Where I (as well as some other Minangs) came from...

I’ve been meaning to do this piece for some time now, but with a new job, new colleagues, new office, and the dissertation load is weighting in, it had been a struggle to find some spare time to actually put this story in writing. Not that I have the time now, but I am right now trying to find some (hopefully) bright inspirations for my dissertation, and in the past I found it helpful to warm up by writing some light paragraphs.

Anyway, this story is about my involvement with National Geographic’s Genographic project (www.genographic.com). Apparently, NG has been conducting a global research for sometime as an attempt to reveal human migration over the millenias, using the DNA to track down how human populated the earth all the way back to the first migration out of africa several thousands years ago.

Registering for the program was simple, just put some personal information, submit the payment (I think it was around USD 200, but consider it as a contribution to the science J), and within 2 week I received a package containing DNA testing kit (some peculiar looking swabs, not too different than your regular cotton swab, but longer, and with detachable end, as well as some vials containing few milimeters of unknown liquid, as well as a return envelope).

The instruction was to swab the inside of my cheek multiple times, and drop the end of the swab into the vials containing the liquid, put it back in the provided envelope, and send it back to Houston for analysis. Of course several strict instructions also came along with the simple instruction: don’t drink, don’t eat, don’t touch the swab with hand etc before taking the sample. Good thing I received the package during the fasting months, so I got on with it right after I woke up.

6-8 weeks later, the result came out, and it was quite interesting. Apparently, today’s science is able to distinguish DNA mutation from both paternal (my dad’s side) and maternal (my mom’s side). By the way, theoretically they are able to track down where your ancestor are from detecting some DNA mutation in your genes that are specific to some documented mutations on their database, and by doing this they are able to at least tell you where your ancestor came from, and even through which route your ancestry line travelled all the way to Africa to, in my case, Bendungan Hilir, in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Before I discuss the result, let me share you where my parents came from.

Both of my mom and dad came from West Sumatra, normally referred to as “minang” tribe. One of the few cultures in the world that using matrilineal system. In simple word that would means we traced our ancestry through maternal ancestor (from mother side), unlike the much more common patrilineal descent. In fact, based on the good old wikipedia, Minang shared this particular system with the North American Indian (Cheerokee, Choctaw, Gitksan, Haida, Hopi, Iroquis, Lenape, Navajo, Tinglit),few tribes in South India (Nairs of Kerala, and the Bunts and Billava of Karthataka), the Khasi, Jaintia & Garo in Northeast India, The Basque of Spain and France (this is new, I didn’t knew this fact before I looked it up at Wikipedia), the Tuaregs (the blue man) in north africa, most Jewish communities, and the Serer tribe in Senegal.

Naturally, I am a bit more familiar with my mom’s side of the family ancistry than my dad’s, which is quite common for Minang people. In fact, since I am a son in my family, according to the tradition, I don’t even have the right on my daughter, for some things like proposing for marriage, and in term of family inheritence as it all should pass to the daughter (my sister). Good thing I married to a Javanese, and we are no longer in the olden times. But that was just an interesting fact I think.

My mother side of the family has been living for generation in a community called Tigo Tumpuak (3 layered, loosely translated), in a village called Lima Kaum (five tribes, also loosely translated), near the city of Batusangkar in West Sumatra. My grandfather from my mother side was a schoolmaster at a local school, and my grandmother came from a familiy with long history as a trader. In fact my mom’s grandfather (my great-great grandfather) was doing well enough that he and his wife was able to undertake the Hajj long before Indonesia’ independence in 1945 (you heard the stories, took 2 years to do pilgrimage in olden times, etc etc). Interestingly, the general area of Batusangkar was known as the ancient royal city of the Minangkabau tribe. The Pagaruyung palace was less than 3 km from where my mother was born.

Back to my genographic result. The result was a lengthy report composed of several different section. The first one was on the “Ancestral Journey” that discuss how the DNA mutation found in my Genome can track the journey took by my ancestor from Africa, which was estimated to happened around 60,000 years ago. One particular point here is that all modern human shared certain percentage of our DNA with Neanderthal, which in my case is about 1.5%.

According to NG, the common direct ancestor to all women alive today was born in East Africa around 180,000 years ago (or in their lingo called the Haplogroup L3), which give birth to group of woman living in East Africa or Asia (Haplogroup N) around 60,000 years ago.

Later on (aroiund 55,000 years ago), my ancestor starts to move East (to West Asia) and branche out into Haplogroup R, then 3000 years later, split again into B4’5 in Asia. One interesting note, some member of this group was actually the ancestor of Northern America Indian, so this I around the ice age I think where the land bridge (between Asia and America) was still passable. 

There several more sub branches discussed, but I’ll go straight to when human started to populate Southeast Asia (Haplogroup P186) which was around 28,000-41,000 years ago, then becoming M119 (31,500-39,500) in SouthEast Asia.

This part is quite boring, since it is basically discuss generic human population moving out from Africa to Asia, but what comes next is a bit more interesting.

My Regional Ancestry (5,000-10,000 Years Ago)

If we averaged out human’s live average to around 60 years old, then we are talking about 30,000 generation ago (wow that is a lot!). Apparently my own genome are composed of the DNA of:

42% Northern Asian

40% Southeast Asian

10% Southwest Asian

4% Oceanian

3% Mediterranean

Wow!

I am not claiming that all Minang shared similar DNA as I, this is only true for myself and 2 of my siblings. However, what striking are the following:

1. The NG website also shared DNA composition of several sampling population in the world. When I looked at the DNA of Chinese people (sampled from the area around the modern days Beijing), I shared 82% similarities with their DNA (which are the combination of mostly Northern Asian and Southeast Asian, the further south it goes, such as in Vetnam, the larger the Southeast Asian DNA become). So, enough about stupid racism, some people will not like this, but hey, the old history lesson in school also mentioned that the Malay came from Southern China. Myself, I actually don't doubt it just by looking at my mom with her light skin and her slanted eyes that I also shared.

2. When I looked at my youngest daughter, I can tell that she shared some DNA with Southwest Asian (which means northern indian, pakistan, tajiskistan, etc, whatever), which might also explain our curly hair (despite of only 10% shared DNA with Southwest Asian)

3. Where’s the 4% Oceanian came from? The NG analysis shows this came from my father side. I was puzzled by this as this DNA came from the ocean fearing people in South Pacific (for example, the Papuan), but it also highlight the “heatmap” or where the concentration of certain DNA can be found. In this case, this DNA shared by most people in Madagaskar, and Sri Lanka. Perhaps one of those ancient traders from Africa was my ancestor.

4. The 3% Mediterranean is rather confusing. Anyone can guess? (hint, look at the wikipedia description I shared above)

All right, that’s pretty much all the information that today’s science can provide now, but NG promises that they will update the information from time to time. Some note, however:

1. I know that some former health minister of Indonesia in the past has a stance against the “export” of DNA material overseas, but come on! No research (at least publicly available one) is available here domestically. We have the right to learn about our own genome I think right?

2. Due to the nature of the study, although NG says that my genome also shared by less than 0.1% of the sampled population (meaning it should be specific enough), I think the level of detail being shared apply to my compatriots, or in other word I think most Indonesian/Malay shared similar genetics composition as I, unfortunately I had only found 1 others Indonesian that shared her result as well.

3. Was it worth it? It depends, but then again, I think it was a worthy contribution to science (rather than using my tax money to drill to the alleged ancient pyramid in west java, if you know what I mean)

Do tell me what do you think about this.