Inanthropology,pygmy peoples areethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The termpygmyism is used to describe thephenotype ofendemicshort stature (as opposed to disproportionatedwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a population) for populations in which adult men are on average less than 150 cm (4 ft 11 in) tall.[1]
The termpygmy, as used to refer to diminutive people, comes viaLatinpygmaeus fromGreek πυγμαῖοςpygmaîos, derived from πυγμήpygmḗ, meaning "shortcubit", or a measure of length corresponding to the distance from the elbow to thefirst knuckle of the middle finger, meant to express pygmies' diminutive stature.[7]
InGreek mythology andclassicalnatural history, the word denoted atribe of diminutive people first described by the ancient Greek poetHomer, and reputed to live to the south of modern-day Ethiopia or in India.[8] For example,Aristotle described them thus in hisHistory of Animals (while discussingcranes that migrate south of Egypt): "The story is not fabulous, but there is in reality a race of dwarfish men, and the horses are little in proportion, and the men live in caves underground."[9]
Many African pygmies prefer to be identified by their ethnicity, such as theAka (Mbenga),Baka,Mbuti, andTwa.[10] The termBayaka, the plural form of the Aka/Yaka, is sometimes used in theCentral African Republic to refer to all local pygmies. Likewise, theKongo wordBambenga is used inCongo. In other parts of Africa, they are calledWochua orAchua.[11] In French-speaking Africa, they are sometimes referred to adjectivally asautochthon[12] (autochtone), meaning "native" or "indigenous".
Various theories have been proposed to explain the short stature of pygmies. Some studies suggest that it could be related to adaptation to lowultraviolet light levels inrainforests.[13][14] This might mean that relatively littlevitamin D can be made in human skin, thereby limitingcalcium uptake from the diet for bone growth and maintenance and leading to the evolution of the small skeletal size.[15]
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.[16] Other evidence points towards unusually low levels of expression of the genes encoding thegrowth hormone receptor andgrowth hormone compared to the related tribal groups, associated with low serum levels ofinsulin-like growth factor 1 and short stature.[17]
African Pygmies 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.[10] There are at least a dozen pygmy groups, sometimes unrelated to each other. The best known are theMbenga (Aka and Baka) of the westernCongo Basin, who speakBantu andUbangian languages; theMbuti (Efeetc.) of theIturi Rainforest, who speak Bantu andCentral Sudanic languages, and theTwa of theAfrican Great Lakes, who speak BantuRundi andKiga. 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.[10] It is estimated that there are between 250,000 and 600,000 Pygmies living in theCongo rainforest.[18][19] However, although Pygmies are thought of as forest people, the groups called Twa may live in open swamp or desert.
Distribution of Pygmies and their languages according to Bahuchet (2006). Thesouthern Twa are not shown.
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.[20] A commonly held belief is that African Pygmies are the direct descendants ofLate Stone Age hunter-gatherer peoples of the central African rainforest, who were partially absorbed or displaced by later immigration of agricultural peoples, and adopted theirCentral Sudanic,Ubangian, and Bantu languages. This view has no archaeological support and ambiguous support from genetics and linguistics.[dubious –discuss][21][22][23]
Some 30% ofAka language is not Bantu, and a similar percentage ofBaka 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.[24]
African Pygmy populations are genetically diverse and extremely divergent from all other human populations, suggesting they have an ancient indigenous lineage. Theiruniparental markers represent the second-most ancient divergence, after those typically found inKhoisan peoples.[25] 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."[20]
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.[20][26][27]
However,Roger Blench[28] 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.
The African Pygmies are particularly known for their usually vocal music, usually characterised by dense contrapuntal communal improvisation.Simha Arom 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.[29] Music permeates daily life and there are songs for entertainment as well as specific events and activities.
The pygmy population was a target of theInterahamwe during the 1994Rwandan genocide. 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.[30]
From the end of 2002 through January 2003 around 60,000 Pygmy civilians and 10,000 combatants were killed and oftencannibalized in an extermination campaign known as "Effacer le tableau" during theSecond Congo War.[31][32] Human rights activists have made demands for the massacre to be recognized asgenocide.[33]
In a strategy described asfortress conservation, the conservation efforts of national parks, often financed by international organizations such as theWorld Wildlife Fund, can involve heavily armed park rangers removing native pygmies off the land.[34] However, some have argued that the most efficient conservation methods involve giving land rights to the land's indigenous inhabitants.[35] This pattern of eviction has been seen in national parks in theDemocratic Republic of the Congo, such asKahuzi-Biéga National Park, where pygmy inhabitants often cut the trees down to sell charcoal.[12] In theRepublic of the Congo, this is seen in the Messok Dja protected area.[36] InCameroon, this is seen in theLobéké National Park.[37] InUganda, some Batwa have been removed from land reclassified as national parks, such as theMgahinga Gorilla National Park, which is home to the endangeredmountain gorilla.[38]
Reported slavery
In the Republic of the Congo, where Pygmies make up 2% of the population, many Pygmies live asslaves toBantu 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. A 2007 news report stated that even though 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 even nothing at all."[39] As a result of pressure fromUNICEF 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.[39][40] According to reports made in 2013, this law was never passed.[41]
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, during theIturi conflict, 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.[42]
In NorthernKatanga Province starting in 2013, the Pygmy Batwa people, whom theLuba people often exploit and allegedly enslave,[43] rose up into militias, such as the "Perci" militia, and attacked Luba villages.[44] A Luba militia known as "Elements" counterattacked. More than a thousand people were killed in the first eight months of 2014 alone[45] with the number of displaced people estimated to be 650,000 as of December 2017.[46][43] The weapons used in the conflict are often arrows and axes, rather than guns.[44]
Historically, the pygmy have always been viewed as inferior by both colonial authorities and the village-dwelling Bantu tribes.[19] Pygmy children were sometimes captured during the period of theCongo Free State, which exported Pygmy children to zoos throughout Europe, including the world's fair in the United States in 1907.[19] 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.[47]
Negritos inSoutheast Asia (including theBatak andAeta of the Philippines, theAndamanese of theAndaman Islands, and theSemang of theMalay Peninsula) are sometimes called pygmies (especially in older literature). Negritos share some common physical features with African pygmy populations, including short stature anddark skin. The name "Negrito", from theSpanish 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, andsteatopygia, the Andamanese had little in common with any African population, including the African pygmies.[48] Their superficial resemblance to some Africans andMelanesians is thought to be from living in a similar environment, or simply retentions of the initial human form.[49]
Their origin and the route of their migration to Asia is a matter of great speculation. They are genetically distant from Africans[49] and have been shown to have separated early from Asians,[50] suggesting that they are either surviving descendants of settlers from the earlyout-of-Africa migration of theGreat Coastal Migration of theProto-Australoids, or that they are descendants of one of the founder populations of modern humans.[51]
Frank Kingdon-Ward in the early 20th century reported a tribe of pygmyTibeto-Burman speakers known as theTaron inhabiting the remote region of Mt.Hkakabo Razi in Southeast Asia on the border of China (Yunnan andTibet), Burma, and India.[52] A Burmese survey done in the 1960s reported a mean height of an adult male Taron at 1.43 metres (4 feet 8 inches) and that of females at 1.40 metres (4 feet 7 inches). These are the only known "pygmies" of clearlyEast Asian descent.
The cause of their diminutive size is unknown, but diet andendogamous marriage practices have been cited. The population of Taron pygmies has been steadily shrinking and is now down to only a few individuals.[53] In 2013, a link between the Taron and theDerung people inYunnan, China, was uncovered by Richard D. Fisher, which may indicate the presence of pygmy populations among the Derung tribe.[54]
Disputed presence in Australia
Australian anthropologistNorman Tindale and American anthropologistJoseph Birdsell suggested there were 12 Negrito-like tribes of short-staturedAboriginal peoples living on the coastal and rainforest areas aroundCairns on the lands of theMbabaram people andDjabugay people.[55][56][57] 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 termpygmy may be considered a misnomer.[58] He called this short-statured groupBarrineans, afterLake Barrine.
Aboriginal encampment in rainforest behind Cairns, 1890. This is the photograph (attributed to A. Atkinson) found by Norman Tindale in 1938, which sent him and Joseph Birdsell in search of the people depicted. He identified the location by the wild banana leaves on the roof of the hut.
Birdsell classified Aboriginal Australians into three major groups, mixed together to varying degrees: the Carpentarians, best represented inArnhem 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, "[b]ut this is not to say that the Barrineans are Negritos ... the Negritic component is clearly subordinate, and ... the preponderant element is Murrayian."[59] This trihybrid model is generally considered defunct today; craniometric,[60] genetic,[61] and linguistic[62] 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.[63]
In 2002, the purported existence of short-statured people in Queensland was brought into the public eye byKeith Windschuttle and Tim Gillin[clarification needed] in an article published by theright-wingQuadrant 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.[64][65] 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 tonative title.[66][67]
Some Aboriginaloral histories andoral traditions from Queensland tell of "little red men". In 1957 a member of the Jinibara (theDalla people) 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 [1.5m]."[68] The Dinderi are also recorded in other stories, such as one concerning aplatypus myth[69] and another,The Dinderi and Gujum - The Legend of the Stones of the Mary River.[70]
Susan McIntyre-Tamwoy, archaeologist and adjunct professor atJames Cook University, has written[71] of the northernCape York Aboriginal people's belief of thebipotaim, 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".[72] She writes, "many ethnographers recorded stories of 'short people' or what they referred to as 'pygmy tribes'", such asLindsey Page Winterbotham.[73][68] She used information collected both through oral accounts (including those ofInjinoo people), observation and archival research.[74] McIntyre-Tamwoy recounts abipotaim story: "We are the short people [pygmies?]. 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 ...".[75]
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 thecolonisation of Australia as well as other countries by Europeans.[76]
Micronesia and Melanesia
Norman Gabel mentions that rumours exist of pygmy people in the interior mountains ofViti Levu inFiji, but explains he had no evidence of their existence as of 2012.[77]E. W. Gifford reiterated Gabel's statement in 2014 and claims that tribes of pygmies in the closest proximity to Fiji would most likely be found in Vanuatu.[78]
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 ofPalau in Micronesia.[79][80]
During the 1900s, whenVanuatu was known asNew Hebrides, sizable pygmy tribes were first reported throughout northeasternSanto. 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.[78][81]
Archaic humans
The extinctarchaic human speciesHomo luzonensis has been classified as a pygmy group.[citation needed] The remains used to identifyHomo luzonensis were discovered inLuzon,the Philippines, in 2007, and were designated as a species in 2019.Homo floresiensis, another archaic human from the island ofFlores inIndonesia, stood around 1.1 metres (3 feet 7 inches) tall. The pygmy phenotype evolved as a result ofisland syndrome which, amongst other things, results in reduced body size in insular humans.[82]
^"Pygmy".Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2007. Archived fromthe original on 28 March 2007. Retrieved11 October 2011.
^TheAmerican Heritage Dictionary says that the term "strikes many as inherently derogatory" because "many people consider it offensive to refer to others by a name that identifies them in terms of a physical trait"."Pygmy".The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. HarperCollins Publishers. 2022. Retrieved3 November 2024.
^O'Dea, JD (January 1994). "Possible contribution of low ultraviolet light under the rainforest canopy to the small stature of Pygmies and Negritos".Homo: Journal of Comparative Human Biology.44 (3):284–7.
^Bozzola, M; Travaglino, P; Marziliano, N; Meazza, C; Pagani, S; Grasso, M; Tauber, M; Diegoli, M; Pilotto, A; Disabella, E; Tarantino, P; Brega, A; Arbustini, E (November 2009). "The shortness of Pygmies is associated with severe under-expression of the growth hormone receptor".Mol Genet Metab.98 (3):310–3.doi:10.1016/j.ymgme.2009.05.009.PMID19541519.Dávila N, Shea BT, Omoto K, Mercado M, Misawa S, Baumann G (March 2002). "Growth hormone binding protein, insulin-like growth factor-I and short stature in two pygmy populations from the Philippines".J Pediatr Endocrinol Metab.15 (3):269–276.doi:10.1515/JPEM.2002.15.3.269.PMID11924928.S2CID30556010.
^Klieman, Kairn A. (2003).The Pygmies Were Our Compass: Bantu and BaTwa in the History of West Central Africa, Early Times to c. 1900. Heinemann.ISBN978-0-325-07105-3.
^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.ISBN1-85070-380-9
^Aimard, Pierre-Laurent; Ligeti, György; Reich, Steve; Arom, Simha; Schomann, Stefan (2003).African Rhythms (Liner notes). Music byAka Pygmies, performed by Aka Pygmies,György Ligeti andSteve Reich, performed byPierre-Laurent Aimard. Teldec Classics. 8573 86584-2.
^"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."Raja Seshadri (7 November 2005)."Pygmies in the Congo Basin and Conflict".Case Study 163. The Inventory of Conflict & Environment,American University. Archived fromthe original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved21 July 2012.
^"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" ("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:Raja Seshadri (7 November 2005)."Pygmies in the Congo Basin and Conflict".Case Study 163.The Inventory of Conflict & Environment,American University. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved21 July 2012.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^Hiscock, Peter (2005). "The extinction of rigour: a comment on 'The extinction of the Australian Pygmies' by Keith Windschuttle and Tim Gillin".Aboriginal History.29:142–148.JSTOR24046693.
^Birdsell, Joseph (1967). "Preliminary Data on the Trihybrid Origin of the Australian Aborigines".Archaeology & Physical Anthropology in Oceania.2 (2).
^Larnach, Neil William George; Macintosh, S. L. (1970).The Craniology of the Aborigines of Queensland. University of Sydney.ISBN0855570016.
^McAllister, Peter; Nagle, Nano; Mitchell, Robert John; et al. (1 June 2013). "The Australian Barrineans and Their Relationship to Southeast Asian Negritos: An Investigation using Mitochondrial Genomics".Human Biology.85 (1):485–94.doi:10.3378/027.085.0322.hdl:10072/57320.PMID24297238.S2CID33171899.
^Gilligan, Ian; Bulbeck, David (2007). "Environment and morphology in Australian Aborigines: A re-analysis of the Birdsell database".American Journal of Physical Anthropology.134 (1):75–91.doi:10.1002/ajpa.20640.PMID17568440.
.png)
