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 population) for populations in which adult men are on average less than tall.

Although the term is sometimes considered derogatory because it focuses on a physical trait,The American 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". it remains the primary term associated with the African Pygmies, the hunter-gatherers of the Congo Basin (comprising the Bambenga, Bambuti and Batwa). The terms "Asiatic pygmies" and "Oceanic pygmies" have also been used to describe the Negrito populations of Southeast Asia and Australo-Melanesian peoples of short stature. The Taron people of Myanmar are an exceptional case of a pygmy population of East Asian phenotype.

Etymology

The term pygmy, as used to refer to diminutive people, comes via Latin from Greek , derived from , meaning "short cubit", or a measure of length corresponding to the distance from the elbow to the first knuckle of the middle finger, meant to express pygmies' diminutive stature.

In Greek mythology and classical natural history, the word denoted a tribe of diminutive people first described by the ancient Greek poet Homer, and reputed to live to the south of modern-day Ethiopia or in India. For example, Aristotle described them thus in his History of Animals (while discussing cranes 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."Aristotle, History of Animals 8.12, 892a12. Translated by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson.

Many African pygmies prefer to be identified by their ethnicity, such as the Aka (Mbenga), 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 is used in Congo. In other parts of Africa, they are called Wochua or Achua. In French-speaking Africa, they are sometimes referred to adjectivally as autochthon (), meaning "native" or "indigenous".

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 uptake from the diet for bone growth and maintenance and leading to the evolution of the small skeletal size.

Other explanations attribute pygmism to 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, or 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 and growth hormone compared to the related tribal groups, associated with low serum levels of insulin-like growth factor 1 and short stature.

Life expectancy Pygmy populations have an average life expectancy of 49 years. This varies among the populations, with others, such as the Bayaka, having an average life expectancy of 24 years. The high mortality rates are due to poor nutrition, lack of medical care, extreme poverty, and attacks from armed hunters. Studies have also linked this to low survival to adulthood, with 30% to 50% of the children reaching adulthood.

Africa

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. 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, who speak Bantu and Ubangian languages; the Mbuti (Efe etc.) of the Ituri Rainforest, who speak Bantu and Central Sudanic languages, and the Twa of the African Great Lakes, 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. 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 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, Ubangian, and Bantu languages.

Some 30% of Aka language is not Bantu, and a similar percentage of Baka 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.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.

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 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 having 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 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 during the 1994 Rwandan 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."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" during the Second Congo War."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: Human rights activists have made demands for the massacre to be recognized as genocide.

Forced removal

In a strategy described as fortress conservation, the conservation efforts of national parks, often financed by international organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund, can involve heavily armed park rangers removing native pygmies from the land. However, some have argued that the most efficient conservation methods involve giving land rights to the land's indigenous inhabitants. This pattern of eviction has been seen in national parks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, such as Kahuzi-Biéga National Park, where pygmy inhabitants often cut the trees down to sell charcoal. In the Republic of the Congo, this is seen in the Messok Dja protected area. In Cameroon, this is seen in the Lobéké National Park. In Uganda, some Batwa have been removed from land reclassified as national parks, such as the Mgahinga Gorilla National Park, which is home to the endangered mountain gorilla.

Contemporary enslavement