
{{Authority control Demographics of the Philippines Ethnic groups in Malaysia Ethnic groups in Thailand Ethnic groups in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Ethnic groups in the Philippines Indigenous peoples of South Asia Indigenous peoples of Southeast Asia Austronesian peoples