Opinions differ as regard presence of Negrito’ element in the mainland of India. This controversy started as early as the nineteenth century, when in 1877 De Quatrefages expressed the view that Negrito made remarkable contribution towards basic ethnic substratum of the Dravidian and some tribes of India.
Slight trace of woolly hair in any population was assigned to the Negrito; it became some sort of fashion at that time. In 1895 Ball strongly criticized the view of De Quatrefages. He said that De Quatrefages findings were baseless. Some other scholars like callamand, Jjagor and Koerber were also not prepared
to accept the view of De Quatrefages.
On the other hand in 1896 Keane while discussing the Negrito problem supported De Quatrefages. He wanted to oring the Negrito element of India from Malaysia. According to him Negrito traits are present in some South India tribes like Kadar, Irula, Kurumba, Malachar, Pali, Vallal as well as among the
Vedda of Sri Lanka, However, in 1909 he himself expressed doubt about it and admitted that the same type of woolly hair as seen among African and oceanic Negrito was perhaps lacking in the population of India.
Lapicque after examining the Kadar in 1905 said that Negrito element was present in them. However, he revised his view and said that Negrito traits as seen among the Andamanese were lacking among the Kadar, though the later show a Negrito admixture.
Sarasin brother studied the Vedda in 1893. They did not find any trace of woolly hair among the Vedda. In 1905 Turner also arrived at the same conclusion on the basis of analysis of craniometric data that Negrito element was not present among the Vedda. According to Thurston woolly hair is not present in the population of south India. Risley also did not find woolly hair in any population of India. Haddon was also inclined to accept this view and therefore he did not accept the list of Negrito populations prepared by Keane. Though he listed the Kadar as a Negrito people, yet he expressed his doubt about it. Buxton also did not support the view that Negrito element is present in the tribes of Central and South India.
Eickstedt in his classification of Indian people made in 1993 did not include the Negrito. His Melid group is not Negrito. He clearly stated that Negroid hair was never present in any population of South India. Perhaps most of the investigators failed to distinguish between woolly and frizzly or spiral hair and that led to confusion.
The Andamanese are Negrito. But “they have had no share in the making of the Indian population” as has been said by Risley. Molesworth analysing the anthropometric data formed the opinion that the Andamanese were different from the aboriginal tribes of India. On the strength of craniometric evidence
Fowler and Turner came to the same conclusion. The Andamanese are brachycephalic and platyrrhine people. Their cranial capacity is low. In many characteristics they are different from the Australoid. The Andamanese were confined to a particular area. The skeletal materials collected from different
prehistoric sites do not indicate presence of Negrito element in ancient India. Negrito traits are not found in the population of modern India. In such manner so to suggest that at one time it was fairly distributed in India.
Iyer observed frizzly hair among certain tribes of South India like Kadar, Pulayans, Urali and Kannikar, which he considered as Negrito element. But as Majumdar has pointed out “no specific mention has been made of the incidence of this character and no microscopic examination is available to support Iyer’s view”. Aiyappan’s view was different from that of Iyer. According to him, though the so-called Negrito south India, all other tribes exhibit usual south Indian type i.e. Australoid. The tribal people should not be considered to be different from the people in ethnical and racial origins.
The Negritos are regarded by Guha to be the original inhabitants of India. His observation was based on sporadic occurrence of woolly hair in certain populations of India, more particularly among the Kadar whom he found 16 individuals having woolly or frizzly hair. Hair form is one of the racial criteria. But Guha put much more emphasis on the single criterion only. Even in describing this character he uses the terms woolly and frizzly indiscriminately, which should not be, because as has been pointed out by Hauschild, there is difference between the genetic feature of frizzly hair of the Negroes and ordinary frizzly hair. Ephrefels made the same mistake. He wanted to prove the existence of Negrito hair in the Kadar. He published some photographs also. While describing the hair form he used different terms like woolly., frizzly, spring. Sarkar strongly criticized Guha’s view. He is not prepared to accept the Negritos to contribute ethnic strains to the basic substratum of the Indian population. The sporadic so occurrence of so-called Negrito hair cannot be taken so seriously in the light of modern development of the science of genetics. Woolly hair developed from wavy hair as result of mutation as has been pointed out by Fischer.
In 1959 Sarkar along with his colleagues made a detailed study of various aspects of the physical features, e.g., anthropometry, somatoscopy, ABO blood group, dermatoglyphic traits and hair of the Kadar and arrived at a conclusion that no Negrito element is found among them. The Kadars are very similar to the Australoid tribes of south India and they may be listed along with the Paniyan, Kannikar etc., as one of the Australoid tribes. After this study there is no reason to talk about the Kadar as having Negrito traits. So, the earlier observation on Negrito element based on the Kadar are no longer tenable.
Haddon gave a general description of the Negritos. They are very short statured, woolly haired and medium to low brachycephalic. The Andamanese are brachycephalic. De Quatrafeges also described the Negrito as brachycephalic. But according to Guha the Kadars are dolichocephalic. Then how can he call them Negrito. Is it because some of them have woolly hair and two individuals a show mesocephalic head? This question was raised by Majumdar who does not think that sporadic occurrence of brachycephalic head proves existence of Negrito element. If the mean cephalic index of a population is 75 or 76, there may be few individuals with brachycephalic head.
Another stern supporter of Negrito elements in India is Hutton. He observed sporadic occurrence of Negrito hair among the Angami Nagas. But Olivier did not find any Negrito element in any of the Naga tribes. Besides woolly and frizzly hair among the Angami Nagas, Hutton has put forward several cultural evidences in support of his hypothesis. But he has been severely criticized by Sarkar Mujumdar. With strong, valid arguments they have very clearly shown that Hutton’s suggestion is not acceptable.
Now let us examine the skeletal materials. To establish his view Guha has demonstrated skull, from two different regions, which have Negrito traits. As regards how far his arguments are acceptable we shall present the views expressed by Sarkar. To support Hutton’s view on the existence of Negrito element among the Nagas, Guha has demonstrated the cranial materials a collected by him and Basu from the Naga Hills. They have classified the skulls into two groups. One group is mongoloids, while the other is proto-Australoid or Australoid. The skulls of Mohenjodaro. Though the authors call them Australoid, they have not care to compare these skulls, with the skulls of Australoid. On the other hand, comparison of those skulls has been made with that of Tasmanian and Melanesian. Perhaps, the reason is that they believe in the cultural similarities between the Naga people and Melanesians. But why Australian aborigines have been excluded?
On the basis of comparison, they have arrived at a conclusion that the skulls of the second group are similar to that of Tasmanian and Melanesian with regard to low forehead and deep nasal root. These are undoubtedly Australian features. But the authors themselves have stated the Negrito elements found in the Papuan and Tasmanian skull were at one time distributed from North East to south west frontiers of India. Under the Oceania leaving sporadic evidence of their presence where and there. Thus, Guha and Basu are of their presence here and there. Thus, Guha and Basu are not very clear what they intend to say but to prove somehow or other that the Negritos were distributed over a fairly larger part of India at one time.
The second representative of the Negritos exhibited by Guha come from Jewugri skull described by Taylor as having Negrito features. But Taylor has not mentioned anything. The Jewugri skulls appear to be disfigured. Nothing definite can be said on the strength of such evidence.
While dealing with the racial elements in prehistoric India it has already been noted that the skeletal remains unearthed from different sites belonging to different periods ranging from Neolithic Piklihal and Chalcolithic Mohenjodaro to Iron Age site at Adichanullur there is no evidence to Negrito traits, such as woolly hair a broad head associated with flat nose and dark complexion, would have been med frequently in northern India as well.
However, we cannot completely rule to the possibility of penetrance of Negrito traits into certain population of India more particularly a few coastal groups. There are reasons to believe that the Negroid populations established their colonies in some coastal regions like Gujarat, where they came in contact with the local people and as a result by admixture Negro traits were penetrated into the local populations. But these events occurred comparatively in recent times and these were local phenomena. And as such these negroids did not get chance to contribute their share in considerable manner to the ethnic makes up of the Indian population.