OTC RE 
433 
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1899. 
THE LITTLE NEGROES OF THE EAST. 
The Negritos: the Distribution of the Negritos in the 
Philippine Islands and Elsewhere. By A. B. Meyer. 
Pp. 92. (Dresden: Stengel and Co.) 
R. A. B. MEYER, the distinguished Director of 
the Royal Zoological, Anthropological and Ethno- 
graphical Museum at Dresden, has issued as a separate 
volume a translation of two chapters, brought up to date, 
of his sumptuous folio monograph “Die Philippinen : 
II. Negritos” (1893). The Negritos of the Philippines 
are a dwarf,! frizzly-haired people with a black or dull 
copper-coloured skin. The head is on the lower limit 
of brachycephaly (average index about 80). The fore- 
head is retreating, the concave nose is broad and flat, 
the projecting jaw is provided with thick lips and pro- 
minent teeth. The slender body is almost entirely 
smooth. They area happy, lively people to whom care 
seems a stranger, their greatest anxiety being the pro- 
curing of food, which consists of all things edible— 
fruits, roots, honey, snakes, &c. When they have pro- 
vided for their wants they care for no further exertion, 
and love to lie in laziness and ease. Their intelligence 
is stated to be of a low type, and they are not able to 
count above five, Their songs consist of monotonous, 
endless unison chants. Tattooing is apparently uni- 
versal, the patterns being quite simple. They are 
without exception monogamists. 
There is no doubt that these interesting little people, 
about whom much more information is greatly needed, 
are closely allied to the pygmy blacks of the Malay 
Peninsula and to those of the Andaman Islands. They 
represent an ancient race of mankind, and thus it is im- 
portant to trace their present and past geographical dis- 
tribution. The name of “Aéta,” “Aita,” “Ita,” &c., 
generally applied to these people, is derived from the 
Tagal adjective zfa, ztim “black” (Malay, zfam); they 
were known to the Chinese under the name of “ Hai- 
tan” at the beginning of the thirteenth century. 
The headquarters of the Negritos are the island of 
Luzon and the small islands in its immediate vicinity ; 
here many have crossed with the Tagals, and constitute 
a half-bred population called Dumagates. There can be 
little doubt that they are the true aborigines of the 
Philippines. It may be taken as certain that Negritos 
are found, not only in Luzon, but also in Panay, Negros, 
Cebu, North-east Mindanao, and Palawan, not to men- 
tion smaller neighbouring islands. It is questionable 
whether they occur in Guimaras, Bohol, Samar, Mindoro, 
and the Calamianes. 
There has been much speculation on slender data con- 
cerning the distribution of the Eastern pygmy negros, of 
which, as we have seen, the Semangs and allied tribes of 
the Malay Peninsula, the Andamanese and the Aétas 
form distinct groups. De Quatrefages, for example, held 
that traces of Negritos are found nearly everywhere from 
1 Average height for males r442 mm., 4 ft. Sfin.; for females 1385 mm., 
4 ft. 64 in. 
NO. 1558, VOL. 60] 
| mixed (‘“ Négrito-Papous ”), 
India to Japan and New Guinea, and that Negritos and 
Papuans live together in New Guinea, crossed and inter- 
differing from the true 
Papuans. Dr. Meyer submits these assertions to a 
careful criticism, which is a valuable corrective to 
specious generalisation. 
Theoretically, one would expect to find Negritos in 
Borneo ; the only evidence is the account of a similar 
people given by Captain Brownrigg to Mr. Earl in 1845 
of his shipwreck during the previous year on the east 
coast of Borneo, and a decorated skull described by de 
Quatrefages and Hamy in “ Crania Ethnica.” The district 
visited by the Captain has not been properly explored, 
and till that is done the question must remain in abey- 
ance. No other white man has seen a Negrito in Borneo, 
and it is certain that none have been heard of in Sarawak ; 
Mr. Charles Hose, who probably knows more about the 
natives of the interior than any one else, disbelieves in 
their existence. I have myself seen low-caste natives in 
the interior of the Baram district of Sarawak, whose hair 
was wavy and almost curly ; the contrast between these 
and their nearly straight-haired companions could easily 
lead to exaggeration, but this does not necessarily indi- 
cate Negrito blood. Dr. Meyer discusses the provenance 
of the decorated skulls from Borneo in European 
museums ; at present our information is too meagre for 
accurate generalisation. There appears to be no evidence 
that the skull in question came from the “interior of 
Borneo,” and it is by no means incredible that the skull, 
or the person when alive, was imported into Borneo ; 
slaves have probably been imported at different times, 
and we know that various peoples have migrated into 
Borneo from all quarters. 
There is no evidence of Negritos in Celebes, Timor, 
the Moluccas and Lesser Sunda Islands. The same 
applies to Java (the Kalangs are not Negritos) ; but in 
Sumatra and the neighbouring islands there is still some 
doubt whether such a population once existed. There is 
less evidence for an early Negrito stock in Formosa, 
Japan and China. The evidence for the Mergui Archi- 
pelago is doubtful, and that for the Nicobar Islands is 
more so. More evidence is required for Annam, Cochin 
China, and Cambodia. 
A good deal has been written about the occurrence of 
a short, dark, frizzly-haired people in India, but of these 
there is no evidence whatever. Curly hair is character- 
istic of the “ Dravidian ” peoples, but this is never woolly. 
Prof. Keane figures! a “ Panyan woman” as a “ Negrito 
type, India” ; but a reference to the original photograph 
published by Thurston ? will prove that the hair is dis- 
tinctly curly, which feature is unfortunately lost in 
Keane’s reproduction. Thurston* gives the average 
height of twenty-five Paniyan men as 1°574 m. (5 feet 
2 inches), with a cephalic index of 74; these. are not 
Negritos. 
The affinities of the Australians, more or less, with the 
“‘Dravidians ” is now generally accepted, but a Negrito 
element has not yet been proved for them. Some hold 
that the Tasmanians belonged to that stock, and in his 
1 ‘* Man Past and Present,” 1899, Pl. Il. Fig. 3. 
2 Bulletin Madras Govt. Mus., 1897, ii. Pl. X. 
2 
3 
3 Loc. cit., p. 29. 
