Who Are the Pygmies?

Europeans regarded them as part of myths for long, the old Egyptian and Greek texts mentioned the existence of very short people in Africa. Ancient Greeks spoke about "Pugmaeus" ("foot" as a measure unit). But in 1874, a German explorer met the first pygmies ever seen by a European in the current Congo republic.

Still, pygmies are not dwarf individuals. Amongst those of pure blood, men have an average height of just 1.45 m (4 ft 10 in) and women of 1.33 m (4 ft, 1in)! They are not a dwarf variant of the Black Africans. Their body proportions are the same with those of humans, that's why their heads look large compared to the rest of the body. But otherwise, they are perfectly proportioned (the dwarfs are deformed).

This is an ancient race and only the Khoi-San people (bushmen), now restricted to South Africa, are older amongst current human races. They are closer to the so-called Asian Blacks, that inhabit much of India, New Guinea, Melanesia and Australia (Aborigines) and have a great deal of genes in many populations from South Asia and Polynesia.

Unlike typical African Blacks, pygmies have hairy bodies and faces and rather aquiline noses, not flattened and also a lighter skin. In fact, pygmies were amongst the first people to have left Africa to colonize Asia, and at a moment, they inhabited large areas of south Asia.

Modern relict populations of pygmy race are found not only in Africa, but also in many parts of southern Asia: Aeta in Philippines, Semang in Malaya, Mani in Thailand, the Andamanese tribes from the Andaman archipelago, Rampasasa from Flores island and many pygmy tribes inhabiting the mountains of New Guinea or in Vanuatu archipelago. A pygmy population went extinct in the middle of the 20th century in northeastern Australia (Queensland).

Who are the Pygmies?

Are the Pygmies of Asia/South Asia/ Oceania connected with the Pygmies of Africa? Were they among the first groups to migrate out of Africa?

more to come as i read more about them...
Please do enrich everyone's knowledge with whatever information you have..

[edit on 11/6/09 by coredrill]

reply to post by coredrill


Pygmyism is a response to living in deep forests and diet, although the australasian pygmies are likely related to the african pygmies, in as much as they are both descended from the earliest modern humans to leave africa, their size hasnt been handed down.
I take exception to the 4'11'' height, that is so an modern anglocentric view of humanity.
Some of the populations cited arent pygmies at all but just smaller people.
The average roman was only 5'1" and the average medieval man was only 5'4" tall.
Size has more to due with diet and the availability of food for the young, although some populations are larger than others nutrition has as much to do with it as genetics.
I am of mixed asian/european decent, and I'm a little short for an american, but average for the world.
Now my philipino relatives that were born and raised in the philipines are short, 5'4" tall on average, there children that were born and raised in the islands the same thing, but the kids that were born and raised here are giants, my cousins are over 6' tall and 200+ pounds.
You can see this in the children of third world immigrants to the 1st world.
We have a very large se asian (hmong, the second largest population in the world outside of loas) community here, and by the 4'11" criteria, the original hmong would be considered pygmies,and they are also forest dwellers.
Thier children that were born here are much bigger than their parents, by a great deal.
There was also a study done of some native americans, whos tribal lands are split by the mexico/US border, and the people who live in the us are huge compared to thier cousins that live on the mexico side of the border.
The difference in lifestyle is attributed to the difference. In mexico the are still subsistance poor farmers eaking an existance out of the aird southwest.
On the us side they have made themselves wealthy by selling mining and oil/gas rights on the reservation. Thier diet reflects this wealth, being heavy in protien and fats.

There are plenty of populations around the world where a 5' tall man is pretty normal.

And yes the san people and the african pygmies can trace thier roots all the way back to the very first humans, as can Mungo man in austrailia, 200k years ago.

Its intersting that they list the andaman people as pygmies, if they are smaller in stature I belive it is due to thier maritime lifestyle, many families almost never leave thier boats and only go onto land when needed.
Another thing about the andaman islanders is that they are likely decended from the earliest australasians that populated oceana and se asia. The people of the rykyu's, aboriginal tiawanese, the people of central tibet and the andaman islanders share a genetic lineage, with the australian aboriginies.








[edit on 11-6-2009 by punkinworks09]

They are papua new guineans - idiots.

Originally posted by audas
They are papua new guineans - idiots.

If thats all you have to add, then keep it to yourself.


And who are papuan new gunieans?