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AFRICA

[ethnology

hold the political over lordship, founding the three kingdoms of Sahara, treated as negroes with a Hamitic strain, but undoubtedly Tfirre, Amhara, and Shoa, at present united in the empire of true Hamites, merging gradually southwards in the black popu a- “Ethiopia,” as it is officially called. The old Hamitic speech is tions of the Chad basin (Art. Tibbus) ; the Fulahs of West and not extinct, although everywhere somewhat eclipsed by various Central Sudan, often allied to the Nubas, with whom they have more or less corrupt forms of Geez, i.e., the archaic Semitic tongue, nothing in common, being originally Hamites, now fused m niany which was introduced by the Himyarites, still survives in the places with the surrounding negro peoples ; lastly, the l<ans oi the Marah district of South Arabia, and is the liturgical language ot the (Voway basin, the Masai east of Lake Victoria, the Turkanas, Abyssinian Christians. Rendilehs, and others of Lake Rudolf, and ihe JVahumas, widely The Himyarites, who took the southern route, were probably diffused under many names throughout East Central Africa. 1 hese preceded by their Phoenician kinsmen, who had already at an early also are undoubtedly Hamites, mixed in varying proportions with date converted the Mediterranean into a great highway of trade negro elements., , , enterprise. From the great cities of lyre and Sidon But the secondary groups of the negroes themselves are not so easily and colonial the founders of the greater cities of Leptis Major, Utica, explicable. Here the Sudanese Negroes have m the first place came Carthage, and other Phoenician settlements on the coast lands beto be distinguished from the multitudinous Bantu Negroid groups, tween the Syrtes and the Atlantic, later merged in the Carthaginian who occupy most of the southern half of the continent, from about empire, which contended with Rome for the mastery of the ancient 4° or 5° N. lat. to Natal and Pondoland. Although not always world. After the fall of Carthage the Phoenician settlements everyeasily justified on anatomical grounds, this distinction between where became Romanized, and both the Romans and their vandal the northern Sudanese and southern Bantu sections of the negro conquerors were all in their turn absorbed by the surrounding family has a practical value and a substantial foundation m the Hamitic aborigines. . . ^ „ ('eovaphical distribution, the mental qualities, and the speech o Then came the third great Semitic invasion, that of the fiery the two groups. No full-blood Sudanese Negro community has ever Arab fanatics, which has modified the ethnical relations of the developed a political or social system higher than that of the tribal continent a far greater extent than all the other intrusions organization, while extensive kingdoms and empires, such as those together. toBefore close of the 7 th century the Moslem Arab of the Monomotapa, of the Cazembo, of Lunda, Barotseland, Kongo, hordes had alreadythereached shores of the Atlantic, and soon and Zululand, based on unwritten codes and military institutions, after spread over the western the founded Mohammedan states have flourished often for several generations amongst the Bantu (Timbuktu, Bornu, Baghirmi,Sahara, Wadai) on the banks of the Niger peoples. Nor have any true Soudanese Negroes ever acquired and in the Chad basin, penetrated the Nile valley to and beyond prominence for great intellectual or moral qualities, such as those Khartum to the Sobat junction, up developing great pastoral comby which several of the Tushilonge, the Balolo, the Makololo, munities and even states—Kabbabish, Jaalins, Baggaras, r unj; Bechuana, Basuto, and Zulu-Xosa rulers have been distinguished of Senaar-in the present Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ; lastly, in former and recent times. In a word, the average Bantu is empire themselves on the eastern seaboard from Cape Guardatui altogether more intelligent and far more capable of upward develop- established to Sofala beyond the Zambezi, everywhere dominating, but also ment than the average Sudanese Negro. intermingling with the aboriginal Hamitic, Negro, and Negroid. Very marked from this point of view are the contrasts presented Bantu populations. ,,, , ., ., by both groups in the linguistic domain. While all speak languages Still later the Arabs advanced from the coast lands and the Whiteof the agglutinating order, linguistic chaos prevails in Sudan, Nile inland, ranging over vast spaces westwards to the Upper linguistic uniformity to a remarkable degree in Bantuland. 1 he Commfarand southwards to Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa, in associanumerous dialects current amongst the Bantu peoples and diiiused tion with their Nubian, Swahili, Ajao, Manyuema, and other native over an area of some 6,000,000 square miles are all reducible to allies. Here also were founded some permanent settlements— half-a-dozen groups, which are themselves closely related and obvi- Mpwapwa, Tabora, Ujiji, Nyangwe, Kota-Kota, Riba-Riba, Meshraously all sprang from a single stock language presenting some er-Rek Lado—which, however, were not so much Arab colonies structural features of a high order. Kongoese, a typical member ot as zeribas, or strongly-fenced stations, established at convenient the family, possesses the qualities of precision, flexibility, and strategical points for the purpose of raiding the surrounding lands, subtlety of expression to such an extent that “its daily use is m in quest of ivory and the men required to convey it to the coast, itself an education” (Rev. W. H. Bentley). In Sudan, on the con- where they were sold as slaves. Hence since the partition Africa trary, the countless local dialects defy classification. Ihe Nuba these Arabs, mostly half-breeds, have been cleared out ofand the of Kordofan and Nubia differs as profoundly from the Fulah of stations transformed to centres of European trade and cultural Senecrambia, the Songhay of the Middle Niger from the Kanun and influences. Thus it happens that in the Congo and Zambezi: Baghirmi of Lake Chad, as English does from Arabic, or French regions there is but a slight strain of Arab blood, whereas throughfrom Chinese. In a word these Sudanese tongues may be grouped out the northern half of the continent Semitic elements are in many in a large number of families which are radically distinct from each places grafted on the original Hamitic and Negritic stocks. other, and, whatever their origin, can no longer be traced to a single The Moslem Semites were accompanied and even preceded by the Jews of Palestine, who, however, were nearer akin toFrom these remarks it follows that the term ‘ ‘ Sudanese has a others, their Phoenician forerunners than to the Arabs and Himyarites. they distinctly racial, but no linguistic value, whereas the term Bantu to arrive probably soon after the Babylonian captivity, and is primarily linguistic. It conveys a very clear idea to the philo- began numbers were already settled in Lower Egypt under logist, but not to the anthropologist, who finds in the mixed Bantu considerable domain not only every shade of transition between the true negro the Ptolemies. After the fall of Jerusalem and the suppression ot subsequent revolts these were joined by others, many of whom and the true Hamite, but also some divergent types differing the westwards and settled in all the large towns and surroundgreatly from both. In the tropical forest tracts ^are scattered passed districts, from Tripoli to Morocco, where, despite ages of oppresnumerous groups of Negritoes, or “ Little Negroes, true dwarfs, ing differing not only in their diminutive stature (3 ft. 6 in. to 5 ft.) sion they still form numerous wealthy communities. _ But, hying but also in some other important respects—yellow colour, hirsute mostly apart, they have scarcely disturbed the ethnical relationsAfrica to any appreciable extent. bodies, culture (all hunters exclusively)—from the blacks of normal in The same is true also of the still later immigrants from Europe type. Lastly, in the extreme south-west, range the primitive Bushthe northern and southern extra - tropical zones —Greeks, men, still at the Palaeolithic stage, and the neighbouring Hotten- into tots, both presenting some remarkable and highly specialized Italians, French, Spaniards, in Egypt and Mauritania, Dutch and features, such as the tablier and steatopygia peculiar to the female British, with some French and Germans, south of the Zambezisex, and a distinctly yellow complexion common to both. (Art. These intruders have given rise to dislocations and displacements, but not to interminglings, with the notable exception of the early Bushmen ; Hottentots.) Thus is completed the variegated picture presented by the Dutch Boers, from whose alliance with the Hottentots have sprung aboriginal inhabitants of the continent. Of the intruders im- the so-called “Bastaards,” i.e., Griquas, Gonaquas, and several othermeasurably the most important from the ethnical, but no longer half-caste Hottentot groups in Cape Colony and Namaqualand. in the Cape and in Natal are several communities of from the political, standpoint are the Semites, who arrived from Both Mohammedan Malays from various parts of the Eastern ArchiAsia, some in prehistoric, some in historic times, mainly by the pelago while numerous Banians (Hindus of the trading caste) are* Mediterranean and by the two routes at the southern and northern extremities of the Red Sea. Amongst the earliest arrivals were the settled’ in all the coast towns from Durban to Mombasa. Subjoined civilized peoples of Arabia Felix (Yemen), i.e., Minceans and Sabceans, is a table of all the African populations, indigenous and intruders, collectively known as Himyarites, or “ Red Men ” (whence the “ Red from ancient to present times, as far as known :— Sea”), who established themselves about Adulis bay some centuries A. Caucasic Division. before the new era. Thence they penetrated gradually into the I. Eastern Hamites Abyssinian uplands, founding the Axumite empire, yielding later Retu, ancient Egyptians ; later Copts and Fellahm (mixed), to the religious and cultural influences of the Alexandrian Greek Nile valley from 1st cataract to the Delta. and Coptic Christians, and intermingling everywhere with the rude Blemmyes; Bugaitse, now Begas, Bejas ; Ababdeh ; HadenHamitic aborigines (Agaus). . . dowa ; Bishari; Beni-Amer, from Nile to Red Sea between Thus were formed the extremely mixed populations of Abyssinia, Egypt and Abyssinia, while the dominant Semitic immigrants continued and continue to