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Post by Atlantid on Sept 11, 2012 13:38:01 GMT -5
Extracts from anthropologist Robert Gayre's article "Zimbabwe" (1965), published in The Mankind Quarterly, pp. 212-243.
''A movement of thought has now developed which seeks to show that Zimbabwe was essentially a product of the Negro Bantu mind—a result essentially attributable to the Negroes. In the course of the argument every effort is made to minimise alien elements discoverable at the sites, and a strong desire is shown to shift the dating to as late a date as possible—obviously to coincide with the Bantu settlement in Rhodesia from the north, since the Negroes, as is well known, are relatively late comers to Rhodesia and decidedly new arrivals, in a historical sense, in South Africa. As part of this trend, all pottery sherds, other than the obviously intrusive ones from Asia, are called "African." While most people will take this to mean that they are of Bantu or Negro origin, this is not necessarily the case. Such sherds might well be African, but there are many other races besides the Negroes in Africa, some of which—such as the Cappoids—are more African in many respects than the Negroes, certainly in this eastern half of Africa. The modern representatives of the Cappoids are the Hottentots and Bushmen, who were in fact the normal inhabitants of Rhodesia and the Transvaal at the time when the first levels at Zimbabwe were being established, and still were the normal inhabitants of the southernmost part of Rhodesia and of the area in the northern Transvaal bordering on the Limpopo at Mapungubwe which has a Carbon 14 dating of 1058 + 65 years and where the skeletons of the inhabitants are said to be Hottentot in character. The term "African" is therefore far too vague an expression to use in this context. At the time Zimbabwe was founded, however, the Hottentots and their related peoples were almost alone in possession of the land. When the Dutch on settling at the Cape discovered them, the Hottentots were a pastoral people. Although they were not iron workers they were acquainted with the metal and used and valued it, so they traded with the Dutch for it. The people who occupied Rhodesia in the fourth century A.D. or earlier, and those to the north of them in Tanganyika and Kenya, were probably equally knowledgeable, having derived this knowledge from the advanced Hamites to their north before the Bantu had arrived in any numbers in those parts—except perhaps in the north-west of Kenya. Pottery of the middle of the first millennium A.D. found in the whole of this considerable region must be attributed to the Cappoids and not to the Bantu. This pottery is called Stamped Ware, and is the type found in the earliest levels at Zimbabwe. Therefore we can safely conclude that the earliest associations of this site were with a Cappoid people. However, even if this is held to be non-proven, it can be said that the evidence from Mapungubwe on the Limpopo conclusively establishes that the earliest inhabitants of that site were Hottentots, and there is no reason to believe the situation was any different at Zimbabwe.''
Gayre, also shows how the Zimbabwean Venda and Lemba folktales, combined with anthropological research, posits an Armenoid (Semitic) Caucasoid racial origin, also probably with some Eastern Hamitic Caucasoid input -
''The Venda are a peculiar people who differ from the rest of the Bantu in a quite distinct way... they show marked evidence of Caucasoid blood and, in particular, they have pronounced Armenoid features, as Professor Dart has pointed out.
Their features are "Jewish"— that is, they are Semitic-Armenoid in type. Such traits can only have come from a limited number of sources, for instance Persian, Arab, Parsee or Jewish strains, and therefore they are intruders in the Negroid Bantu world. Moreover, they practise circumcision, which the Venda did not do originally, they slaughter their cattle —which they get by way of trade—by bleeding them to death in the Kosher manner, and they refuse to eat pork.
The occurrence of this Caucasoid blood in Southern Africa has to be accounted for. As it is markedly Armenoid it did not come from the Portuguese, Dutch or British. This only leaves the probability of Arab, Jewish or Persian origin, and of these the first is the most likely main source.''
Both the Lemba and Venda have folktales that they descended from "white men" who arrived from ships "from the east" (Gayre, 1972). In another article written by Gayre, "Some Further Notes on the Lemba" (1970) he discusses the racial foundation myth:
"It will be recalled that the Vendaland Lemba. of whom we have written previously, accounted for this attitude by saying that they were formerly White men but their original women were Black."
As evidence of a prehistoric link between the Lemba, Armenoids and Zimbabwe, Gayre (1972) cites the following:
* Models of circumcised male organs were found at Great Zimbabwe. * The Lemba bury their dead in an extended rather than a crouched position – i.e., in the same style as in certain Zimbabwean graves, where gold jewellery confirmed their association with the ancient civilization. * The old Lemba language was a dialect of Karanga – which is spoken today in the Masvingo area of Zimbabwe.
All of this is outlined in Gayre's book The Origin of the Zimbabwean Civilisation (1972). The most interesting thing however is that Zulu myths also preserves legends of "white people", associating them also with Great Zimbabwe and nearby territories across Southern Africa. Credo Mutwa, a Zulu author notes in his book Indaba, My Children (1964, p. 103):
''This is the story of the lost Phoenician empire in Southern Africa, a story which is still sung and told around village fires in South and Central African today''
Mutwa (pp. 174-175) also agrees with the French anthropologist Abbe Breuil who theorised that the 2000 year old ''White lady of Brandberg'' rock painting (Namibia) depicts a Caucasoid.
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Post by Noah on Sept 14, 2012 21:13:51 GMT -5
Excellent thread. Great Zimbabwe was indeed built by Caucasoids; mainly of the Arabid or Armenoid variety, possibly with some minor Eastern Hamitic influence. The Lemba are culturally distinct from other Bantus. They also retain traditions of having spoken a different language as recently as the 17th century: "Some of the traditions practiced by the Lemba today are similar to those practiced by Jews: they also practise circumcision, bury their dead, offer animal sacrifices, hold the first and seventh days of the moon to be sacred, keep kosher, cut the throat of animals during slaughter, keep ritual purity and don't marry the 'gentiles'.
Several historical facts also set them apart from their Bantu-speaking neighbours: they are highly skilled metal workers (including iron, copper and gold) and potters and the men wear long cotton garments.
"The Lemba didn't retain their own language - the Lemba of the former northern Transvaal speak Venda and in Zimbabwe they speak one or other western dialects of Shona. But even today, there are still Lemba in Venda who can recall much about the language spoken by their ancestors from before the end of the 17th century when they migrated to the south of the Limpopo," Dr Soodyall says."
www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2003/february/gene.htm
On the other hand, the Lemba are essentially a Negroid, Bantu people in terms of anthropological traits and genes. They don't, for example, cluster with Caucasoids craniometrically because their skeletal foundation is Negroid, not Caucasoid. However, considerable ancestral contact with/absorption of Caucasoid males on their part can nevertheless still be discerned by uniparental DNA tests. About 50% of the Lemba carry haplogroup J, which is one of the more common paternal lineages in the Arabian peninsula. By contrast, the Lemba's mtDNA almost entirely consists of typical Bantu lineages. This is in agreement with their oral traditions asserting that the Caucasoid input into their community was through male immigrants, who settled into the Rhodesian region and interbred with local Bantu females. ""Using mtDNA the Lemba were indistinguishable from other Bantu-speaking groups. However, when my colleague Mandy Spurdle analysed the Y chromosomes in the Lemba, she found that approximately 50% of the Y chromosomes present in the Lemba appeared to be from Semitic (Jewish or Arab) origin. Thirty six per cent was of African origin, and the ancestry of the remaining 14% could not be resolved by the methodology used at the time[...] A group of researchers at the University College in London recently extended a genetic approach first adopted by our laboratory to resolve the Y chromosome lineages found in the Lemba. These researchers found that a particular Y chromosome combination or haplotype - known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype or CMH - was present in the Lemba at a frequency of about 9%. This haplotype is only found at high frequency in Jewish priests, so this seems to corroborate the Lemba oral history about their origins," explains Dr Soodyall."
www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2003/february/gene.htm
More recently, haplogroup T was also found amongst a few Lemba. This could perhaps be due to minor Eastern Hamitic influence since T is relatively common in the Northeast. Alternatively, this clade could've been introduced from Arabia since it also has a presence there. So the DNA evidence all but proves Gayre's point. There are two other important factors which do as well. In the 1500s, Portuguese historian João de Barros related an account of Great Zimbabwe, which he had acquired from Moorish merchants who had visited the place shortly after its final period of occupation. The document indicates that the Shona Bantus admitted that they did not know who had built the structures and that they were apparently in awe of them: "When, and by whom, these edifices were raised, as the people of the land are ignorant of the art of writing, there is no record, but they say they are the work of the devil, for in comparison with their power and knowledge it does not seem possible to them that they should be the work of man"
books.google.com/books?id=bcpJC1328CYC&pg=PA127#v=onepage&q&f=false
There's also the "Great Man of Chamavara" rock painting in Zimbabwe, which depicts a Caucasoid male figure in what appears to be exotic attire: "Additional evidence are the peculiar rock paintings found throughout South Africa. They portray Caucasian people, often with Egyptoid and Phoenician features and attire. Outstanding is The Great Man of Chamavara, at Zimbabwe, itself."
books.google.com/books?id=dftrAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Additional+evidence+are+the+peculiar+rock+paintings+found+throughout+South+Africa.+They+portray+Caucasian+people,+often+with+Egyptoid+and+Phoenician+features+and+attire.+Outstanding+is+The+Great+Man+of+Chamavara,+at+Zimbabwe,+itself.%22&dq=%22Additional+evidence+are+the+peculiar+rock+paintings+found+throughout+South+Africa.+They+portray+Caucasian+people,+often+with+Egyptoid+and+Phoenician+features+and+attire.+Outstanding+is+The+Great+Man+of+Chamavara,+at+Zimbabwe,+itself.%22&source=bl&ots=tjlUS8ihzt&sig=PAsRPuf4rPC-Ggh11okJTITTGrA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pdNTUPaLEuzG0AH9joCgBQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA
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Post by Atlantid on Sept 16, 2012 11:34:21 GMT -5
There's also the "Great Man of Chamavara" rock painting in Zimbabwe, which depicts a Caucasoid male figure in what appears to be exotic attire: "Additional evidence are the peculiar rock paintings found throughout South Africa. They portray Caucasian people, often with Egyptoid and Phoenician features and attire. Outstanding is The Great Man of Chamavara, at Zimbabwe, itself."
books.google.com/books?id=dftrAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Additional+evidence+are+the+peculiar+rock+paintings+found+throughout+South+Africa.+They+portray+Caucasian+people,+often+with+Egyptoid+and+Phoenician+features+and+attire.+Outstanding+is+The+Great+Man+of+Chamavara,+at+Zimbabwe,+itself.%22&dq=%22Additional+evidence+are+the+peculiar+rock+paintings+found+throughout+South+Africa.+They+portray+Caucasian+people,+often+with+Egyptoid+and+Phoenician+features+and+attire.+Outstanding+is+The+Great+Man+of+Chamavara,+at+Zimbabwe,+itself.%22&source=bl&ots=tjlUS8ihzt&sig=PAsRPuf4rPC-Ggh11okJTITTGrA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pdNTUPaLEuzG0AH9joCgBQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA
Great info, I just found a sketch of this rock painting from Gayre (1972, p. 219):
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Post by Noah on Sept 19, 2012 1:41:10 GMT -5
Based on the various factors discussed above, the likelihood of Bantus or other Negroid peoples having constructed Great Zimbabwe is indeed very low. The fact that their own oral traditions attribute the structures to Caucasoid builders alone speaks volumes. However, even that has not prevented certain modern commentators from basically looking to award the Bantus et al. that which they themselves freely admit they are not responsible for. This is done a number of ways. One approach often adopted is to dismiss the Bantu, Nilote or Khoisan oral traditions outright as mere ritual "myths" or "legends" rather than acknowledging them for what they often are i.e. orally transmitted history. In doing so, that oral history is effectively relegated to the level of metaphoric storytelling, and thus, invalidated in one fell swoop. The truth is, Great Zimbabwe is but a small part of a much larger collection of stone ruins in the subcontinent. Most of these structures served a religious purpose. They are also especially concentrated in and around the Horn region, where their builders -- Hamitic people in most cases; Arabs or Persians in a few -- were present in sufficient numbers not to be absorbed wholesale by the incoming Bantus and Nilotes (unlike in the more southerly Great Lakes region, where the isolated Hamitic communities were virtually all assimilated and/or displaced). "Early Cushites left behind materials that await further research and study; among those are monumental shrines in the Horn of Africa. The best known of these is a series of monumental graves and raised cairns situated in northern Somalia, which extend to southern Ethiopia up to the Dawa River, where the ancestors of the Oromo settled. These monumental graves are unknown in areas not associated with early Cushitic settlement. The building of these monumental graves points to a highly organized and ritualized religion.
www.worldcat.org/title/cushites-northeastern-africa-stone-age-origins-to-iron-age/oclc/062196333
Below is an actual plan from an archaeological expedition in the 1970s to one of these massive shrines. It depicts a platform monument situated about 20 km to the east of Alula, a town in northeastern Somalia: The Bantu and Nilotic Negroid communities that today inhabit parts of East Africa often speak of tall, long-haired, "red-skinned" people of Caucasoid appearance and foreign language and culture that built elaborate stone structures in the broader region. These builders were not seldom also said to have possessed large herds of the so-called Hamitic long-horned cattle. Arabs and Persians are neither particularly tall or copper-colored, nor are they associated within Africa with extensive pastoralism or the Hamitic longhorn. Hamitic peoples related to the Ancient Egyptians, on the other hand, fit this description to the letter. Roland Oliver summarizes these traditions as follows: "For the culture or cultures which these remains represent the name Azanian has been suggested, and their origin ascribed to Hamitic peoples who came from the north. Tradition and the use of stone for building suggest a northern origin, and from the traditional evidence current in the first quarter of this century we gain a picture of these "Azanians" as tall, bearded, long-haired, and "red" in colour. Moreover, they are usually said to have come from the north and, in some traditions, to have had long-horned cattle. Taken as a whole, these accounts suggest a people of Hamitic rather than Negro affinities."
books.google.com/books?id=pBJzAAAAMAAJ&q=%22For+the+culture+or+cultures+which+these+remains%22&dq=%22For+the+culture+or+cultures+which+these+remains%22&hl=en&ei=6dFdTqvTE8qTtwfjrrymCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA
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Post by Atlantid on Oct 4, 2012 15:49:39 GMT -5
"The Lemba tribe in the extreme north of South Africa could well be the remnant of a Semitic community which once occupied Zimbabwe, and which managed to flee when that territory was overrun. They have an oral tradition that their male ancestry originally comprised "white people from over the sea” who came to southeast Africa – from a country which boasted large cities – in order to obtain gold (van Warmelo, 1966, pp. 281-282; Hammond Tooke, 1937; Junod, 1927; le Roux, 2003, pp. 210-224)." (McNaughton, 2012) www.dlmcn.com/anczimb.htmlFar more sources and information at the above link, McNaughton's article was recently published in the Mankind Quarterly updating Gayre's (1972) work. Also I discovered, Mullan, J.E., 1969. “The Arab builders of Zimbabwe”, pp. 11-19; Rhodesia Mission Press, Mutare, Zimbabwe. May be read online free at www.rhodesia.nl/onbook.htm
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Post by Noah on Oct 6, 2012 23:35:59 GMT -5
I'm familiar with that work. The modern genetic evidence in particular certainly seems to prove its point. Overall, though, the quote from C.G. Seligman in my signature I think sums up the situation best. It may perhaps sound a little chauvinistic to the uninitiated, but it's an inescapable conclusion for those who are privy to the totality of the data. A.H. Keane offers a good summary of the breadth of Hamitic influence on the Negroid peoples of Africa, ranging from divine kingship to warrior aristocracies; particularly on their ruling and martial classes: "The history of Africa is one of conquest. On the arrival of the Europeans at the Cape of Good Hope, they found only Hottentots and Bushmen. But further to the north, in Rhodesia, dwelt people of the Bantu race which has spread over such an immense area, owing to its military prowess. The land between the Zambesi and the southern coast was once peopled by Bushmen and Hottentots, but they were driven away or reduced to slavery by the Bantu peoples. The Mashonas and Makalaka were the first to achieve supremacy in South-east Rhodesia, but ever since the history of this part of Africa has been one of conquest. The military tribes of the southern Bantu had a social organisation, consisting of a chief, who was regarded only by such warrior people as sacred ; a warrior nobility, commoners, and slaves. Such people as the Bushmen and the Hottentots had no hereditary chiefs. The numerous stone forts in the Rhodesian hills were built by people, probably from Arabia, who were working the gold mines at a very remote period. Prof. Keane tells us that "the Makalakas, with the kindred Banyai, Basenga, and others, may well have been at work in the mines of this auriferous region, in the service of the builders of the Zimbabwe ruins" (p. 102), and this is probably true, for the Mashonas and Makalakas are skilled in metal working and mining. The stone forts of the gold-mine region show that the country was held under military tenure, and it is not risking much to claim that the builders of the forts would have pressed the neighbouring peoples into their service as warriors. The miners were sun-worshippers, and they have left their traces on the peoples of Rhodesia in that the chiefly houses sometimes claim descent from the sun. The presence of sun-worshipping, war-waging people at Zimbabwe and elsewhere is quite sufficient to account for the warlike tendencies of the military Bantu tribes, and the localisation of these tribes is such as to make it probable that they acquired their knowledge of warfare in this way. It may be claimed that the Bantu peoples spread from North-east Africa. The Bantu are negro in type, but in the north the military tribes are ruled by an alien aristocracy of Galla stock, the Gallas being Hamites. The warrior states are ruled by sacred chiefs; then comes a warrior aristocracy, commoners and slaves. Only the warrior states have sacred chiefs, and in British East Africa are numerous tribes without this form of social organisation, these tribes in some cases being serfs. The peoples with Hamitic aristocracies, or mixed Hamitic and Bantu peoples, also differ from other Bantu peoples in another remarkable way. Mr. A. C. Hollis says, "As a general rule it may, I think, be said, that prayer and sacrifice to the sun or deities in the sky are unknown among the Bantu tribes of Eastern Africa, whilst this form of worship is followed by all the Nilotic or Hamitic tribes. The past history of the Bantu peoples and their social organisation are such as to suggest that the northern group at least learned the art of warfare and acquired their religion from the Galla, who formed their hereditary fighting aristocracy, for Hamitic peoples have formed many of the fighting tribes of Africa. The southern group perhaps learned their fighting from those who originally introduced the methods of architecture represented in the Zimbabwe ruins. The possession of the knowledge of the art of warfare would explain the ability of the Bantu to conquer the greater part of Southern Africa, and to found in many places warrior empires of similar social constitution. The warlike nature of the Hamitic peoples of Africa thus seems to have effected immense changes in the ethnography of that continent. How comes it that such a powerful social ferment was at work in the north-east, whence the Galla came ? Whence had the Galla peoples acquired their social organisation ? From the headwaters of the Nile southwards we find a succession of warlike peoples who possess similar social organisations and religious beliefs, these peoples alone having such organisations. In the Nile valley the Egyptian civilisation persisted for thousands of years. The social organisation of Egypt under the Pharoahs consisted of the king, who was descended from the sun, and was the high priest of the sun-cult; then came a military and governing aristocracy, commoners and slaves. Have we any reason to believe that the Egyptians taught the African peoples to fight and to overrun the continent with a military organisation similar to their own? Prof Elliot Smith has lately published evidence which puts the matter beyond doubt. He has shown that some of the Bantu peoples who possess hereditary chiefs, i.e., the warrior peoples, subject the bodies of their deceased chiefs to a process of preservation, and the methods employed are directly copied from those practised in Egypt. Only hereditary chiefs are so treated in Africa, and, as the institution of hereditary chiefs is accompanied so closely by the warrior nobility and a sky-cult, the presumption that the social organisation of the warrior peoples was ultimately derived from Egypt becomes very strong. Since the bodies of the chiefs of the Baduma and Barotse in Rhodesia are mummified, we have further evidence for the Egyptian origin of the civilisation of the builders of the Zimbabwe ruins, and therefore of the social organisation of the warrior tribes of the southern Bantu peoples. The great kingdoms of West Africa, Bene, Dahomey, Ashanti, with sacred kings, a warrior nobility, commoners and slaves, and a sun-cult, were in a region which has most probably been subjected to Egyptian influence, both directly and by sea round the west coast."
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Post by Atlantid on Jan 6, 2013 16:37:59 GMT -5
Hall, R.N. and Neal, W.G., 1902. “The ancient ruins of Rhodesia”, pp. 95, 101-106, 116, 126; Methuen, London; is another source I recently discovered on its Caucasoid origin.
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