Man, Past and Present by Agustus Henry Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin, Alfred Court Haddon (free reads .TXT) 📕

There is no suggestion of albinism, and the explanation of such strange contrasts must await further exploration in the whole of this borderland of Negroes and Bantus about the divide between the Chad and the Congo basins. The country has until lately been traversed only at rare intervals by pioneers, interested more in political than in anthropological matters.

Of the settled and more or less cultured peoples in the Chad basin, the most important are the Kanembu[194], who introduce a fresh element of confusion in this region, being more allied in type and speech to the Hamitic Tibus than to the Negro stock, or at least taking a transitional position between the two; the Kanuri, the ruling people in Bornu, of somewhat coarse Negroid appearance[195]; and the southern Baghirmi, also decidedly Negroid, originally supposed to have come from the Upper Shari and White Nile districts[196]. Their civilisation, such as it is, has been developed exclusively under Moslem influences, but it has never penetrated much below the surface. The people are everywhere extremely rude, and for the most part unlettered, although the meagre and not altogether trustworthy Kanem-Bornu records date from the time of Sef, reputed founder of the monarchy about 800 A.D. Duku, second in descent from Sef, is doubtfully referred to about 850 A.D. Hame, founder of a new dynasty, flourished towards the end of the eleventh century (1086-97), and Dunama, one of his successors, is said to have extended his sway over a great part of the Sahara, including the whole of Fezzan (1221-59). Under Omar (1394-98) a divorce took place between Kanem and Bornu, and henceforth the latter country has remained the chief centre of political power in the Chad basin.

A long series of civil wars was closed by Ali (1472-1504), who founded the present capital, Birni, and whose grandson, Muhammad, brought the empire of Bornu to the highest pitch of its greatness (1526-45). Under Ahmed (1793-1810) began the wars with the Fulahs, who, after bringing the empire to the verge of ruin, were at last overthrown by the aid of the Kanem people, and since 1819 Bornu has been ruled by the present Kanemiyin dynasty, which though temporarily conquered by Rabah in 1893, was restored under British administration in 1902[197].

EASTERN SUDANESE.

As some confusion prevails regarding the expression "Eastern Sudan," I may here explain that it bears a very different meaning, according as it is used in a political or an ethnical sense. Politically it is practically synonymous with Egyptian Sudan, that is the whole region from Darfur to the Red Sea which was ruled or misruled by the Khedivial Government before the revolt of the Mahdi (1883-4), and was restored to Egypt by the British occupation of Khartum in 1898. Ethnically Eastern Sudan comprises all the lands east of the Chad basin, where the Negro or Negroid populations are predominant, that is to say, Wadai, Darfur, and Kordofan in the West, the Nile Valley from the frontier of Egypt proper south to Albert Nyanza, both slopes of the Nile-Congo divide (the western tributaries of the White Nile and the Welle-Makua affluent of the Congo), lastly the Sobat Valley with some Negro enclaves east of the White Nile, and even south of the equator (Kavirondo, Semliki Valley).

Throughout this region the fusion of the aborigines with Hamites and Arabs, Tuareg, or Tibu Moslem intruders, wherever they have penetrated, has been far less complete than in Central and Western Sudan. Thus in Wadai the dominant Maba people, whence the country is often called Dar-Maba ("Mabaland"), are rather Negro than Negroid, with but a slight strain of foreign blood. In the northern districts the Zoghawa, Gura'an, Baele and Bulala Tibus keep quite aloof from the blacks, as do elsewhere; the Aramkas, as the Arabs are collectively called in Wadai. Yet the Mahamid and some other Bedouin tribes have here been settled for over 500 years, and it was through their assistance that the Mabas acquired the political supremacy they have enjoyed since the seventeenth century, when they reduced or expelled the Tynjurs[198], the former ruling race, said to be Nubians originally from Dongola. It was Abd-el-Kerim, founder of the new Moslem Maba state, who gave the country its present name in honour of his grandfather, Wadai. His successor Kharub I removed the seat of government to Wara, where Vogel was murdered in 1856. Abeshr, the present capital, dates only from the year 1850. Except for Nachtigal, who crossed the frontier in 1873, nothing was known of the land or its people until the French occupation at the end of the last century (1899). Since that date it has been prominent as the scene of the attack on a French column and the death of its leader, Colonel Moll, in 1910, and the tragic murder of Lieutenant Boyd Alexander earlier in the same year[199].

Nubas. As in Wadai, the intruding and native populations have been either imperfectly or not at all assimilated in Darfur and Kordofan, where the Muhammadan Semites still boast of their pure Arab descent[200], and form powerful confederacies. Chief among these are the Baggara (Baqqara, "cow-herds"), cattle-keepers and agriculturalists, of whom some are as dark as the blackest negroes, though many are fine-looking, with regular, well-shaped features. Their form of Arabic is notoriously corrupt. Their rivals, the Jaalan (Jalin, Jahalin), are mostly riverain "Arabs," a learned tribe, containing many scribes, and their language is said to be closer to classical Arabic than the form current in Egypt. These are the principal slave-hunters of the Sudan, and the famous Zobeir belonged to their tribe. The Yemanieh are largely traders, and trace their origin from South Arabia. The Kababish are the wealthiest camel-owning tribe, perhaps less contaminated by negro blood than any other Arab tribe in the Sudan[201]. The Nuba and the Nubians have been a source of much confusion, but recent investigations in the field such as those of C. G. Seligman[202] and H. A. MacMichael[203], and the publications of the Archaeological Survey of Nubia conducted by G. A. Reisner, help to elucidate the problem. We have first of all to get rid of the "Nuba-Fulah" family, which was introduced by Fr. Mueller and accepted by some English writers, but has absolutely no existence. The two languages, although both of the agglutinative Sudanese type, are radically distinct in all their structural, lexical, and phonetic elements, and the two peoples are equally distinct. The Fulahs are of North African origin, although many have in recent times been largely assimilated to their black Sudanese subjects. The Nuba on the contrary belong originally to the Negro stock, with hair of the common negro type, and are among the darkest skinned tribes in the Sudan, their colour varying from a dark chocolate brown to the darkest shade of brown black.

But rightly to understand the question we have carefully to avoid confusion between the Nubians of the Nile Valley and the Negro Nubas, who gave their name to the Nuba Mountains, Kordofan, where most of the aborigines (Kargo, Kulfan, Kolaji, Tumali, Lafofa, Eliri, Talodi) still belong to this connection[203]. Kordofan is probably itself a Nuba word meaning "Land of the Kordo" (fan = Arab, dar, land, country). There is a certain amount of anthropological evidence to connect the Nuba with the Fur and the Kara of Darfur to the west[204]. But it is a different anthropological type that is represented in the three groups of Matokki (Kenus) between the First Cataract and Wadi-el-Arab, the Mahai (Marisi) between Korosko and Wadi-Halfa, at the Second Cataract, and the Dongolawi, of the province of Dongola between Wadi-Halfa and Jebel Deja near Meroe.

These three groups, all now Muhammadans, but formerly Christians, constitute collectively the so-called "Nubians" of European writers, but call themselves Barabra, Plural of Berberi, i.e. people of Berber, although they do not at present extend so far up the Nile as that town[205]. Possibly these are Strabo's "Noubai, who dwell on the left bank of the Nile in Libya [Africa], a great nation etc.[206]"; and are also to be identified with the Nobatae, who in Diocletian's time were settled, some in the Kharga oasis, others in the Nile Valley about Meroe, to guard the frontiers of the empire against the incursions of the restless Blemmues. But after some time they appear to have entered into peaceful relations with these Hamites, the present Bejas, even making common cause with them against the Romans; but the confederacy was crushed by Maximinus in 451, though perhaps not before crossings had taken place between the Nobatae and the Caucasic Bejas. Then these Bejas withdrew to their old homes, which they still occupy, between the Nile and the Red Sea above Egypt, while the Nobatae, embracing Christianity, as is said, in 545, established the powerful kingdom of Dongola which lasted over 800 years, and was finally overthrown by the Arabs in the fourteenth century, since which time the Nile Nubians have been Muhammadans.

There still remains the problem of language which, as shown by Lepsius[207], differs but slightly from that now current amongst the Kordofan Nubas. But this similarity only holds in the north, and is now shown to be due to Berberine immigration into Kordofan[208]. Recent investigations show that the Nuba and the Barabra, in spite of this linguistic similarity which has misled certain authors[209], are not to be regarded as belonging to the same race[210]. "The Nuba are a tall, stoutly built muscular people, with a dark, almost black skin. They are predominantly mesaticephalic, for although cephalic indices under 70 and over 80 both occur, nearly 60 per cent. of the individuals measured are mesaticephals, the remaining being dolichocephalic and brachycephalic in about equal proportions." The hair is invariably woolly. The Barabra, on the contrary, is of slight, or more commonly medium build, not particularly muscular and in skin colour varies from a yellowish to a chocolate brown. The hair is commonly curly or wavy and may be almost straight, while the features are not uncommonly absolutely non-Negroid. "Thus there can be no doubt that the two peoples are essentially different in physical characters and the same holds good on the cultural side" (p. 611). Barabra were identified by Lepsius with the Wawat, a people frequently mentioned in Egyptian records, and recent excavations by the members of the Archaeological Survey of Nubia show a close connection with the predynastic Egyptians, a connection supported also on physical grounds. It seems strange, therefore, to meet with repeated reference on Egyptian monuments to Negroes in Nubia when, as proved by excavations, the inhabitants were by no means Negroes or even frankly Negroid. Seligman's solution of the difficulty is as follows (p. 619). It seems that only one explanation is tenable, namely that for a period subsequent to the Middle Kingdom the country in the neighbourhood of the Second Cataract became essentially a Negro country and may have remained in this condition for some little time. Then a movement in the opposite direction set in; the Negroes, diminished by war, were in part driven back by the great conquerors of the New Empire; those that were left mixed with the Egyptian garrisons and traders and once more a hybrid race arose which, however, preserved the language of its Negro ancestors. Although Seligman regards the conclusion that this race gave rise directly to the present-day inhabitants of Nubia as "premature," and suggests further mixture with the Beja of the eastern deserts, Elliot Smith recognises the essential similarity between the homogeneous blend of Egyptian and Negro traits which characterise the Middle Nubian people (contemporary with the Middle Empire, XII-XVII dynasties), a type which "seems to have remained dominant in Nubia ever since then, for the span of almost 4000 years[211]."

Before the incursions of the Nubian-Arab traders and raiders, who began to form settlements (zeribas, fenced stations) in the Upper Nile regions above Khartum about the middle of the