Having natural blond hair is really a rare feature. Only 2% of the population has this unique feature and this 2% is spread only in Europe, Central Asia, and North America. Only children have this blond hair and as they grow, their hair tends to get darker due to rising levels of eumelanin which is a natural pigment that regulates the darkness of hair strands. Here we’re going to introduce you to the rarest blond hair type of people – Melanesians. As they have dark-skinned with natural blond hair, it makes them one of a kind.
Jules Dumont d’Urville firstly used the ‘Melanesia’ name in 1832 to denote an ethnic and geographical grouping of islands distinct from Polynesia and Micronesia.
The indigenous Melanesian people practiced cannibalism, head-hunting, kidnapping, and slavery, like the Asmat tribe until recently. Now the population is predominantly Christian with contact with Europeans.
Here we are considering the Melanesians of the Solomon Islands. They are situated in the South Pacific, the very heart of Melanesia, just Northeast of Australia, between Papua and Vanuatu. It’s also an independent state within the British Commonwealth. Around 5 and 10% of them have bright natural blond hair even though the indigenous Melanesian population of the islands has the darkest skin outside of Africa.
According to many theories, these people got their blond hair from sun and salt whitening, high intake of fish, or genetic heritage from mixed-breeding with Americans/Europeans that founded the islands. Sean Myles, a geneticist from Nova Scotia agricultural college in Canada, conducted a genetic analysis on saliva and hair samples from 1209 Melanesian Solomon Island residents. He found out that the blondes carried two copies of a mutant gene that is present in 26 percent of the island’s population by comparing 43 blond Islanders and 42 brown Islanders. The Melanesian people are with a native TYRP1 gene which is partly the reason for the blond hair and melanin, which is different from those of Caucasians’ blond hair genes.
It is more common in children than in adults which is a recessive gene. The hair tending to darken as the individual matures. It proves that the black Africans were the first Homo sapiens and all races came out of the black African race.
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source used : Melanesian people of Solomon Islands / Pulse