Whilst submitting the above dubious solution as preferable to any dependent upon
a spurious Masora, we nevertheless consider the Pharusii of ancient Barbary to be the
true P T t f R S m of Xth Genesis : confirming such opinion by two prophetic passages •
1st—rv“ They of Phares (not Persians, but Pharusii) and of Lud and of Phut were in
thine army,” says Ezekiel (xxvii. 10) to the Tyrian masters of Barbary: 2dly, Isaiah
(xi. 11) proves that he regarded Pathros to be a land entirely distinct from Egypt,
when he wrote — “ from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from PATmRiS, and from
Cush,” &c.6i5
32 . D’n S o D — K S L K M M — ‘ Ca s l u h im . ’
The ground here becomes less firm than that whereon we travelled in quest of the
preceding tribes ; not merely owing to the briars planted in our way by commentators,
but also from the ambiguity Of the text of Xth Genesis itself.
Let us commence by inquiring into the latter. King James’s version, verse 14, has :
“ And Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim” ; the plain English
of which is, that a man called Philistim issued from another called Casluhim. The
commas and parentheses being the conjectural punctuation and interpolation of King
James’s translators, we restore the text to its primitive simplicity, as closely as our
alien language permits, thus : “ And (the) KSLKMM from whom issued (the) PALSTi-
IM and (the) KPATiRIM.” Of this the plain English is, that two families, the Philistim
and the Eaphtorim, issued from the family of the Kaslukhkm.
In psychological speculations,-it may not he of the slightest consequence whether
either of these families did, or both of them did not. Our English Bible, as Taylor, the
erudite translator of Calmet, declares, after freely acknowledging its manifold misconstructions,
“ suffices for all purposes of piety.” But in- matters of archaeological, and
essentially of anthropographical science, the English Bible is less safe than any standard
translation of Homer, Herodotus, Cicero, or Coesar; as our “ Introduction to Xth
Genesis ” abundantly shows.
The question whether the Casluhim were the progenitors of one or both families has
amply occupied theological pens, rabbinical as well as Christian; but we may mention
that Rosenmiiller, Cahen, and Glaire, confirm our reading.
Let us endeavor to ascertain the affinities of the/«¿Aer-stock — the KSLKAIM.
Excepting the Abbé Mignot, followers of the few errors rather than of the many
truths of Bochart, had discovered, until latterly, nothing more apposite than that semi-
historical Egyptian colony of Colchians, planted by one of the Sèsostridæ in a section
of Mingrelia whence Jason brought the golden fleece. Without doubting the mythico-
astronomical basis of the latter event, we summarily dismiss the Colchians, as a colony
of Egypt, for the very reason given by Herodotus in proof of their extraction : viz.,
that the former people were “ black in complexion, and woo%-haired,” which everybody
knows the MTsRIM, or Egyptians, were not.
Now, the “ Caucasian” Egyptians being impossible procreators for Negro Colchians,
the former’s “ children,” according to Xth Genesis, cannot have been “ woolly-haired
blacks” either; and, inasmuch as the KSLKAIM were “ sons of the MTsRtm,” they
cannot have been the Negroes of Colchis. So we are compelled to look elsewhere.
Five of the affiliations of the Mitsbitjss — the Ludlm, Aânamlm, Lehablm, Nephtukhlm,
and Pathruslm- having already found comfortable homes among Gsetulian races in
Barbary, it would seem unnatural if the sixth had not left some mementoes of coeval
residence in the same regions, between the Sahara and the Mediterranean. Indeed,
our Berber historiographer, Ebn Khaledoon, has told us [supra] that his nation
“ descends from Kesloudjlm,” which name is but the Arabicized vocalization of
KSLKA-Iot. He, therefore, reputed the latter to be a Barbaresque family ; and, in
consequence, we proceed to test their appellative by an Hamitic touchstone.
Its protogramme K is a difficulty, but one of two explanations will remove it. The
first is philological: viz., that all Orientalists know how such articulations as KAS,
KSA, KS, glide into one another accordingly as they are enunciated by different tribes.
Thus, in the very name before us, that which the native Berbers and Arabs pronounce
Shillouh, an exotic Spaniard, Marmol, writes Xilohes. The writer of Xth Genesis, transcribing
a foreign name in the unknown Hebrew alphabet he used, from six to blank
centuries before the present squar e-letter character (in which we now have his text) was
invented,—this Hebrew writer, we now repeat, when he placed a sameq, S, immediately
after the kaf, K, probably meant thè two letters to represent a Berber intonation' of KS.
In such case, interpolating vowels, we divide the word into KSAiLouKA-fcwz, and writing
beneath i t ............... .................................................................. SAiLouH s, we instantly
recognize the S h il l o u h s , one of the grand duplex divisions of Goetulian families ; the
other being the Berbers [ubi supra~\. In the Egyptian “ sacred tongue*’ and character,
such hieroglyphical signs as the “ sieve,” or the “ garden,” equally represent KS and
SH ; and if, according to orthodox interpretation, an individual yclept Casluhim was
really son of a man called MTsRalM, the father’s vernacular and writing must have
regulated the child’s baptismal nomen.
The second explanation is archaeological ; and although less likely, nay superfluous
after the preceding remarks, it is submitted as another proof that the speech of the
old MTsRIM, not having been the “ lingua sancta” of Shemite families, serves to effect
that which modern Hebrew never can aspire to : viz., a rational solution of the Hamitic
word KSLKA.
“ Every name determined by the sign k a h . . . is the proper name of a province or
country more or less extended.” This is Champollion’s law of hieroglyphical writing ;
and so familiar to anybody who has read an Egyptological work, that one feels ashamed
to pile up authorities.
If an ancient hierogrammateus had written the name of a people called Shillouh, he
would have spelt it SALUKA-kah ; that is, SmtLOUH-cbwTziry ; the determinative for
country being inseparable from, a geographical term. It is, then, possible that, on exportation
to Jerusalem or Babylon where Xth Genesis was edited, the determinative kah
may have beçome transposed from the end to the beginning of the word SALKA, in order
to suit the Chaldaic cuneiform system of writing; in which “ determinatives” always
precede the proper name ; just as, in English, we usually say country of the S h il l o u h s
in lieu of SHiLLOUH-cowniry. We have only now to suppose that a Chaldaean original,
written in cuneiform, was transcribed by a Hebrew amanuensis into the old alphabet
of the Jews; and the copies of this transcription recast, about two or three hundred
years a . c ., into the modern squar e-letter character— all things possible, and the latter
event certain — to perceive that the initial K may be the relic of the sign “ kah,” now
incorporated into a name that (supplying the vowels) we might read KaA-SAiLuKA,
land of the S h il l o u h s . T o which name, inasmuch as the Hebrew writer knew that it
referred to a people and not to' a man, he added the plural determinative IM, and
thus has handed down to us. a true signification of Kasluhim, i n “ country of the S h i l l
o u h s .” Still, we prefer the former explanation, because it is the simplest; and
with these new lights continue the inquiry.
The learned Swede, so long Consul-General for his own and the Sardinian government
at Tangiers, follows Ebn Khaledoon with his personal corroborative experience,
when he deems the Casluhim of Xth Genesis to be no others than the Shillouhs;
already domiciled in Barbary previously to the intrusion of the first Phoenician colonists
: indeed, he favors the opinion that they are ' autocthones. The conclusions,
drawn by this eminent scholar from actual Marocchine observation, derive support
from another quarter ; nor will Orientalists question the vast profundity of Quatremère.
In his judicious critique of Hitzig he observes “ Quant aux Kaslouhis, j ’y reconnais
les Schelouh qui, de nos jours encore, composent une grande division de la nombreuse
nation dont les membres sont désignés, d’une manière abusive, par le nom de Berbères ;
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