I’ve never heard that the Khoisan were particularly short; they’re most noted physically for their unique coloration - sort of a honey-like color - and for having epicanthic folds. They’re a very distinct population from “negroid” people and also from pygmies. It’s possible that the Khoisan have been called “pygmies” or confused with pygmies at some times, but it’s certainly not conventional to call the Khoisan “pygmies”. Actually, modern examination of the most distant ethnic divisions of humanity divides us up into five groups - white, Asian, black, pygmy, and Khoisan; the Khoisan and the pygmies are very separate groups.
And the Khoisan territory is not particularly cold, and neither is pygmy territory. The modern extent of the Khoisan population (which has shrunk over the past couple thousand years, first by the Bantu expansion and then by the arrival of whites) is basically temperate, but I believe the larger territory they formerly occupied included some tropical regions as well.
Sorry ChinaGuy…Im quite busy right now to search for articles regarding some of the people who supported liberation from their colonial rulers during WWII. I will have a break in two days, and will come up with some more sites. To get you started, I’ve put down a few links that support this theory. Again, and as I stated before, most of the civilians were not happy having the Japanese there, but some were…(and almost all were not happy once they actually lived under the Japanese style of occupation)
Check out this site from Wikipedia
That is basically a list of local leaders who supported the Japanese in their quest for a Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere…remember, leaders must have followers
Here are a couple few articles about Netaji who wanted help from the Japanese to rid the British.
The following are two good articles about Aung San who led an independence army who welcomed the Japanese when the first arrived (switched sides later). His daughter is currently quite famous :Aung San Suu Kyi
I think you misunderstood my post. I said that the vast majority of Japanese textbooks do not glorify WW2, not that none did. I linked to what I noted was the most conservative text, and I thought I implied that it did glorify the war. I do not think that it is not an accurate depiction of Japan’s actions in Asia. But compared to the usual propoganda I’ve come across justifying Japan’s aggression (such as the argument that Manchukuo was a legitimate state, which seems in vogue at the moment) it’s considerably toned down.
This page which has translations of more mainstream texts (such as the one that was used in city I taught in). While I haven’t looked over all of them, those that I have do not appear to me to glorify the war.
sharky, i think you misunderstand. actually i’m pretty familiar that there were disaffected members of society anxious to throw off the imperialist colonial yoke and rolled the dice that the japanese would actually help independance instead of becoming the new boss.
questions are
-how widespread was the support among the general populace?
-how widespread was general,population support after couple years of the japanese version of colonial yoke? feel free to use Ang Sang as an example.
btw, local leaders must have followers. take a look at every European country overrun by the Germans. They all had local leaders with followers that supported the invasion. i for one welcome our new overlords.
On a side note: If I recall correctly, China was one the few country who put up the bitterest resistance agains the Japanese, and hence the Japanese harboured a lot of resentment towards the former. It was said that the Japanese were far more lenient on the other races but were incredibly brutal to the Chineses, and perhaps by extension, to Koreans as well (Japan and Korea did fight a couple of wars before Japan’s modernisation).
That might explain why there might be support for the Japanese from other countries, but not from the Chineses in particular.
No, they’re not as short as true “pygmies”, but they are shorter than most other African populations. How much of that is due to diet, I don’t know.
I’ve never hear that before. Can we have a cite for this type of “modern” examination? Where do Australian Aboriginals fit into that classification-- Asian? And what constitutes “white” and “black”?
But yes, the Khoisan are not at all the same as the Pygmies (like the Mbuti). There are also “pygmy” groups outside of Africa as well-- mostly in S.E. Asia, where they are usually called Negritos.
Okay, according to Wikipedia they are indeed short, but apparently not as short as pygmies or Negritos. Still, I sort of suspect Blake was confusing the Khoisan with the groups more commonly called “pygmies”; neither group lives in an area cold enough to support a strictly climatic explanation for height (as with the squat builds of Eskimos that conserve heat.)
You know, I’ve never studied anthropology - all I’ve done is read a bunch of sorta pop-science-y books on it. I think that this division into five groups may have been cited by Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs, and Steel, but I’m not sure. I think it’s supported by Cavalli-Sforza’s genetic investigations, but again, it’s hard to remember where I read everything. And I don’t know where that puts Australian aborigines, either - they don’t fit in any obvious place into that breakdown. Shows what I get for talking about things I don’t know about.
Okay, checked Guns, Germs, and Steel. Turns out there’s six divisions in his analysis, with Australian aborigines a separate group. He does mention the implications of renewed scientific credence in “races”, but he doesn’t indicate exactly where his breakdown comes from, so I can’t trace it back further into more scholarly literature.
Funny you should mention Cavelli-Sforza-- I always keep a copy of Genes, Peoples, and Languages on my desk. While he does have discussions about the genetic distance between the various continents, that is not an attempt to tie race to continent, but just a convenient lumping that glosses over the fact that popluations span continetal borders and that subgroups within Africa can be more distantly related to each other than some entire continents are to each other. Page 89 of that book has a good chart of the genetic distance between various populations and, interestingly, the Mbuti are by far and away the outliers-- ie, genetically more distant to it’s nearest close relative than any other population.
On page 29, after discussing the various methods of racial classification and how the genetic variation between people in one village typically matches that of any other village, even on a different continent he comes to this conclusion:
Those “traditional lines” are exactly the ones you talk about-- races based on continents.
I understand that discussion of race is a loaded topic and traditional views of race are simply not compatible with scientific understanding. I don’t really have the expertise to argue whether or not classifications broader than individual ethnic groups are valid. I note, though, that critics have claimed that that book is indeed a discussion of what we understand as race, couched in different terms. However, my point remains that Khoisan and pigmies are radically different populations.
I have no idea what convention you refer to, nor did I ever claim that the khoi-san are ‘pygmies’. Though of course I could have since pygmy itself is an utterly meaningless term that has been applied to the San, Andamanese, various South American groups and even one group of Aborigines.
If you bother to read my actual post you will see that my comment was that the Khoi san and Hottentots were so short that it was common to refer to them as being pygmies. Of course these groups were the southern African populations living in the coldest and southermost climate, which makes a nonsense of RandomLetters claim that generally the tallest populations live in the coldest climates and highest latitudes.
"regions, who have had intercourse with the pygmies still existing in the depths of the dark forest west of the Albert Nyanza, have given descriptions of these people which show almost beyond a doubt that they and the Bushmen of South Africa are one in race. All the physical characteristics are the same, if we allow for the full open eye of the northern pygmy being due to his living in forest gloom, and the sunken half-closed eye of the southern Bushman to his life being passed in the glare of an unclouded sun.
The average height of adult male Bushmen, as given by Fritsch and other observers from careful measurement, is 144.4 centimetres or 56-85 inches. Von Wissmann gives the height of some pygmies that he measured as from 140 to 145 centimetres, or about the same."
"It then explores actual human behavior in societies around the world beginning with earliest and smallest known societies, foraging people such as the !Kung San Pygmies, then various kinds of farming people, and finally, city dwellers.
If you take the time to read 19th century and earlier accountsof southern Africa you will find thatit was quite normal to refer to both Khoi-san and Hottentot as pygmies.
I would have to see some strong evidence for that claim because linguistically at least the San, Hottentots and Congolese pygmies are very closely aligned, indeed the pygmy language group is called Khoi-san. Similarly the idea that Arabs and Turks are not considered part of the ‘white’ race seems unbelievable.
Nobody ever claimed it is very cold. The point was that it is as cold as Sub-Saharan Africa gets. RandomLetters made the claim that the largest people generally live in the coldest climates. This is not the case in South America, Australia, Polynesia nor in Africa.
It still incorporates a lot of tropical area, notably much of the northern Kalahari which has traditionally been unable to sustain grazing. In the more southerly areas that could sustain agriculture the introduction of cattle led to the abandonment of the HG lifestyle by the Hottentots, who until then were the same people. And because they are the same people they are the same general height. And that height is by no stretch the tallest in southern Africa.
“Radically different” is a real stretch. These people share a common recent linguistic history. The Khoi San, Hottentots and Mbuti pygmies are also more genetically closely related to one another than to any other groups on the planet.
The environment, culture and history of those two populations are indeed different, though no more radically then any two other groups isolated for >10, 000 years. However they are very close in terms of genetics, linguistics and especially physical stature and both groups have been referred to as pygmies for that reason, which was the only claim that was ever made.
My only claim is that there are certain groups in Subsaharan Africa, including the aforementioned Mbuti, that are conventionally referred to as “pygmies”, and that they don’t include the Khoisan. I believe what you’re saying - that Khoisan folks are short, and have often been called pygmies; I was just trying to make sure that it’s clear that the Khoisan and the groups conventionally called Pygmies in Africa today are different groups. For those less well-acquainted with anthropology than yourself, I think what you said might have been confusing.
I certainly read it. I don’t think what I said warrants your snarky tone.
I would definitely like to see a cite for this. I’m no expert on African linguistics, but I have never read any claim that the pygmies of Subsaharan Africa speak Khoisan languages.
Like I said earlier, I’m no expert on this stuff. Certainly some writers claim that pygmies and Khoisan are as distinct as any two groups of humans. Perhaps others don’t.
I would really like to see a cite for this. I’ve never heard it. All I have on hand is what I cited earlier from Guns, Germs, and Steel; the author of that book is pretty unequivocal that the Khoisan (meaning the Khoi or Khoikhoi, pastoralists referred to once upon a time as “Hottentots”; and the San, hunter-gatherers formerly termed “Bushmen”) represent a branch of humanity long-distinct from the pygmies.
Again, do you have a cite that any of the “pygmy” groups (Mbuti, Aka, Efe, etc.) speak Khoisan languages? I have never heard this in my life; I don’t believe this is true at all, as the present-day confines of the Khoisan language family simply don’t overlap the areas where most pygmies live.
Pygmies don’t generically speak any language, which is usually taken to mean that they have been surounded by other language groups and then adopted their langauges. But traces of Khoisan lingusitics remain in several pygmy groups.
I have my copy of “Guns, Germs and Steel” here in front of me, and I can’t see any such claim being made. Perhaps you could provide a quote? Diamond does include the Pygmies and Khoisan as two of the major African groups, but he also lays down the caveat that “the… major groups are arbitrary” and that “these major groups [are] still so useful for understanding history that I’ll use the group names as shorthand”. IOW Diamond never makes any contentions at all regarding the gentic relationships of these groups as far as I can see. He uses these arbitrary distinctions because they are historically important, not genetically natural.
Of course I could be missing something, and if so I invite you to provide a quote of where he says that the Hottentots represent a branch of humanity long-distinct from the pygmies.
As for contradictory evidence, I suggest you take a look at “Genetic variation, classification and ‘race’” by Jorde and Wooding. Nature Genetics Supplement 36:11 which has a rather nice diagram ilustrating the relationship. In essence the San and the Mbuti form a distinct branch from the rest of humanity. A more accessible though less detailed study is presented here.
I would actually be interested to see any evidence concluding that the San and Mbuti groups are not closely linked. Some evidence certainly suggests that the Mbuti are more closely related to their neghbours than they are to the San because of recent intermarriage, but despite that the San remain more closely related to the Mbuti than to any other group.
Statistical analysis of the microsatellite data revealed a close genetic relationship between two hunter-gatherer populations in sub-Saharan Africa – the Mbuti pygmies of the Congo Basin and the Khoisan (or “bushmen”) of Botswana and Namibia. These two populations “may represent the oldest branch of modern humans studied here,” the authors concluded.
Outstanding link. Really. I didn’t know English translations of Japanese history books were available, and further more, made available on a website. It’s even translated into Korean and Chinese. That’s pretty much opening themselves right up and as long as what is written in the books is accurate, and factual(Im not able to read it on account my acrobat isnt working at the moment), then I honestly commend the Japanese on “bellying up to the bar” in regards to teaching about their actions during the pacific war. I’m really trying to draw some other parallels, such as if the the American, or Spanish govt. taught in their middle schools about the atrocities that were committed in the Americas, and then translated these texts into the indiginous languages. I dont think they have. The comparison may be a little different, but anyway, I think that’s pretty good that the Japanese have made the steps that theyve made.
The issue, at least here in Korea, isn’t so much that those textbooks aren’t factual but rather that they gloss over Japan’s aggression. To date, the Japanese government refuses to acknowledge how wrong Japan was.
In short, the Japanese government of today and those textbook authors are damn liars. There lies are lies of omission, but lies nevertheless. And that’s pritty much ticking people off in China, Korea, and other areas.
