future sequences of amalgamation between “ types” so often repugnant,
and amid “ races” Hot less (in zoological, geographical^ànd
historical, phenomena) diverse.
Thus then, Ebn K haledoon recognized the same three distinct
types of man we find about North-western Africa now, viz., the
Berbers, the Arabs, and the negroes south of the Sahara. He demarcates
the Berbers as follows :
“ Now the real fact which dispenses with all hypotheses, is this
the Berbers are the Children of Canaan, son of Ham, son of Noah;
as we have already enunciated it, when speaking of the grand
divisions of the human species. Their grandfather was named
Mazyh [the Masici of the Latins, and the Mazués of the Greeks] ;
their brothers were the Gergesians (Aghrtkeeh) ; the Philistines,
children of Casluhim [here he likewise takes the Hebrew plural for
the Shillouhs to be a man !], son of Misraim, son of Cham, were
their relations. * * * One must admit [he adds peremptorily] no
other opinion than ours.”
"Wiser than some modern ethnographers, our Arab author wholly
rejects Berber “pretensions to Arabian origin: pretensions that I
regard as ill-founded ; because the situation of the places which
these tribes inhabit,- and an examination of the language spoken "by
them, establish sufficiently that they' have nothing in common
with the Arabs. I except only the Sanhadja and the Ketama (but
God knows if this be true!), who, as the.Arab genealogists say
themselves, appertain to this nation,— an opinion that accords with
my own.” The Berbers apostatized from IsIàm twelve times c nor
was this religion implanted among them before T arec (a Berber
chief, who crossed over to Gibraltar, gebel-Tarec, “hill of Tarec,” À. d .
711) went to Spain. “ These chiefs bore with them a great number
of Berber sheykhs and warriors, in order to combat the infidels.
After the Conquest of Spain, these auxiliaries fixed themselves there;
and, since then, the Berbers of the Moghreb have, remained faithful
to Islamism, and have lost their old habit of apostasyi” A portion
of the Berbers, previously to that, had embraced Judaism; but
“ Idrees the First, descendant of El-Hassan, son of El-Hassan
(grandson of Mohammed), having come into the Moghreb, caused
to disappear from this country the very last vestige of these religions
[Christian, Jewish, and pagan], and put an end to the independence
of these tribes.
“We believe that we have cited a series of facts which' prove that
the Berbers have always been a people, powerful, redoubtable, brave,
and numerous : a true people, like so many others in this world,
such as the Arabs, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Eomans. Such
was, in fact, the Berber race. * * * From the Moghreb-el-aksa
[extremest west] as far as Tripoli; or, to speak more exactly, as far
as Alexandria; and from the Roman sea [Mediterranean] as far as
the country of the blacks, the whole of this region has been inhabited
By the Berber race; and this from an epoch of which neither
the anterior events nor even the beginning are known,”—wrote E b n
K haledoon, five centuries before the science of Ethnology even
possessed a name.
So much being settled, I proceed to indicate points of geographical
contact between the Berber and the true negro races; observing
only, that the possession of dromedaries and camels has__
since the 1st century b . c. as the earliest, and- since the VHth a . d . as the
best historical date for any large scale—spread the Berber tribes in a
semi-circle over all the northern confines of the Beldd-es-Sooddn,
countries of the blacks.406
It is from the name of the tribe Aourika that Carette, very reasonably;
derives the name of “Afrioa;” and it is also at the oases
Ouaregla, Temacln, and Tuggurt,— grouped into one appellative,
Ouad-Rir' (Moghrabee for Owldd-Righ)— that mixture of Atlantic
races and tongues with Arabian chiefly takes place. liRigh” meaning
“ separation;’’ “ Ouad-Righ” signifies «‘the sons of the Righ,” or
of separation.
“ The Arabs come from the tribes [Bedawees]; the Berbers pass
as originating from the soil. It is, on the other hand, -easy to recognize
them; because the Arabs have the skin tanned like men of the
white race who have sojourned long in southern countries; whereas
the Ruar’a, properly so-called, or autochthonous inhabitants, have
the skin nearly as black as the negroes, and some few the traits of the
black race.' Albeit, they differ still essentially from the Nigritian
peoples; and, in the country itself, they can never be confounded.
I have seen many Rouar’a [new French spelling for. Roudgha]
Berbers very much resembling the negro, and yet who would have
considered it an insult to be confounded with the race pf slaves.
[Amalgamation with negresses explains these exceptional cases.]
They, characterize their color by no other epithet than Khamri,
which signifies ‘brown’ [or reddish, always the Egyptian color for
the Hamitic stock].407
“ The autochthonous population of the 4 children of Righ' (separation)
mark, therefore, the transition of the color and the features
406 D’E scayrao d e L a u t ü r e [Le Désert et le Soudàn, Paris, 1854) has written one of the
best books on this subject; hut, having lost my copy, I am unable to quote an enterprising
traveller who knows those regions so well.
407 Types of Mankind, pp. 533 : — Otia Ægyptiaca, p. 134.