Note 1 — Chapter I · Distribution of Negritos

The Negritos of the Philippines constitute one branch of the Eastern division of the pygmy race as opposed to the African division, it being generally recognized that the blacks of short stature may be so grouped in two large and comprehensive divisions. Other well-known branches of the Eastern group are the Mincopies of the Andaman Islands and perhaps also the Papuans of New Guinea, very similar in many particulars to the Negritos of the Philippines, although authorities differ in grouping the Papuans with the Negritos. The Asiatic continent is also not without its representatives of the black dwarfs, having the Sakai of the Malay Peninsula. The presence of Negritos over so large an area has especially attracted the attention of anthropologists who have taken generally one or the other of two theories advanced to explain it: First, that the entire oceanic region is a partly submerged continent, once connected with the Asiatic mainland and over which this aboriginal race spread prior to the subsidence. The second theory is that the peopling of the several archipelagoes by the Negritos has been a gradual spread from island to island. This latter theory, advanced by De Quatrefages,1 is the generally accepted one, although it is somewhat difficult to believe that the ancestors of weak and scattered tribes such as to-day are found in the Philippines could ever have been the sea rovers that such a belief would imply. It is a well-known fact, however, that the Malays have spread in this manner, and, while it is hardly possible that the Negritos have ever been as bold seafarers as the Malays, yet where they have been left in undisputed possession of their shores they have remained reckless fishermen. The statement that they are now nearly always found in impenetrable mountain forests is not an argument against the migration-by-sea theory, because they have been surrounded by stronger races and have been compelled to flee to the forests or suffer extermination. The fact that they live farther inland than the stronger peoples is also evidence that they were the first inhabitants, for it is not natural to suppose that a weaker race could enter territory occupied by a stronger and gain a permanent foothold there.2