I am not necessarily identifying any particular kind of risk that negrito
societies must overcome (such as is inherent in resource fluctuations or climatic
instability). However, the objective picture is clear: negrito groups are demographically
tiny, socially marginal, politically powerless, and everywhere surrounded by
majority groups. There is a great risk of losing identity, autonomy, and the resource
base that makes their mobile way of life possible. To avoid being encapsulated to
death, it seems likely that one way is to “make friends”—to reach out to friendly
intermediary groups, who can buffer them from shocks and help them in times of
need. Access to widely scattered environmental resources and passage from one
location to another is enhanced not by competing with and displacing neighbors
(who are in any case of equal strength and numbers) but by maintaining a flexible
regime of friendly exchange partners. There is no reason why the opportunism that
characterizes their historical relationships with dominant groups is not similarly
deployed in their interactions with these partners. Negrito persistence as distinct
societies, their resilience, has much to do with how they navigate between the
attractions of the broader world and the need to maintain a clear social distance.