Marabou (ethnicity)
Marabou is a term of Haitian origin denoting multiracial admixture. The term, which comes originally from the African Marabouts, describes the offspring of a Haitian person of mixed race: European, African, Taíno, and South Asian.
The Marabou label dates to the colonial period of Haiti’s history, meaning the offspring of a mulatto and a griffe person. However, Médéric-Louis-Elie Moreau de Saint-Méry, in his three-volume work on the colony, describes Marabous as the product of the union of a black and a quadroon; he says nothing concerning East Indians. The East Indian association with that term is probably due solely to the resemblance between dark-skinned Indians and marabous. Describing Marabous as an ethnic group is a stretch since the term applies to any person of mixed heritage with dark skin and straight or wavy hair. Marabous are no more an ethnic group than grimeaus, mulattoes, quadroons, or octoroons are; these terms merely describe the different phenotypes of mixed-race people.
