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The Melanesian Dwarf Tribe of Aiome, New Guinea
- R. Ruggles Gates
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- Journal:
- Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae / Volume 10 / Issue 3 / July 1961
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 August 2014, pp. 277-311
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- July 1961
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The Aiome dwarf tribe in the mountains near the Ramu river and its southern tributaries was studied. Observations, measurements and photographs were made of 15 men and five women who came in a party to the Aiome airstrip. The measurements are embodied in Table 1 (p. 280). They include eye and skin colour; head length and breadth; ear length and breadth and the presence of a lobe; stature; development of brow ridges and relative depression of the nasal root. Other observations are in the text. The mean male stature was 147.9 cm which is roughly the same as that of the Congo Pygmies. The shortest woman was only 125.5 cm. high. The C.I. of the men was 78.51 and the ears are smaller than in most races.
The head-dress, decorations and “dances” are illustrated in Figs. 1-18.
The skin colour of Papuans is a shade lighter than in the Australian aborigines. In a study of skin colour of Papuans, Macintosh (1960) finds that the natives recognize and have names for three shades of colour. These appear to be due to (1) the homozygous (2) the heterozygous condition, and (3) the absence, of a minor gene for skin colour.
The fact that the blood group genes A, B, M, S, R1 and R2 of the Aiome dwarfs are closely similar to those of the tails in the Mount Hagen area justifies the conclusion that a single gene dwarf mutation is involved. The Aiome and Wissel Lake dwarfs (400 miles apart) differ greatly in the frequency of the A, M, S and R2 (cDE) genes, but agree in the B and R1 (CDe) frequencies. The blood groups of the Congo Pygmies similarly agree with those of the Bantu, from whose ancestors they may have been derived.
The early literature regarding dwarf races is reviewed and the question of a Negrito race in southeast Asia is discussed. It is concluded that the term Negrito should probably be confined to the dwarf race in the Philippines. They perhaps reached the Philippines from Borneo when the sea-level was down during the last ice age.
On the basis particularly of skull form, the Andamanese were probably derived from the tall population of adjacent Malaya or Burma. The significance of their steatopygy and peppercorn hair is not clear, as these characters are found in the South African Bushmen.
The Semang of Malaya are mixed and of doubtful origin. The dwarf nature and relationships of the Kadar in South India remains uncertain. The incised designs on their wooden combs suggests a possible very ancient cultural connection with the Malayan dwarfs and the Philippine Negritos. A Negrito-like remnant in Queensland may represent in part the source from which the Tasmanian aborigines developed. The Veddas are outside the Negrito grouping. They are probably Australoids of reduced dimensions who migrated to Ceylon during the last ice age.
The various dwarf groups in New Guinea are of local (and probably relatively recent) origin, having no connection with Negritos, who appear to be of much earlier origin, probably before the last ice age. Various localities with populations of different mean stature are listed in Table 3, and others are mentioned in the text.
A statistical treatment of Bijlmer's measurements of stature, nasal and cephalic index, with the aid of Dr. Fraser Roberts, shows that many of the groups in Dutch New Guinea are significantly different. A fuller statistical investigation dealing with both stature and blood groups, is required to elucidate this situation. A tentative hypothesis is put forward, involving the fractionation of the original dwarf gene in the process of back-crossing between tails and dwarfs.
In New Guinea the coastal people are the tallest, those in the higher mountain areas are conspicous dwarfs, populations in intermediate areas being shorter in different degrees than the coastal tribes. That crossing takes place is shown by the occurrence of occasional men who are much taller than the rest of their group or tribe. Further studies of Papuan statures should also throw light on the origin of multiple genes for stature.
Studies in race crossing. IX. Crosses of Australians and Papuans with Caucasians, Chinese, and other races
- R. Ruggles Gates
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- Journal:
- Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae / Volume 9 / Issue 2 / April 1960
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 August 2014, pp. 165-184
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- April 1960
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In continuation of the series of studies of racial crosses, this paper gives a genctical account of various race hybrids, in which Australian aborigines or Papuans are involved with Chinese, Malayans or Filipinos. Several families are traced through four or five generations, and some involve three or (in one case) four different races. Most of these racial combinations have not been studied previously.
The racial characters recorded in Tables include colour of eyes, hair, eyebrows, eyelashes and skin, form of hair and measurements of head and of ears. In addition various observations of brow ridges, orbits, eyefolds, nose, lips and mouth were made. The Mongolian brachycephaly is strongly inherited from male Chinese ancestors; also the eyefolds, especially the top fold, which is more or less independent of the epicanthic fold. In Malay crosses the face and head are often very narrow. Marked segregation in sibs can occur in head form (cephalic index), hair colour, hair form, skin colour and other features. It has already been shown that in the F1 of aborigines × White the skin is near white. The same is true of Papuan × White, and in addition the child's hair is flaxen or very light brown although the Papuans appear to have always black or near-black hair.
Incidentally, it was also observed that the Papuans not infrequently have marked brow ridges, depressed nasal root and sunken orbits like the Australian aborigines, indicating common elements in the ancestry of these two races.
The Papuan nose, commonly with an overhanging tip, differs in some respects from the Semitic nose, and appears to be an independent (parallel) development.
All contrasted human racial characters, such as hair form and colour, head shape, brow ridges, nasal root depression, size of ear and of mouth appear to depend on a small number of cumulative genes, generally without dominance. In how far these are alleles or based on genes at independent loci can only be determined by further investigations.
The genetics of the Australian aborigines
- R. Ruggles Gates
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- Journal:
- Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae / Volume 9 / Issue 1 / January 1960
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 August 2014, pp. 7-50
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- January 1960
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In this genetical study of crosses between the Australian aborigines and Whites, in which the Áranda (Arunta) tribe at Alice Springs, in the desert heart of Australia, were mostly involved, many families were studied and their physical characters recorded. These include many F1s, also an F2 family and back-crosses to White, to aborigine, and to mixed. These studies provided an exceptionally wide basis for interpretation of the genes. It is evident that reciprocal crosses produce similar results.
Depression of the nasal root, a characteristic of the aboriginal skull, in crosses with the high European nose, probably involves not more than two or three cumulative genes. Sometimes the high, narrow European nose appears to be dominant (Fig. 15). High nasal bridge and narrow nose may be due to linked genes or to genes which affect both height and breadth of the nose. The brow ridges are an equally marked feature of the male skull, but they are frequently absent or much less noticeable in the female, so the manner of inheritance is not yet known. Wide nostrils of the aborigines again appear to depend on a small number of additive genes compared with the narrow nose of the white man. The lips of the aborigines tend to be thick throughout, but generally not everted. Eversion of the lower lip alone, especially in the central part, appears to depend on a single gene effect which is more marked in the homozygous than the heterozygous condition. This gene also occurs in Europeans and is anatomically quite distinct from the everted lips of the Negro.
In Tables I to VII about 15 physical characters are recorded for parents and children. Eye colour, skin colour, hair colour and form, colour of eyelashes and eyebrows, depression of nasal root, sunken orbits, width of nostrils, lips, length and breadth of head, cephalic index, car size and earlobes are included. The colour of hair, eyelashes and eyebrows may all be different in the same individual, the eyelashes tending to be darkest and eyebrows lightest of the three. Hair form ranges from near straight, through wavy to curly, the number of genes involved being very small.
Skin colour of the F1 is remarkably near the white, and when the F1 (male or female) is back-crossed to White the children mostly have white skin (Figs. 15-17). Some are near-white like the F1; but none darker than either parent have been seen. Study of the various crosses leads to the conclusion that a single main gene for melanin in the skin is present in the aborigines, together with a minor gene which alone produces brunet-white skin colour. The aboriginal skin, which is normally reddish mahogany or chocolate brown (not black, except perhaps in some northern tribes), is very subject to tanning (see Fig. 15) and evidently contains much less melanin than the full black Negro skin. The genetics of skin colour in the aborigines is thus very different from that of the African races. Both the skin colour and facial features in the hybrids are much akin to the Caucasian race, substantiating the view of anthropologists that such a relationship exists.
The skull is markedly dolichocephalic and about 20% smaller in cranial capacity than the European. It has two special archaic features — heavy brow ridges and the nasal notch. The latter involves a retreating glabella as well as a depressed root of the nose and sunken orbits. The Mongolian race has the nasal root depressed as in Neandertal man, but no nasal notch. These two, heavy brows and nasal notch, are the most persistent features in aboriginal hybrids. The skull most closely resembles some of the Mount Carmel Neandertaloids with a nasal notch, but the Australian race is neanthropic and not Neandertal, the Neandertals of S. Europe not having the nasal notch, and a low, sloping forehead being exceptional in the aboriginal.
The aborigines, especially those of SE Australia, with relatively hairy bodies, show relations with the Ainu, as well as with the jungle tribes of India. The Negrito element in N. Queensland is considered elsewhere (Gates 1959a). The gene (mutation) for tawny hair, especially in the children, probably originated in Central Australia and may be still spreading. Whether this is from a single event or from repeated mutations is uncertain.
The aborigines are similar to the Papuans in skin colour genetics (published later). Some Papuans show the nasal notch of the Australians. The overhanging nasal tip of the Papuans may occasionally be seen in the Australians. Miscegenation between aborigines and Australians is not a serious problem because (1) the two races are mutually friendly, (2) the number of full-blood aborigines is only 0.5%, (3) the half-caste married to White generally produces children with a white or near-white skin and near-European features.
Archaeological excavations show probably four successive culture levels, the oldest having a radiocarbon date of 8700 years. Whether the earliest entrance of man into Australia was during the last glaciation, when land bridges with New Guinea and Tasmania developed, remains uncertain.
The African Pygmies
- R. Ruggles Gates
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- Journal:
- Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae / Volume 7 / Issue 2 / April 1958
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 August 2014, pp. 159-218
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- April 1958
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This paper expresses new views regarding the origin and relatioships of the African Pygmies, based on a study of a small colony at Bundibugyo in Western Uganda which apparently differ in no respect from the Efé Pygmies. Compared with them are the Bwamba, a tribe examined at Bundibugyo and Fort Portal who are found to be pygmoids, of relatively recent hybrid origin from crosses between the Pygmies and forest Negroes. Their intermediate stature and great variability confirm the hybrid origin.
Citation of early literature shows that the Pygmies formerly occupied a much wider area, including the Cameroons, Sierra Leone and probably Liberia in West Africa, where they first came to the attention of Europeans in the 16th Century. The Eastern Pygmies first came to be known about 1870 by expeditions up the Nile into the Azande country where they found the Monbuttu Negroes and the Akka Pygmies. The ancient Egyptians knew the Akka.
The Bambuti Pygmies are now recognized as having three branches, Efé, Basúa and Aká of similar dwarf stature, the differences between them being of minor character. The upper limit for Pygmy stature is generally regarded as 150 cm. Surrounding the Ituri forest Pygmies are many pygmoid tribes of taller stature, produced by miscegenation with the forest Negroes. Groups extend east to the Semliki River and south as far as Lake Kivu and even Lake Bangweolo. The adjacent Negro (Bantu) tribes in these eastern areas show various degrees of hamitization.
Accounts are given of early as well as later European contacts with Pygmy tribes, and of certain groups taken to Europe.
The extensive observations of Schebesta and Gusinde have made the Bambuti Pygmies best known. For these people Gusinde adopts the name Twiden, which may be shortened to Twi. He shows that some of the eastern Pygmies and pygmoids have recently undergone great changes in their manner of life.
The unique symbiotic relations between Pygmies and their Negro overlords are well known. They hunt in the forest for okapi, elephants and other animals, supplying meat to the Negroes, who give them bananas in return. When the banana was introduced to Africa from India is unknown, but there must have been an earlier period when the Pygmies fed themselves, and perhaps lived in open territory northeast of where they now extend. The Singa fossil skull gives possible evidence of such former extension.
The pantropical disease Kwashiorkor, is seen in the Pygmies, the brick-red hair being a symptom. It apparently results from protein deficiency, and especially from a diet of bananas at the time of weaning. The Pygmy teeth and jaws are probably the most pathological to be found in any human race.
Racial mixture with the Negroes is considered. Forest Negroes frequently take a Pygmy wife, whose children become “Negroes”. The Pygmies thus remain pure except for occasional unofficial mixing. The F1 hybrids are intermediate in stature and probably in other characters. They backcross to the Negro and are thus absorbed into that race. A small number of genes, without dominance, for each racial character-difference is probably involved. The Balese and Babira Negroes are much pygmyized.
Study of skin colour in Pygmies, Baambas, Hottentots and Negroes shows that the Gates chart of skin colours is applicable to these races. The Pygmies correspond with No. 3 (mahogany) of the chart, the Baambas (Pygmy X Negro) with No. 2 (dark mahogany), the Hottentot-Bush with No. 4 (yellow), and the Negro with No. 1 (black). Thus the gene R, under which was formely included both black and mahogany, is divided into two – Q representing the black of the Negro, and R representing the mahogany of the Pygmy. S (yellow) and T (brunet) skin are present in the Bush-Hottentot. The full black Negro is then QQRRSSTT, the Pygmy RRSSTT and the Bush-Hottentot SSTT. The colour chart, derived only from Negro-White crosses is thus directly applicable to the other African races.
Certain evolutionary relationships of the Pygmies, Negroes and Bushmen now seem clear. The Pygmies are of ancient origin, with mahogany skin and hairy body. The Negroes have since acquired a black skin by the Q mutation, and their bodies have become hairless by one or more loss mutations. The common ancestor of Pygmy and Negro would be a tall race with the mahogany skin and hairy body of the Pygmies. This race may now be extinct. The Bush, with sallow yellow skin, must have lost the ancestral mahogany gene in addition to their other transformations.
The Pygmy dwarfing is apparently the result of a single gene mutation of essentially achondroplastic type, as suggested in 1946. This kind of mutation is not very uncommon in Negro-tribes (various cases are cited) and Has probably been occurring, like melanism in moths, for thousands of years. Interbreeding of such heterozygous dwarfs would quickly establish a tribe more or less homozygous for the dwarf gene. The Pygmies are then the oldest living race in Africa with the exception of the Bushmen.
The blood groups and sickling of the Pygmies are considered in relation to other African races.
Measurements show that the Pygmy skull is frequently little smaller than that of the Negro, their ranges apparently overlapping, although some Pygmy skulls are very small in dimensions. The cephalic index is higher than that of the Negro in accordance with the small stature, and frequently approaches closely to brachycephaly or overlaps it in the female. In morphology the Pygmy head is ovoid, but skulls are frequently more or less markedly pentagonoid. This suggests a common Boskopoid origin of Pygmies and Bushmen. The Pygmy nose is very primitive and characteristic. Various other morphological features of the skull are considered. The Pygmy teeth and jaws are the worst in any human race, the alveoli being sometimes eroded away completly. This may have a nutritional basis.
The armspan in the living Pygmy exceeds the stature, but the proximal segment of both limbs is relatively very short. The bones of the skeleton are generally smaller in all dimensions than in the tall races, but the head is relatively large, and the same is frequently true of the pelvic girdle. Thus we have a form of achondroplastic dwarfing of mutational origin. Many kinds of dwarfing occur in man, some normal, some pathological. The Pygmy type is one of these but “normal”.
Records of Y-inherited hairy ears in India
- R. Ruggles Gates
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- Journal:
- Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae / Volume 6 / Issue 1 / January 1957
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 01 August 2014, pp. 103-108
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- January 1957
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While traveling in East Africa, three typical cases of hairy ears were observed incidentally in natives of India, two of whom were from Goa. The inheritance in all three cases was compatible with location of the gene in the Y-chromosome. Two other independent cases have been reported to me from the same general part of India, southeast of Bombay, which indicates a considerable frequency of the gene in this area.
The only previously known pedigree of this condition came from Italy in 1907, and several independent cases in males are described in the early Italian literature. In all these Italian families the hairy ears were associated with insanity or other psychiatric conditions, but this association may have been fortuitous, and hairy ears may be as frequent in Italy as in India.