all ethnographers; and 2d, that they have occasionally mingled in
blood with Gentile races; amalgamations that account for any
visible diversity of type amongst them.
And that we have sought for information among the best informed
of the Hebrew community in the United States, may be inferred from
the subjoined letter of an authority universally known, and by all
respected. His testimony confirms Mr. Leeser’s, no less than that of
every Hebrew we have been able to consult.
** The black Jews of Malabar are not descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but are
of Hindoo origin. At Cochin, there are two distinct communities of Jews: one, white, was
originally settled at Cranganor, but when the Portuguese became too powerful on that coast
(a. d. 1500 to 1590) removed to Cochin. These Jews have been residents in India considerably
above 1000 years, but still retain their Jewish cast of features, hnd, though of dark
complexion, are not black. They never intermarry with the second community, also Jews,
but black, of Hindoo origin, and, according to tradition, originally bondmen, but converted
and manumitted some 300 years ago. Though of the same religion, the two races are, and
keep distinct. In the interior of Africa, many Negroes are found who profess to be Jews,
practise circumcision, and keep the SaBbath. These are held to be the descendants of
slaves who were converted by their Jewish masters, and then manumitted. All the Jews
in the interior of Africa who are of really Jewish descent, as, for instance, in Timbuctoo,
the Desert of Sahara, &c., though of dark complexion, are not black, and retain the characteristic
cast of features of their ra c e l||so they do likewise in China.
“ J. C. N o n , M. D., Mobile.” “ Yours, &c. M. J. Raphael.
We think it is now shown satisfactorily that the “Black Jews” of
India are not Jews by race, any more than the Uegro converts to Judaism
known to exist at Timhuctoo, or the many Moorish adherents
to the Hebrew faith scattered throughout the States of Barbary.
There are authors living who insist that the aborigines of our American
continent are lineal descendants of the lost ten tribes, which have
run so wild in our woods as to he no longer recognizable ! Other
examples of Jewish physical transformation have been alleged, but
they are even less worthy of credit than the preceding. The Jews
of Abyssinia, fir Falashas, as they are called, may be noticed. They
do not present the Jewish physiognomy, hut are, doubtless, composed
of mixed bloods, Arabian with African, and converts. Before us
lies a pamphlet by D r . C h a r l e s B e k e , the very erudite Abyssinian
traveller.81 This essay was read on the 8th of February, 1848, before
the Syro-Egyptian Sociefy of London, and Dr. Beke’s standing as an
orientalist requires no comment. His information was obtained
from the Falashas themselves ; his opinion formed in presence of
the speakers.
“ There is, however, no reason for imagining that these Israelites of Abyssinia, who are
known in that country by the name of Falashas, are, as a people, the lineal descendants of
any of the tribes of Israel. Their peculiar language, which they still retain, differs entirely
from the Syro-Arabian class to which the Ethiopic and Amharic, as well as the Hebrew and
Arabic, belong, and is cognate with, and closely allied to, the existing dialects spoken by the
A’gaus of Lasta and the A’gaumider: a circumstance affording a strong argument in support
of the opinion that all these people are descended from an aboriginal race, which has
been foroed to give way before the advanoes of a younger people from the opposite shores
of the Red Sea first in Tigrfc, and subsequently in the countries adjacent to Bab-el
Mandeb.
“ It is not till about the tenth century of the Christian era that we possess any history
of the Israelites of Abyssinia, as a separate people; and even then the particulars
respecting them, which are to be gathered from the annals of the country as given by
Bruce, must, in the earlier portions at least, be received with great caution.”
B r u c e , in the second volume of his Travels, gives an interesting
account of this people. He regards them really as Jews, but expresses
sundry doubts, and thinks the question must he determined by future
philological researches. Such researches have been made since his
day, and the decision of Beke is recorded above. Even Prichard did
not credit Bruce’s narrative.
The history of the ten tribes affords also conclusive evidence of the
influence of Jewish intermixtures with alien races. In the eighth century
b. c., they were conquered, and carried captive, by Tiglathpilesar
and Shalmanasar, into the north-western parts of the Assyrian empire;.
their places being supplied by foreign colonists from that country.
These, with a few remaining Israelites, formed the Samaritans of after
times; but the ten tribes have been scattered, and most of them lost
by Assyrian amalgamations, or absorption into cognate Chaldsean
tribes.,
“ The Afghans, as before remarked^ bear strong ^marks of the Jewish type, and are
doubtless descended from the ten tribes. . . . The Affghans have no resemblance to the
Tartars who surround them, in person, habits, or language. Sir William Jones (and this
opinion is now prevalent) is inclined to believe that their descent may be traced to the
Israelites, and adds, that the best-informed Persian historians, have adopted the same
opinion. The Affghans have traditions among themselves which render it very probable
that this is the just account of their origin. Many of their families are distinguished by
names of Jewish tribes, though, since their conversion to Islam, they conceal their descent
with the most scrupulous care; and the whole is confirmed by the circumstance that the
Pushto has so near an affinity with the Chaldaic that it may justly be regarded as a dialect
of that tongue. They are now confounded with the Arabs.”82 ,
This quotation is a fair specimen of the fabulous ethnography current
among orthodox litterateurs of our day. There is no Biblical
or historical basis for the first assumption: the second is a misapprehension,
attributing to Judaism that which is due to Islamism in the
last 1000 years; and the third is explained by linguistic importations,
Persic and Arabian; because the Pushto is a Medo-Persian branch of
Indo-European languages. Prichard himself treats Affghan derivation
from the Israelites with a sneer83:—but the reader is referred to our
Supplement for further citations on the subject, from the works of
thorough orientalists, who unite in testifying that the Semitic element
in Afghanistan, out of the synagogues, is exclusively Arabian.