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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 behavi ...
, 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 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 The Congo Basin (french: Bassin du Congo) is the sedimentary basin of the Congo River. The Congo Basin is located in Central Africa, in a region known as west equatorial Africa. The Congo Basin region is sometimes known simply as the Congo. It c ...
(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, trad ...
,
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 Onge, ...
populations of Southeast Asia 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 a ...
peoples of short stature. The Taron people of Myanmar are an exceptional case of a "pygmy" population of
East Asian East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...
phenotype.


Etymology

The term ''pygmy'', as used to refer to diminutive people, derives from Greek πυγμαῖος ''pygmaios'' via Latin ''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 the word describes a tribe of dwarfs, first described by Homer, 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 Aka, AKA or a.k.a. may refer to: * "Also known as", used to introduce an alternative name Languages * Aka language (Sudan) * Aka language, in the Central African Republic * Hruso language, in India, also referred to as Aka * a prefix in the n ...
(Mbenga),
Baka Baka, baká or BAKA may refer to: Ethnicities and languages * Baka people (Cameroon and Gabon), an African ethnic group * Baka people (Congo and South Sudan), an African ethnic group * Baka language, a dialect cluster of Cameroon and Gabon * Baka ...
, Mbuti, and Twa. The term ''Bayaka'', the plural form of the Aka/Yaka, is sometimes used in the Central African Republic 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 light levels in rainforests. This might mean that relatively little vitamin D 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 ...
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 rec ...
and growth hormone 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 The Congo Basin (french: Bassin du Congo) is the sedimentary basin of the Congo River. The Congo Basin is located in Central Africa, in a region known as west equatorial Africa. The Congo Basin region is sometimes known simply as the Congo. It c ...
, who speak
Bantu Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language * Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle * Black Association for Nationa ...
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 ar ...
; the Mbuti (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 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 the wo ...
, 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 The Congolian rainforests are a broad belt of lowland tropical moist broadleaf forests which extend across the basin of the Congo River and its tributaries in Central Africa. They are the only major rainforests which absorb more carbon than they ...
. 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 The Later Stone Age (LSA) is a period in African prehistory that follows the Middle Stone Age. The Later Stone Age is associated with the advent of modern human behavior in Africa, although definitions of this concept and means of studying it a ...
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 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 ...
, Ubangian, and Bantu languages. This view has no archaeological support and ambiguous support from genetics and linguistics. Some 30% of
Aka language Aka, also known as Yaka or Beka, is a Bantu language spoken in the Central African Republic and Republic of Congo, along the Ubangi River dividing the two countries. Aka is spoken by the Aka people, pygmies closely related to the Ubangian-sp ...
is not Bantu, and a similar percentage of
Baka language Baka (also called ''Be-bayaga, Be-bayaka,'' and ''Bibaya de L’est'') is a dialect cluster of Ubangian languages spoken by the Baka Pygmies of Cameroon and Gabon. The people are ethnically close to the Aka, the two together called the Mbeng ...
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 works ...
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

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 Struc ...
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 Hutu ...
. 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 e ...
" during the
Second Congo War The Second Congo War,, group=lower-alpha also known as the Great War of Africa or the Great African War and sometimes referred to as the African World War, began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in August 1998, little more than a year a ...
."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 e ...
" ("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.


=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 conservat ...
; 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 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 Bantu may refer to: *Bantu languages, constitute the largest sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages *Bantu peoples, over 400 peoples of Africa speaking a Bantu language * Bantu knots, a type of African hairstyle * Black Association for Nationa ...
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 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 ha ...
, 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 Katanga was one of the four large provinces created in the Belgian Congo in 1914. It was one of the eleven provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between 1966 and 2015, when it was split into the Tanganyika, Haut-Lomami, Lualaba, ...
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 c ...
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 ''(Work and Progress) , national_anthem = Vers l'avenir , capital = Vivi Boma , currency = Congo Free State franc , religion = Catholicism (''de facto'') , leader1 = Leopo ...
, 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'' 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 Onge, ...
s in Southeast Asia (including the
Batak Batak is a collective term used to identify a number of closely related Austronesian ethnic groups predominantly found in North Sumatra, Indonesia, who speak Batak languages. The term is used to include the Karo, Pakpak, Simalungun, Toba, ...
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 grou ...
of the
Andaman Islands The Andaman Islands () are an archipelago in the northeastern Indian Ocean about southwest off the coasts of Myanmar's Ayeyarwady Region. Together with the Nicobar Islands to their south, the Andamans serve as a maritime boundary between the ...
, and the Semang 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 fa ...
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 Pen ...
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 form ...
in the early 20th century reported a tribe of pygmy Tibeto-Burman speakers known as the Taron inhabiting the remote region of Mt.
Hkakabo Razi Hkakabo Razi ( my, ခါကာဘိုရာဇီ, ; or ) is believed to be Myanmar's highest mountain. The -tall mountain is the highest mountain in Southeast Asia as well. It is located in the northern Myanmar state of Kachin in an outlyin ...
in Southeast Asia on the border of China ( Yunnan and Tibet), 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 East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...
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 in Yunnan, 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 the ...
and American anthropologist
Joseph Birdsell Joseph Benjamin Birdsell (March 30, 1908 – March 5, 1994) of Harvard University and UCLA was an anthropologist who studied Aboriginal Australians. Early life Born in South Bend, Indiana, Birdsell earned his degrees at the Massachusetts Institut ...
suggested there were 12 Negrito-like tribes of short-statured Aboriginal peoples living on the coastal and rainforest areas around
Cairns Cairns (, ) is a city in Queensland, Australia, on the tropical north east coast of Far North Queensland. The population in June 2019 was 153,952, having grown on average 1.02% annually over the preceding five years. The city is the 5th-most-p ...
on the lands of the Mbabaram people and
Djabugay The Djabugay people (also known as Djabuganydji or Tjapukai) are a group of Australian Aboriginal people who are the original inhabitants of mountains, gorges, lands and waters of a richly forested part of the Great Dividing Range including t ...
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 Lake Barrine is a freshwater lake on the eastern parts of Atherton Tableland in the locality of Lake Barrine, in the Tablelands Region of Far North Queensland, Australia, close to Lake Eacham. The lake and surrounds are protected within the ...
. Birdsell classified Aboriginal Australians into three major groups, mixed together to varying degrees: the Carpentarians, best represented in
Arnhem Land Arnhem Land is a historical region of the Northern Territory of Australia, with the term still in use. It is located in the north-eastern corner of the territory and is around from the territory capital, Darwin. In 1623, Dutch East India Compan ...
; 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 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. Some Aboriginal oral histories and oral traditions 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 t ...
) 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 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 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' White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. Whit ...
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 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 in Micronesia. During the 1900s, when Vanuatu was known as New Hebrides, 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'' has been classified as a pygmy group. The remains used to identify ''Homo luzonensis'' were discovered in Luzon,
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 i ...
'', another archaic human from the island of Flores in Indonesia, 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 specie ...
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 ave ...
, possible first inhabitants of Madagascar * '' Homo floriensis'', 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 specie ...
, the set of conditions which develop in island-dwelling organisms, including the pygmy phenotype in human people *
Dwarfs and pygmies in ancient Egypt In ancient Egypt, especially during the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods, dwarfs and pygmies were seen as people with celestial gifts. They were treated with considerable respect and could enjoy high social positions. During the 1st Dynas ...


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