Let us all go back home to Africa

The DNA in our chromosomes is an unbroken link to our ancestors, populations and relatives. Large-scale studies have demonstrated the gene pool is not a simple sum of genes, but is a dynamic system, which is hierarchically organized and which maintains the memory of past events in the history of populations. All genetic information has a historical, anthropological, geographical and statistical context.
________________________

by Dr. Rajasingham Narendran

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - George Weber

(April 09, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) V. Suryanarayanan, in his recent article in the Sri Lanka Guardian (4th April '08) cites a conversation narrated in the novel, 'When Memory Dies' by A. Sivanandan. Uncle Para tells Vijay, “When memory dies a people die”. Vijay asks Uncle Para, “But if we make false memories?” Uncle Para responds, “That’s worse, that is murder”. The Sinhala socio-political leadership in Sri Lanka have been aggressively involved for a long time in constructing a history for the Sinhala people, to prove they are a distinct people, the original inhabitants of the island, different from the Tamils, unique in their origins and ordained by Lord Buddha himself to be the inheritors of this island and be the custodians of Buddhism in its pristine form. The indigenous Tamils on the other hand have been forced to seek proof of their long presence in the Island stretching into the mists of antiquity and the Sinhalese as a people evolved from a proto-Tamil or Dravidian base. While the Tamil version of history enunciates common origins and inclusiveness, the Sinhala versions, which have been continuously burnished and manipulated, have sought to stress exclusivity. The concerted efforts made by various sinister elements in Sinhala society to erase traces and sometimes - substantial evidence of island-wide Tamil presence in ancient times, has been the most unsavoury aspect of the political and social evolution of independent Sri Lanka.

Sinhala history which had considered Prince Vijaya and his 700 followers, who had arrived on the shores of Lanka in 543 BC from Bengal or northwest India (Gujarat-Punjab), as the progenitors of the Sinhala people until recently, has in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, harked back much further to claim that King Ravana (of Ramayana fame) and his people were their progenitors. They have staked this claim following the discovery of skeletal remains and tools of the ‘Balangoda Man’, which indicated the island was inhabited from as early as 125,000 BC. Ravana, who had been seen until now as a Dravidian by the Tamils and hence their kin, is in the process of being Sinhalized. Ravana could have been the common ancestor of both the Sinhalese and Tamils, and this would reinforce the Tamil theory of common origins. However, according to some Sinhala versions of history being currently peddled, Tamil settlements began only in the 10th century AD, following invasions from the Tamil heartland in South India. Some politically motivated Sinhala pseudo-historians even trace the origins of the Tamils of Sri Lanka to the colonial period that commenced in the 16th century AD and the beginnings of the plantation economy. The indigenous Tamils of course vehemently refute this version of pseudo-history that is being constructed and embellished to serve the needs of Sinhala politicians, exclusivists and extremists of the present time.

Being a Tamil, convinced of my origins shrouded in the mist enveloping ancient Lanka’s history, proud of my heritage as a Tamil and vehement in my claims to co-ownership of the island, I have sought a rational explanation for my origins and those of my fellow citizens in Lanka, both on the basis of scientific facts and historical sources outside our island. The outcome should be considered the efforts of an inquisitive man, interested in the affairs of his land and her welfare. Being isolated for a large proportion of our known history in our small island, we have to a large extent become the proverbial ‘frog in the well’ that was unable to accept the realities in the world beyond its narrow confines and hence fought to death the much travelled frog that fell into his small well and told bewildering stories of a much wider world! It should be however remembered that the coastal areas of Sri Lanka have been at the crossroads of world commerce and adventurers for several millennia and this would have had a significant impact on our national make-up. For instance, our president Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brothers have the facial features typical of Malays! Being a scientist by training, I also sought evidence from DNA studies that are the most current scientific tool available to trace human origins, population migrations and population intermingling. It should be noted that although DNA studies are valuable tools, their correct application and interpretation are yet difficult. It has been an exhilarating voyage of discovery that has reinforced the truth expounded in the following lines in a Tamil poem from the Purananuru (500 BC) which states, “Let everyone know, to us all towns are ours, all men our kin…….”

The DNA in our chromosomes is an unbroken link to our ancestors, populations and relatives. Large-scale studies have demonstrated the gene pool is not a simple sum of genes, but is a dynamic system, which is hierarchically organized and which maintains the memory of past events in the history of populations. All genetic information has a historical, anthropological, geographical and statistical context. It is now well established that 95% of the nuclear genome-genes in the cellular nucleus - consist of unique or low copy sequences and moderate to highly repetitive nucleic acid sequences. The remaining 5% code for proteins. The non-coding genome, whose biological function is not clearly defined, is equally vulnerable to mutations and is a goldmine for anthropological and population genetic studies.

In population genetic studies involving DNA, genes that express characteristics such as the colour of hair, eyes, skin, etc, are studied. These genes, also called haplogroups, have been found to be present in sub-Saharan Africa and many occur only there. The haplogroups of populations living outside Africa are merely a subset of those existing in Africa. This is considered strong evidence for human origin in Africa and reinforces the long held anthropological theory on ‘out of Africa’ human evolution. On the basis of these findings it has been surmised that the differences between so-called ‘races’ are in fact to a large extent local genetic adaptations to environmental factors, acquired over dozens to hundreds of generations of residence. Race is now considered not a cultural construct, but a physical reality. Only the interpretation of some races as ‘lower or higher’, ‘more stupid or more intelligent’ and ‘better or worse’ is a cultural construct of those with a Nazi-like mentality. The example of German anthropologist Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt is noteworthy to exemplify this aspect of cultural constructs. He identified ‘primitive chimpanzoid type’ among the Andamanese Onge people and the ‘phylogenetically lowest type’ he knew among the Veddhoid Paniyer people of southern India. However, the same professor captioned a shapely Andamanese girl as ‘well proportioned, i.e. europiforme, shape’. The ‘Europeforme’ was no doubt, the professor’s own shape in his own opinion, according to the author of this citation.

The Negrito (little Negro in Spanish referring to the ‘Pygmy’) people in the Andaman Islands are now considered an ancient, if not the most ancient, component in the prehistoric peopling of Asia by anatomically modern humans. Many anthropologists believe humans migrated out of Africa in waves. More than a million years ago, Humanity’s primitive ancestors known as Homo erectus, walked out of Africa to colonize Europe, the Middle East and the rest of Asia. Several hundreds of thousands of years later a second wave of more sophisticated tool-using humans - Homo sapiens, migrated out of Africa and overwhelmed those earlier ancestors. Modern humans are descended from these tool-users. Genetic studies confirm the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands are the direct descendants of the first modern human to have inhabited Asia. Their physical features - short stature, dark skin, peppercorn hair and large buttocks are characteristics of African Pygmies. Although they look like they belong to Africa, they are currently in this island chain in the middle of the Indian Ocean!

As the first humans evolved and spread out of Africa in various directions, they evolved into human types - of different colours, heights and other physical characteristics - to suit the environment in which they found themselves. The natural selection process favouring the most fit to survive in a given environment played its role in creating a divergence in physical characteristics. The original Homo sapien population was dark, and in this case, the ‘White’ (leucoderm) and the ‘Yellow’ (xanthoderm) races resulted from depigmentation. Current genetic studies point to the likelihood that the Negritos were groups of people living in a large area of tropical Asia, tens of thousands of years ago, when new and more aggressive immigrants arrived to push the ancestral Negritos into remoter jungle areas. In such a scenario, the Negritos groups lost contact with each other, leaving us today with only widely separated population remnants. The surviving groups of people related to the Negritos are the Veddhas of Sri Lanka and the (Veddha-like people) living in tiny groups all over southern India and southeast Asia. Incidentally, the word Veddha seems to have been derived from the Tamil word ‘Verdhar’ used in reference to hunting tribes.

In 1288 AD and again in 1293 AD, the Venetian traveller Marco Polo visited the Pandian Kingdom and left a vivid description of the land and its people. Polo exclaimed, “The darkest man is here the most highly esteemed and considered better than the others who are not so dark. Let me add that in very truth these people portray and depict their gods and their idols black and their devils white as snow. For they say that god and all saints are black and their devils are all white.” Black was indeed beautiful in the Dravidian Tamil heartland of the Pandias. George Azario Moreno, the renowned anthropologist concluded the Dravidians may not have had a common origin. He asserts that both Ethiopia/Africa in the west and Australoids and Melenesians from the east may figure in their origin. He says that the Dravidians did not come from anywhere in particular. They probably evolved continuously in-situ in the subcontinent from the population of Homo erectus that left Africa. There is unequivocal evidence of Homo erectus in Java (Indonesia). Clearly, Homo erectus must have passed through the subcontinent to get there. There is fossil evidence to back this, in the form of the Narmada find, which dates back 100,000 to 180,000 years and suggests the species could have spread continuously from Africa to East Asia. The Andaman Islanders are probably antecedent to Melenesians and Australoids. The reason why Dravidians have ‘finer’ features than Negritos, Australoids and the Melenesians, is explained by him as due to new elements that entered the gene pool in the Indus Valley Civilization from Mesopotamia (the closest civilization at that time), or other nearby places (Somalia, Ethiopia and Egypt) thousands of years ago.

Dr. Clyde Winters has identified the Nagas as great seamen who ruled much of India, Sri Lanka and Burma. He deduces that the Naga probably came from Kush-Punt/Ethiopia. According to Kebra Negast the Indian empire ruled by the Naga, corresponded to the Naga colonies in the Deccan and on the east coast between the Kaviri and Vaigai rivers. The major Naga tribes were the Maravar, Eyinar, Oliyar, Oviyar, Aru-Valur and Parathavar. The Nagas of Sri Lanka also mentioned in the Mahavamsa, are said to have later become Dravidians as testified by the names of these people - Naganathan, Nagaratnam, Nagarajah, Nagendran, Nagamma, etc. Dravidian literature indicates that the Naga may have introduced Kali, the serpent, Murugan, Spear/Lance and the Sun or Krishna worship. It is interesting that a God called Murungu and the lance are worshipped by many people in East Africa. It is also fascinating that Krishna, meaning black, is analogous to the meaning of ‘Khous’ of the Kushites. The so-called Aryans perceived the Nagas as half men and snake. The Tamils knew them as warriors who used the bow and noose. William Jones a hundred years ago had pointed out that the ancient Ethiopic and Sanskrit writings are similar. The Naga or Ethiopians are supposed to have been defeated by Dravidians from Kumari Nadu. Kumari Nadu (Lemuria) is supposed to have been a large land mass, which connected India with East Africa. This land mass was subsequently submerged in an ancient cataclysm. Dr. Ketheesh Loganathan has noted that the linkage between the African and the Dravidian cannot be dismissed because anyone who sees the Ethiopians and Tamils could see a remarkable physical resemblance. To those outside Sri Lanka the Sinhalese and Tamils look alike. Hence, the Sinhalese cannot be excluded from these linkages. It has been also found that the Indian game of Pallankuli, seen in the Southern Deccan and Sri Lanka, resemble the game of Mancalal - called the African national game. This indicates that the progenitors of the Dravidians carried the game with them from Africa.

The Rev.(Dr) D.J. Kanagaratnam in his book titled ‘Tamils and cultural pluralism in ancient Sri Lanka’ states, “The Naga and Yaksha people are not only ethnologically linked to the Sinhalese and Tamil people, but have also left their cultural marks on them. ----- Hindu and Buddhist iconography with Naga and Yaksha motifs is so vast and numerous. They obviously show the influence of Naga and Yaksha beliefs and cults. The large number of Buddha statues with the protective Naga, the Naga guard-stones near Dagobas and shrines and the Buddha statue found along with the Naga and lingam emblems on the banks of ancient tanks have a long story to tell of the Buddhist-Naga interaction and cultural fusion from ancient times. ---- The cults of the Siva-Lingam and Nagathambiran and the fertility cults taken over by certain Hindu deities such as Murugan (Skanda), Indra, Pillayar (Ganesha) and Kali bring out vividly the Naga-Hindu interaction.”

Samuel Livingston in his book ‘The Sinhalese of Ceylon and Aryan theory’, states that the emblem of the Nagas was the cobra, sometimes with five heads and that the second visit of Lord Buddha to the island (as described in the Mahavamsa) was to Nagadipa (Jaffna peninsula), where he settled a dispute between the Naga princes, Mahodara and Culodara. He also says the Nagas were in possession of a very advanced civilization, which is reflected in the Tamil words ‘Naharikam’ (Civilization) and Naharam (Town or City). Livingstone identifies the Yakkas as a Tamil-speaking people, who lived in Sri Lanka at the time of Prince Vijaya's arrival.

Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (1st century BCE) recorded, “From Ethiopia he (Osiris) passed through Arabia, bordering upon the Red Sea as far as India ---- he built many cities in India, one of which he called Nysa, willing to have remembrance of that (Nysa) in Egypt, where he was brought up.” There is also the possibility that there was a reverse migration from India to Africa. Apollonius of Tyrana, who visited India at the end of the first century CE, was convinced that the “Ethiopians are the colonists sent from India, who follow their forefathers in matters of wisdom.” An early Christian writer Eusebius recorded that, “In the reign of Amenophis 111 (the mighty Dynasty XV111 Egyptian King) a body of Ethiopians migrated from the country about the Indus and settled in the valley of the Nile.” Another document from ancient times, says, “India, taken as a whole, beginning from the north and embracing what of it is subject to Persia, is continuation of Egypt and the Ethiopians.”

The Indus Valley Civilization centered in Harrappa and Mohenjadaro (in the present Pakistan) discovered along the Indus River in 1920 is considered one of the three great civilizations that arose in the late fourth and third millennia BC along the Tigris-Euphrates, Nile and Indus rivers. The Indus Valley Civilization was at its peak from about 2200 BC to 1700 BC. It has been now proved that the Indus Valley Civilization was of the Dravidians and that their culture had developed a highly sophisticated way of life. The existence of the Brahui tribe in Baluchistan, to the west of the Indus, who speak a Dravidian language like south Indian Tamils, indicates that a migration of people or culture did occur. Brahui is spoken today by large number of people in Baluchistan and the adjoining areas in Afghanistan and Iran. Asko Parpola, a scholar on the Indus Valley Civilization, concluded that Brahui represents remnants of the Dravidian language spoken in the area by descendants of the Harrappan population. Parpola points out several place names in the northwestern region of the present Pakistan, like nagara, palli and pattna have good Dravidian etymologies.

Runoko Rashidi wrote recently that when he was asked about the African presence in Sri Lanka he had said, “It all depends on what you mean by African. The majority Sinhalese population of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) is itself very dark. Then, you have the Tamils from South India residing in Sri Lanka. They also are a very dark people. They are Dravidians with some of them being quite black. These are the Blacks currently fighting the Sinhalese Sri Lankan government for independence or at least a greater degree of autonomy.” He also says the original people of Sri Lanka are generally called Veddhas or Veddhoids and have a strong resemblance to aboriginal Australians. He concludes by stating that in respect to phenotype (physical appearance) all of these populations are Black.

Many researchers have attempted to untangle the mystery of the origins of the Sinhalese as they seem to have genome contributions from many areas of India. In one study the overall allele frequencies were comparable to Indian populations, but significant differences were also observed. The overall pattern of genetic relationships pointed towards substantial Bengali contribution. The Bengali contribution was 57.49%, compared to 42.51 of Tamils. There were also pointers to possible North-Western Indian contribution to the Sinhala genome, reducing the Tamil contribution to around 20%. A subsequent study indicated that the present day Sinhalese and Tamils of Sri Lanka are closer to Indian Tamils and South Indian Muslims. They are furthest from the Veddhas and quite distant from Gujaratis and Punjabis of northwest India and Bengalis of northeast India. The study of genetic admixture revealed that the Sinhalese have a higher contribution from the Tamils of southern India (69.86%) compared with the Bengalis (25.41%), whereas the Tamils of Sri Lanka have received a higher contribution from the Sinhalese (55.2%), compared with the Tamils of India. It may be concluded that if Prince Vijaya and his companions were of northwest Indian (Gujarathi and Punjabi) origin, the traces of this decent have been erased by the contributions from Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Similarly, the Tamils of Sri Lanka are closer to the Sinhalese because of their proximity historically, linguistically and culturally.

A third study involving blood genetic markers did not reveal any genetic evidence that the Sinhalese population was distinct from those of Tamils of Sri Lanka. It was concluded that genetic evidence linking the legendary origin of the Sinhalese to Prince Vijaya and his followers is lacking. Despite the minor differences in the results of these studies, the Sri Lankan Tamil perception that the Sinhalese and Tamils are of common origin stands vindicated.

Samuel Livingston had said, “Sinhalese were Tamils up to the time Buddhism came to Ceylon, and thereafter these very Tamils became Sinhalese gradually. To put it mildly, the Sinhalese are not Aryans, but have been Dravidians from the beginning to the present day, and their language too has been Dravidian.” The fact that there are significant proportions of light-skinned Sinhalese and Tamils in Sri Lanka points to the process of natural selection favouring the lighter skin. Fair skinned girls are preferred by very dark men and, with time the skin colour has tended to become fairer. The years of colonial rule may have introduced the gene for light colour into the general population, as the colonial rulers sowed their seeds diligently and quite widely! White Man's rule during the colonial era and his achievements in the world have made us believe Black is no longer beautiful and we are consciously introducing an element of deliberate selection through preferring the lighter colouration and sharper features.

I wonder why the Sinhalese should be ashamed of their Dravidian or Tamil ancestry, if indeed it is true. On the other hand, if the Tamils are proven to have Sinhala ancestry, I am sure most Tamils will accept it as a fact of their history. However, for the Sinhalese to deny the Tamils their rightful claims to this island is a travesty of justice, negation of truth and a criminal act considering the facts emerging about our respective origins. Ultimately, both the Sinhalese and Tamils originally came out of Africa and resemble the Ethiopians and Somalis to a considerable extent. If Sri Lanka is not accepted as the land of the Tamils too, it cannot be the land of the Sinhalese either. We were both migrants from Africa, who travelled through India over thousands of years and should go back there together. The Sinhalese have no right to ask the Tamils to go back to India either. The Tamils will then have the same right to ask them to go back there too.

Incidentally, the President of the Small Farmers Association of Sri Lanka, a Sinhalese farming ‘one eighth of one acre’ of land, who participated in the BBC debate on Agriculture last week in Rome, whilst seated amidst a north Indian, a Nigerian and others of European descent, looked distinctly Ethiopian/Eritrean/Somali in his features, though not as dark as they were. I should take this opportunity to congratulate this gentleman on his performance in this debate and the insightful contribution he made. He made me proud as a Sri Lankan and reminded me of where I had originally come from. He is my kin!

At this juncture in our history, academics of the calibre of Gananath Obeysekara, Lesley Gunawardena, Indrapala, Pathmanathan, Michael Roberts, Ralph Deraniyagala and others not named here should step forward to educate the general public - Sinhalese, Tamils and Muslims, about known and proven facts of our history and origins. This would leave no room for charlatans (I may also be called one) to fill the void. This would be a critical component in the nation building exercise we have to embark now. We are at present a people who are reacting to the effects of conflict, but are blind to what is seeding it. What is seeding it is the ‘Madness and Viciousness’ in some people that are being dispensed quite generously in the absence of any resistance from the sensible and rational. It is time our academics - of the honest and objective kind - came forward to hold the lights of knowledge to counter the darkness that is overwhelming us.

[As this article is written for the public, citations are minimal and scientific jargon has been avoided where possible. Sentences have been borrowed from the source material, when found appropriate and more expressive.) [The writer, having obtained his Ph.D from the University of Guelph in Canada, was a Lecturer at the University of Peradeniya and Associate Professor at the King Faisal University in Saudi Arabia.]
- Sri Lanka Guardian