Pygmies

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Baka dancers in the East Province of Cameroon
Baka dancers in the East Province of Cameroon
Batwa dancers in Uganda
Batwa dancers in Uganda
This article is about the Pygmy people. For other uses, see Special:Prefixindex/Pygmy.

Pygmies (singular: Pygmy) refers to various Nilo-Saharan and Niger-Congo speaking peoples of central Africa whose adults have an average height of 150 centimeters (4 feet 11 inches) or shorter.[1] The term is also sometimes applied to the so-called Negrito peoples living in isolated parts of Southeast Asia,[2] and occasionally indiscriminately to individuals of unusually short stature.[2]

The term "Pygmy" is often considered belittling. However, there is no single term to replace it that covers all African Pygmies.[3] Many so called pygmies prefer instead to be referred to by the name of their various ethnic groups, or names for various interrelated groups such as the Aka (Mbenga), Baka, Mbuti, and Twa.[4] 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.

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[edit] Etymology

Main article: Pygmy (mythology)

The term pygmy, as used to refer to diminutive people, derives from Greek Pygmaioi via Latin Pygmaei (sing. Pygmaeus), a measure of length corresponding to the distance between the elbow and knuckles. (See also Greek pechua (πεχυα)). In Greek mythology the word describes a tribe of dwarfs, first described by Homer, and reputed to live in Ethiopia.[5]

[edit] Origins

A commonly held view is that the Pygmies are the direct descendents of the 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, Adamawa-Ubangian, and Bantu languages. This view has no archaeological support, and ambiguous support from genetics and linguistics. [6] [7] [7][8] Some 30% of the Aka language is not Bantu, and a similar percentage of the Baka language is not Ubangian. Much of this vocabulary is botanical, deals 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.[9]

Genetically, the eastern Mbuti pygmies are extremely divergent from other human populations, as well as being the shortest of the Pygmy populations, suggesting they have an ancient indigenous lineage. Their closest relatives appear to be the Hadzabe, who live in the savannas east of the forest and were quite short in stature before heavy recent intermarriage with their taller neighbors. Other Pygmy groups which have been genetically tested are not very distinct from their non-Pygmy neighbors, suggesting either that their indigenous ancestry has been diluted through interbreeding with neighboring agricultural populations, or that they have a different ancestry from the Mbuti. Indeed, the genetic mutations responsible for the short stature of the eastern and western Pygmies are different and unrelated, suggesting that they represent independent adaptations to the forest.

There are a number of "Twa" populations along the southern border of Angola and neighboring countries, living in swamps and deserts far from the forest. They are little studied, and it is not known if they are indigenous to the area or more recent migrants from the forest.

Various theories have been proposed to explain the short stature of pygmies: lack of food in the rainforest environment, low calcium levels in the soil, the need to move through dense jungle, as an adaptation to heat and humidity, and most recently, as an association with rapid reproductive maturation under conditions of early mortality. [10]

Ultraviolet light levels are very low in rainforests. [11] This might mean that relatively little vitamin D can be made in human skin, thereby limiting calcium uptake from the diet for bone growth and maintenance. This could lead to the evolution of small skeletal size, that is to a "pygmy". [12]

[edit] Groups

Distribution of Pygmies according to Cavalli-Sforza
Distribution of Pygmies according to Cavalli-Sforza

Pygmies live in several ethnic groups in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Angola, Botswana, Namibia, and Zambia.[4] Most pygmy communities are 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.[4]

There are several Pygmy groups, the best known being the Mbenga (Aka and Baka) of the western Congo basin, the Mbuti (Efe etc.) of the Ituri Rainforest, and the Twa of the Great Lakes.

  • Mbenga or Ba-Mbenga (AKA Ba-Binga [derogatory]) (west Congo basin)
    • Aka or Mò-Áka (AKA (Ba-)Yaka, Ba-Yaga, Gba-Yaka, Bi-Aka, Beká, Yakwa, Yakpa, Yakpwa) (Central African Republic, Republic of Congo) speak a Bantu language close to Linguala
      • M-Benzélé or Ba-Benzélé (Western Aka, Central African Republic)
      • Ba-Sese (Eastern Aka)
    • Baka (AKA Bi-Baya) (Cameroon, Gabon, Republic of Congo) speak closely related Ubangi languages
      • Baka proper
      • Ganzi
      • Gundi or Ngondi
    • Gyele or Ba/Bo-Gieli (AKA Bonjiel(i), Ba-Ko, Be-Koe, Ba-Kola, Ba-Kuele, Li-Koya) (Cameroon) speak a Bantu language of the Makaa-Njem branch
  • Mbuti or Bambuti (Ituri rainforest, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo)
  • Twa or Ba-Twa (AKA Ge-Sera) (Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda) speak the Kirundi and Kinyarwanda languages
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

[edit] Claim of genocide

In 2003, Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti pygmies, told the UN's Indigenous People's Forum that during the Congo Civil War, his people were hunted down and eaten as though they were game animals. Both sides of the war regarded them as "subhuman" and some say their flesh can confer magical powers. Makelo asked the UN Security Council to recognise cannibalism as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide.[13]

[edit] Other "pygmies"

[edit] Negrito

Main article: Negrito

Negritos in Southeast Asia (including the Batak and Aeta of the Philippines, the Andamanese of the Andaman Islands, and the Semang of the Malay Peninsula), and occasionally Papuans and Melanesians in adjacent Oceania, are sometimes called pygmies (especially in older literature[citation needed]). Negritos share some common physical features with African pygmy populations, including short stature and dark skin; however, their origin and the route of their migration to Asia is still a matter of great speculation. They are genetically distant from Africans,[14] and shown to have separated early from Asians, suggesting that they are either surviving descendants of settlers from an early out-of-Africa migration, or that they are descendants of one of the founder populations of modern humans.[15] Their resemblance to some Africans, it is generally believed, is due to adaptation to a similar environment, rather than shared origins.[14]

The name "Negrito", from Spanish meaning "little black", was given by early explorers. They assumed the Andamanese they encountered were from Africa. This belief was however discarded by anthropologists who noted that apart from dark skin and curly hair, the Andamanese had little in common with any African population, including the African pygmies.[16]

[edit] Barrineans

Short statured aboriginal tribes inhabited the rainforests of North Queensland, Australia, of which the best known group is probably the Tjapukai of the Cairns area.[17] These rainforest people, collectively referred to as Barrineans, were once considered to be a relict of the earliest wave of migration to the Australian continent, but this theory no longer finds much favour.[18] The Rainforest People tended to live in the first variety of Jykabita, a wood and mud structure renowned for incubation of plants.[19]

Frank Kingdon-Ward in the early 20th century, Alan Rabinowitz in the 1990s, P. Christiaan Klieger in 2003, and others have reported a tribe of pygmy Tibeto-Burman speakers known as the T'rung inhabiting the remote region of Mt. Hkakabo Razi 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 T'rung at 1.43 m (4'6") and that of females at 1.40 m (4'5"). These are the only "pygmies" noted of clearly East Asian origin. The cause of their diminutive size is unknown, but diet and endogamous marriage practices have been cited. The population of T'rung pygmies has been steadily shrinking, and is now down to only a few individuals.[20]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica: Pygmy
  2. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.
  3. ^ Hewlett, Barry S. "Cultural diversity among African pygmies." In: Cultural Diversity Among Twentieth-Century Foragers. Susan Kent, ed. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
  4. ^ a b c Forest peoples in the central African and South American rain forest: focus on the pygmies
  5. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary
  6. ^ R. Blench and M. Dendo. Genetics and linguistics in sub-Saharan Africa, Cambridge-Bergen, June 24, 2004.
  7. ^ a b Klieman, Kairn A. The Pygmies Were Our Compass: Bantu and BaTwa in the History of West Central Africa, Early Times to c. 1900, Heinemann, 2003.
  8. ^ Cavalli-Sforza, Luigi Luca, ed. African Pygmies. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press, 1986
  9. ^ Serge Bahuchet, 1993, History of the inhabitants of the central African rain forest: perspectives from comparative linguistics. In C.M. Hladik, ed., Tropical forests, people, and food: Biocultural interactions and applications to development. Paris: Unesco/Parthenon.
  10. ^ Short lives, short size - why are pygmies small? « Not Exactly Rocket Science
  11. ^ A note on the ultraviolet light levels in tropical rainforest (North Queensland)
  12. ^ O'Dea, JD. Possible contribution of low ultraviolet light under the rainforest canopy to the small stature of Pygmies and Negritos. Homo: Journal of Comparative Human Biology, Vol. 44, No.3, pp. 284-7, 1994
  13. ^ DR Congo Pygmies appeal to UN
  14. ^ a b Thangaraj, Kumarasamy; et al (21 January 2003). "Genetic Affinities of the Andaman Islanders, a Vanishing Human Population". Current Biology 13, Number 2: 86-93(8). 
  15. ^ Kashyap VK, Sitalaximi T, Sarkar BN, Trivedi R 2003. Molecular relatedness of the aboriginal groups of Andaman and Nicobar Islands with similar ethnic populations. The International Journal of Human Genetics, 3: 5-11.
  16. ^ Liu, James J.Y. The Chinese Knight Errant. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967 (ISBN 0-2264-8688-5)
  17. ^ Tindale's Catalogue of Australian Aboriginal Tribes: Tjapukai (QLD)
  18. ^ Australia for the Australians
  19. ^ "Australia, the other white meat" Aaron Pirini, 1982
  20. ^ P. Christiaan Klieger (2003). Along the Salt Road.. California Wild. 

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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