Home >> Encyclopedia-britannica-volume-01-a-anno >> Aelian Claudius Aelianus to Africa >> Africa Anthropology andEthnology

Africa - Anthropology and Ethnology

Loading


AFRICA - ANTHROPOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY North Africa and Egypt.—Apart from Egypt and the Nile Valley the divisions of Africa north of the Sudan are in the main political and from the anthropological standpoint almost entirely artificial. Not only are the Egypto-Tripolitan and the Morocco Algerian frontiers entirely conventional, but even the Libyo Tunisian frontier lacks the ethnic significance it might possess if instead of leaving the Mediterranean in the neighbourhood of Cape Roux it ran almost due south from the Gulf of Gabes. The political divisions of the western portion of North Africa—Africa Minor—thus stand in sharp contrast to its natural unity, so well defined between the desert and the Mediterranean that the early Arab geographers named it Geziret el Magreb, "the Western Island." It is also necessary to realize that the predominantly Arab complexion of North Africa and the general substitution of Hamitic languages by Arabic began little more than l000 years ago, while to appreciate the vast area of country over which the spread of Arab influence has obliterated or modified the earlier Berber tongues reference should be made to some such linguistic map as that given by Meinhof in Die moderne Sprachforschung in Afrika (Berlin 191o).

The Berbers and Their Position in North Africa.—While Sergi (Antropologia della Stirpe Camitica, Turin, 1897) regards the Berbers as the northern branch of the Hamitic stock (the Eastern Hamites being typically represented by proto-Egyptians, Beja and Galla), Keane (Man, Past and Present, Cambridge, 1920) quotes T. A. Joyce to the effect that it is impossible to prove the connection between Eastern and Northern Hamites, and that the latter should be regarded as the African representa tives of the Mediterranean race. The question is largely a mat ter of terminology, since we cannot doubt the close relationship of the groups commonly termed Mediterranean, proto-Egyptian, and Beja.

The term Moor, which is often applied to the townsmen of Morocco, is here purposely avoided, and with Collignon and Deni ker ("Les Maures du Senegal," L'Anthropologie, 1896) is re stricted ethnically to a group of peoples lying between the Senegal River and Morocco and extending east to the Tuareg country.

Egypt.

For Egypt alone in North Africa it is possible to construct a connected anthropological record, which, in spite of gaps, reaches back to the very dawn of history. Some forty years ago Flinders Petrie and J. E. Quibell discovered at Naqada and Ballas in Upper Egypt a series of cemeteries belonging to a people with a mode of life and habit of burial utterly different from those of the dynastic civilization previously known in Egypt. Their discovery was followed up and extended by de Morgan, who recognized that Petrie's "new race" preceded even Mena, tra ditionally the first ruler of a united Egypt, whose tomb he found and excavated. Unfortunately de Morgan applied the term "neo lithic" to this newly discovered people, a complete misnomer —though still used in French works—since detailed archaeological examination indicates that copper occurs in the earliest graves in these cemeteries. These early inhabitants of the Nile Valley are now known as the predynastic or proto-Egyptians, terms which respectively emphasize their position in time and their ethnic rela tion to the other inhabitants of the Nile Valley.

The Pre-dynastic Egyptians.

The proto-Egyptians have been best described by Elliot Smith, who writes of them (The People of Egypt, Address to Cairo Scientific Society, 1909) as a people slightly below the average size of mankind, with muscular development so feeble that it may be difficult to determine to which sex an isolated skull belongs. In physical character they exhibit a remarkable degree of homogeneity. Their hair was dark, and either straight or wavy, never woolly. In the men apart from a chin-tuft beard there was the scantiest development of facial hair. These proto-Egyptians had long narrow heads with a narrow forehead and prominent occiput, so that the skull when viewed from above presents a characteristic form which has been termed "coffin-shaped." The face was a moderately long and narrow ellipse, and the chin was almost always pointed. More precisely, they were longheaded, with a cranial index of 73 (Na qada) and a mean height estimated at a little under 65 inches for men and about 6o inches for women, and though there can be no direct evidence as to skin and eye colour there is no doubt that they had dark eyes and skins of a yellowish brown or pale copper colour.

The Dynastic Egyptians.

All this applies only to the popu lation of Upper Egypt ; knowledge is lacking of the inhabitants of the delta at this early period, as of the whole of Lower Egypt until the time of the pyramid builders. Among the skeletons of this date from the neighbourhood of the pyramids Elliot Smith found a considerable number in which the skeleton was more robust, with a bigger and especially a broader skull without the angularity and the projecting occiput of the proto-Egyptian type; there are modifications in forehead, orbits and nose, with particu larly obvious differences in the jaw, in fact the type of man buried round the pyramids belonged to that well characterized group known as the dynastic Egyptian, which in antiquity is represented by the Saqqara "Scribes" and the Sheikh el Belled, and is essen tially that of the peasant Egyptians, the fellahin of the present day. For a detailed account of skeletal material, and especially of crania, throughout the dynastic period see A. Thomson and D. Randall-Maciver The Ancient Races of the Thebaid (Oxford 1905). Elliot Smith (The Ancient Egyptians, 1923, chapter 7), arrays evidence that long before the New Empire, Egypt was permeated from end to end by this foreign element, which in his opinion carries the physical traits of the Armenoid race. There is however one difficulty in accepting this view, which does not arise from any examination of the skeletal remains but results from the large number of portrait statues which the Egyptians have left to us, namely, that although so many of these statues exhibit the broader face and heavier jaw brought in by the alien race, not one of them exhibits any approach to the typical Arme noid, so-called "Jewish," nose. If therefore the foreign element is to be termed Armenoid it can only be called by this name so long as it is realized that this does not imply the presence of one of the most characteristic features of that race as known at the present day. The difficulty is not lightened by the fact that less than moo years later at Beni Hassan there are excellent repre sentations of the Aamu, a people of the eastern desert with typical Armenoid noses.

Contemporary Representations of Beja.

The proto Egyptian type persists to the present day among the southern Beja (q.v.), tribes of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It also occurs, though probably in less typical form, among the Ababda of the Eastern (Egyptian) Desert and the riverain settlements in the neighbourhood of the first cataract. We have direct evidence dating from about 2000 B.C. of the existence of the pure proto Egyptian type among a people wearing their hair in the same fuzzy mop as the Beja of the present day on the eastern border of Egypt. Among the wall paintings of the 12th Dynasty in the tombs at Meir (A. M. Blackman, The Rock Tombs of Meir, vol. ii., P1. xxx., London, 1915), is one that undoubtedly represents a Beja. The long thin figure and limbs, with broad chest, narrow flanks and retracted abdomen, are no doubt conventional and exaggerated representations of the characters of the lean pastoral desert men as they appeared to the agricultural Egyptians, but there can be no criticism of the splendid naturalism of the lined face, the thin pointed nose and the mop of hair projecting over the forehead and standing out stiffly over the whole head to the nape of the neck. The beard is the usual chin tuft of the Beja tribes, and comparison with modern Beni Amer clinches the identity of the two peoples, living in the same desert area but separated by 4,00o years. Confirmatory evidence of the proto Egyptian characters of the inhabitants of the eastern desert and of their civilization is offered by the discovery by G. W. Murray of a burial of late pre-dynastic date, with characteristic grave goods, near Ras Samadi on the Red Sea Coast, in lat. 59' N. (Man 1923, 81). The skull accorded well with those of the pre dynastic Egyptians.

The desert must indeed be regarded as a reservoir not only of early archaic physical types no longer preserved in the richer Nile lands but also of ancient ideas and appliances, e.g., the camel stick of the Ma'aza of the Eastern Desert is no other than the Uas sceptre of ancient Egypt applied to a new use.

The Arab Element.

The Arab conquest, which politically altered the whole history of Egypt, had no appreciable influence on the physique of its inhabitants. While in part this may be due to a certain physical resemblance between Arabian and Egyptian the numerical inferiority of the conquerors must be held to be the determining cause. The nature of the invasion may be best illustrated by considering the history of the Juhaina (Sudanese, Guhayna, q.v.). The tribesmen took a prominent part in break ing the power of the Christian kingdom of Nubia ; yet in spite of their importance in the past, at the present day few groups that may fairly be called Arabs exist except in association with the desert. Such are the fisher folk of Lake Menzaleh, who trace their origin to Sinai ; the Harabi of the Fayum, extending into the Tripolitan desert, still pastoral nomads ; the Aulad Ali of the Behera district of the Delta, no longer nomads; and the prac tically sedentary Howeitat of Matarieh; all dolichocephals or low brachycephals. In the Eastern Desert the only important Arab tribe is the Ma'aza, about whom very little is known, described by Chantre (Recherclies Anthropologiques en Egypte, Lyon, 1904), as short dOlichocephals.

Besides these more or less well-defined groups there is in upper Egypt a small number of people, generally mobile in their habits, living along the edge of the cultivation. These folk generally keep goats and often own a few palm trees, and formerly may have been of more importance as charcoal burners. Somewhat in the position of gypsies in England fifty years ago, they are generally unpopular with the fellahin, on whom they levy a cer tain amount of blackmail. Such groups as the Bili, near Baliana, and the Aleiqat, of whom there are a considerable number near Qus, do not come into this category.

In Sinai, with a total population of some Io,000, the chief tribes are the Howeitat, the Tiyaha and Terabin, in the North ; in the South the Tawara (i.e., the people of Tor), who include the Aleiqat, the Sawalha and Muzeina.

The Modern Egyptian.

Passing to the fellahin, the modern Egyptian, the most important of the numerous studies that have been made are those of C. S. Myers ("Contributions to Egyptian Anthropology," in vols. xxxv., xxxvi., and xxxviii. of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute) and of J. R. Craig ("Anthropometry of Modern Egyptians," Biometrika, vol. viii., 1911). Omitting the province of Aswan and the town dwellers, these papers, which must be regarded as complementary, indicate that the Egyptian peasant has a stature of approximately 653in., showing no sharp division between Upper and Lower Egypt ; he is longheaded, with a cephalic index of about 75, the cephalic index—again omitting Aswan—being about a unit higher in Lower than in Upper Egypt. There is no evidence that the natives of various provinces differ in variability, nor is it possible to resolve distribution curves, whether of measurements or indices, into components corresponding to hypothetical underlying ethnic types, though it seems that passing from Lower to Upper Egypt eye and skin colour darken and the proportion of unusually broad noses increases as does the frequency of spiral and crisp hair, all evidences of increased though still well diluted negro blood in the population.

The position of the Copts (the Christian population of the present day, and therefore with insignificant exceptions the de scendants of the Egyptians who refused to relinquish their faith at the Conquest or during the succeeding centuries) is particu larly interesting. The observations available refer to Coptic peasants, not town dwellers, and so far as these go the remark commonly made by Europeans that they can distinguish at sight between Muslim and Copt is not borne out. No significant devia tion from the general Muslim population is found as regards head measurements or facial characteristics, though the nose is slightly less broad and the lip slightly thinner, with eye and skin colour a trifle lighter. Thus, diag nosis at sight between Copt and Muslim, if really practicable, can not rest on easily defined physical characteristics but must be at tributed to such other factors as gait, dress, etc.

The measurements and photo graphs of natives of Kharga Oasis published by Hrdlicka (The Na tives of Kharga Oasis, Egypt, Washington, 1912) show that its inhabitants are Egyptians, differ ing in no essentials from the inhabitants of the Nile Valley. The inhabitants of Siwa speak a Berber dialect, akin to Tuareg, with many Arabic loan words, some so profoundly modified that their origin is not immediately apparent. Jaghbub (Jarabub), in Italian territory, is believed to have been uninhabited before its occupa tion by the Senussi, whose capital it now is.

Disposition of the Fellahin.

Difficult as it is to sum up the temperament or disposition of a, people it is probably true to say that the fellahin are in the main good natured, cheerful and excit able, genuinely religious but not generally fanatical, though cer tain centres such as Tanta have a bad reputation in this respect. They are liable to occasional bursts of ferocity (such as distin guished the rioting of 1919), and inter-village enmities, leading to fights with iron-shod staves, were formerly fierce and per sistent. Nothing approaching an adequate account of the beliefs and customs of the fellahin has yet been written, for Lane's Modern Egyptians, first published in 1836 before western in fluence had contaminated Egyptian habits and modes of thought, though giving an invaluable account of Cairene life and manners cannot be held to apply except in somewhat general terms to the habits and beliefs of the peasants, which even preliminary inquiry will show to vary not only from those of the towns but as between Upper and Lower Egypt. Meanwhile the work of Miss Winifred Blackman (The Fellahin of Upper Egypt, 1927) avowedly only a preliminary account, contains much useful information.

Tattoo, etc.

Tattooing is the most obvious, common and widespread method of bodily enhancement and mutilation. Lane mentions the simpler designs—dots, lines and circles—common in women and refers to the "extremely displeasing" habit of the women of Upper Egypt of discolouring their lips with tattoo. C. S. Myers ("Contributions to Egyptian Anthropology, Tat tuing," .R.A.I ., vol. xxxiii., 1903) found that of about 400 male subjects nearly Too were tattooed, the designs falling into two main classes, namely simple, generally geometrical, designs, and pictorial representations, e.g., the facade of a mosque or the Persian lion with sword. Local examples of the type prevailing throughout North Africa form the first class while the latter are derived from eastern sources. Circumcision is universal ; clitori dectomy, though far less recognized by Europeans, is customary in cities, at least among the poorer class, and may be equally common among the Fellahin. Both long antedate Islam, circum cision being represented in a tomb of the pyramid age at Saqqara, while clitoridectomy or a similar operation is alluded to by Strabo —Circumcidunt etiam mares et foeminas excidunt.

Survivals from Ancient Egypt.

One of the most interest ing features of present day Egypt is the persistence in popular be lief of ideas traceable to ancient Egypt, especially intricate cere monies connected with mourning, the survival of the belief in ka or double, the persistence of a ceremony in which a sacred boat takes a prominent part, and the superstitions connected with par ticular days in the calendar. The boat ceremonies are particularly important, since these exist widely in Asia outside the Near East (e.g., in Ceylon) and it seems probable that their distribution has been to a considerable extent brought about from Egypt by the spread of Islam. Nearly 20 years ago the writer observed a full-sized river boat suspended in a tree outside Luxor; enquiries showed that once a year this was placed in a cart, filled with chil dren and dragged round the fields. Actually there are three boat processions every year in Luxor, the most important being ob served in honour of Abu'l Heggag, the patron saint of Luxor. The substitution of Amon and his sacred barque by Abu'l Heggag and his Nile boat is suggested by the popular belief at Karnak that on certain nights the golden boat of Amon may still be seen to emerge from the waters of the sacred lake, steered, as of old, by the Pharoah.

The calendar customs are a striking example of how beliefs attached to a particular day may last for over 3,00o years, per sisting through a complete change in the mode of reckoning time, as well as the introduction of new beliefs. The Sallier papyrus, which dates from the time of Rameses II. or possibly his successor, gives an account of the lucky and unlucky days in the year, and describes in some detail the quality of the good and bad luck, with instructions for behaviour on each of these days. It may first be noted that the five epagomenal days of the old Egyptian year were unlucky. In modern Egypt the epagomenal days are still observed to the extent that neither sowing nor planting should be undertaken, mares and cattle should not be covered lest their offspring be misshapen, and it is even believed that children begot ten during these days will show some abnormality. A still more interesting example perhaps is that afforded by a day near the end of the old Egyptian month of Choiak; the Sallier Papyrus marks the 26th of this month as most unlucky, and of this day it is writ ten, "Do not eat fish. Those residing in the midst of Tattu turn themselves into the fish An." The mythological allusion cannot be explained, but the modern popular calendar, such as is hawked about the Bazaars, notes that on the 11th of Moharram (corre sponding to the 26th day of the Coptic month Kyhak) "the eating of pigeons is liked, that of fish disliked." The Beja Tribes of Egypt.—Of the Beja tribes of the eastern desert the Ababda (q.v.) fall wholly within Egyptian territory; the Bisharin extend some 8o miles south of the boundary and occupy a strip of territory stretching along the right bank of the Atbara. While the physical characters of both tribes have been studied by E. Chantre (Recherches Anthropologiques en Egypte, Lyons, 1904) and the mode of life of the Bisharin described by Linant de Bellefonds (L'Etbaye, 1858), two recent papers by G. W. Murray ("The Ababda," vol. liii., 1923, and "The Northern Beja," vol. lvii., 1927) constitute by far the most valuable account of these people. The Ababda inhabit the eastern desert from the Sudan frontier to north of the Kena Kuseir road, and there are isolated colonies along the edge of the cultivation from Assiut to Korosko. In the time of Bruce their southern range was limited by the 'Atawna (Arabs) who have now vanished from the desert. Earlier yet Makrisi records the Beli (Bili) a tribe of which scattered groups still exist along the edge of the cultivation—as being in possession of parts of the desert now belonging to the Ababda. The desert Ababda inter marry with the Bisharin, and those settled in the Nile Valley with the Fellahin, but they do not appear to intermarry with any Arab tribes still carrying the desert tradition. Like other Beja tribes the Ababda wear the dirwa, the shock head-dress of hair besmeared with mutton fat, though this custom is gradually dying out. Unlike their Beja neighbours to the south the Ababda speak Arabic, but coloured by Bedauye (To-Bedawi) words, while transposition of consonants—a Hamitic rather than a Semitic feature—of ten occurs.

In physique the Ababda resemble the Beni Amer, and there fore the predynastic Egyptians, i.e., they are longheaded with a cephalic index of 73.6 and a stature of 1.63 metres. The Bisharin on the other hand present two types, those of the Red Sea coast with a cephalic index of 74.7, and those living inland with a cephalic index of 78.4, the latter substantially identical with the index given by Chantre, presumably derived from individuals living in or near the Nile Valley. (Murray, op.cit.) Tripoli.—Westwards beyond the Egyptian frontier knowledge of the physical anthropology of Tripoli is but slight. At the ex treme west of Italian territory, i.e., in the area surrounding Trip oli city, the systematic observations of Bertholon and Chantre show that the population is predominantly long-headed and of rather low stature (below 1.654m.) but there is an island of high brachycephaly in the immediate area of Bu Ajilat, though these brachycephals exhibit no marked departure from the general low stature of the area. Throughout the rest of Tripoli but few ob servations have been made, certainly not enough to permit of any connected anthropological history or description of the country. The observations of the late Oric Bates at Mersa Matruh, not far east of the Egyptian frontier ("Archaic Burials at Marsa Matra" Ancient Egypt, 1915, Part IV., p. 158) suggest that at a period possibly as remote as that of the pyramid builders the population of the coastal plain was not unlike that of the proto-Egyptians, and presumably a people of some such type long continued to form the basis of the population of the coastal plain. Evidence such as that afforded by the ram of Bu Hamama (in Algiers) crowned with the sun-disk and uraei, as well as the presence of the sun-disk on Carthaginian coins, indicates the very considerable cultural influence exercised by Egypt along the north African littoral in late dynastic times, but so far there is no direct evidence of Egyptian influence on the physical anthropology of the coun try. Nor is there any knowledge in this sense of the effect of the Roman occupation. Herodotus, however, describes the Libyans east of Lake Tritonis, i.e., the inhabitants of Tripoli, as nomadic and thus differing from the settled agricultural peoples of what is now predominantly Algeria, although it is clear that many of these people were in fact no more than semi-nomadic ; the Nasa mones for instance with their main settlements on the Syrtic shore, left their herds in summer and went up to Aujila for the date harvest, just as some "nomad" Arab tribes of the present day sow their crop in the oases in the autumn, leading a more or less wandering life until the spring.

Apart from the littoral belt the greater portion of Tripoli is desert or poor steppe, for the most part with an annual rainfall varying from three to less than ten inches, such a country can never have been densely populated or have offered any great temptation to highly civilized folk. The position is different with regard to nomads or semi-nomads; here is a sparsely inhabited area which could scarcely fail to attract the Arab tribes that poured into north Africa after the conquest of Egypt under the Khalif Omar, and again in the eleventh century when, in 1048, the Wazir of the Fatimid Khalif Mustansir launched a number of the nomad tribes of Upper Egypt, including the Beni Halal, against his master's orthodox vassals of the northern African States. Each man was given a camel and a gold piece on condi tion that he would settle in Maghreb, with the result that within two years Cyrenaica had been pillaged and Kairwan captured. But the western movement of the Hilali invasion did not stop here, for while the majority of the Beni Hilal settled in Tripoli and Tunis, and the Athbej passed into what is now Algeria, as far as the Aures mountains and the river Zab, the Makil pressed westwards as far as the high plateau of Morocco-Algeria. Be neath this flood the Berber tongue largely disappeared, and except among the Beni M'zab, the Abadite schism was almost wiped out.

At the present day the population of the coastal plain may for practical purposes be regarded as Arab, and since with the excep tion of the towns and the oases of the far south the coastal plain—never more than 20 miles in width and generally less than this—constitutes almost the whole of the available territory suit able for agriculture, the Arab tribes of this area form the pre dominant factor in the population of the country. Of these tribes the Awlad Ali may be taken as the type. Extending from the outskirts of Alexandria to the neighbourhood of Tobruk they grow a considerable amount of barley, and (at any rate before the Great War) possessed horses, sheep and camels, the latter con stituting their main wealth. Predominantly sedentary, and horse men rather than camel-men, they yet live in tents. Their tribal organization is into sections and divisions as among the Arabs of the Sudan, whom (e.g., the Kababish) they closely resemble physically to judge from the measurements given by Chantre. But not all the folk who have been described as Tripolitan Arabs are long-headed ; an examination by Mochi ("Presentazione di cranii d'indigeni di Tripoli" Archiv. per l'Antrop. e la Etnol., Florence XL, 1912, p. 381) of the skulls from Tripoli in the National Museum at Florence indicates that they contain at least one hyperbrachycephalic group. Remarkable as is this fact, its significance becomes clear in the light of a series of skulls de scribed by Giuffrida Ruggeri ("I Crani Egiziani antichi e Arabo Egiziani dall' Universita di Napoli," Atti dell Societe Romana de Antropologia, XV 1910, pp. et seq.) from an ancient Arab cemetery at Abassieh near Cairo, with an average cranial index (r3) of 85.3. The significance of these skulls and their relation to definite areas of round-headedness in Tripoli has been studied by Seligman ("The Physical Character of the Arabs," J.R.A.I., vol. xlvii., 1907), who points out that their characters indicate that the Abassieh skulls belonged to natives of Southern Arabia, that brachycephaly prevails both in southern Arabia and in the Levant, and that both these areas have contributed to the popula tion of North Africa.

Barbary (Tunis, Algeria, Morocco).

Tunis, Algeria and Morocco, are but artificial political divisions of one natural area, which from the anthropological as well as the geographical aspect might still be called by its old name of Barbary. Its inhabitants, the Berbers, are commonly regarded as aborigines, and apart from immigrant stocks this seems to be true as far back as the end of the palaeolithic period. The physical anthropology of the natives of Eastern Tripoli, Tunisia and Algeria, has been ex haustively studied by Bertholon and Chantre (Recherches an t/iropologiques dans la Berberie Orientale Tripolitaine, Tunisie, Algerie. Lyon, 1912). The following facts give a rough idea of the progressive weakening of Arab influence, passing from East to West, and the physical characteristics of the three main groups generally recognized.

In Tunis, with a total Islamic population of something under two millions, there are about half a million Berberized Arabs and less than roo,000 Berbers, forming for the most part two isolated masses, the Matmata in the far south in the neighbourhood of Jebel Nefusa, and a group mainly of the Ababdite (Kharijite) heresy in the island of Jerba. Passing westwards to Algeria there are pure Berber groups in the Kabyle hills and in the Aures mountains. Apart from these two areas the remainder of the province of Constantine may be regarded as inhabited by Arab ized Berbers except for a few Arab coastal areas. Numerically some 75% of the inhabitants of the province may be regarded as Berber or Berber-speaking, the remainder Arabs or partially Ber berized Arabs. In the department of Algiers Arabs mixed with Arabized Berbers preponderate, while in Oran the Arab element is frankly dominant. In Morocco on the contrary the Berbers are not only in great numerical majority but socially form by far the most important groups. Here it is calculated that not more than five per cent of the population are Arabs, with per haps another five of Berberized Arabs, the remainder of the pop ulation being fairly equally divided into pure Berbers and Ber bers with a tinge of Arab influence. Nothing would be gained by attempting to enumerate the "Berber" and "Arab" tribes of Morocco. Westermarck (The Moorish Conception of Holiness, Helsingfors, 1916) divides the Berbers into five groups :—(r) the Ruafa—the Berbers of the Rif—whose country extends along the Mediterranean coast from the neighbourhood of Tetuan to the Algerian frontier ; (2) the Beraber, who inhabit the mountain regions of Central Morocco and the eastern portion of the Great Atlas; (3) the Shleuh, inhabiting the western part of this range, and to the south of it in the province of Sus a territory with an eastern frontier running from Demnat in a south-easterly direc tion and a northern frontier uniting Demnat with Mogador on the Atlantic coast, following more or less closely the foot of the mountains; (4) the Draa, who inhabit the valley of the Wad Draa in the extreme south of Morocco; (5) various tribes living in the neighbourhood of Ujda, in the north-east of the country. The so-called "Arabs" are the Jebala, the mountain dwelling tribes of Northern Morocco, with their centre in the area between the Rif and Fez and extending westwards of the latter.

Physical Characteristics of the Berbers.

Morocco, is from the standpoint of physical anthropology for the most part unexplored. Three physical types of Berber are, however, generally recognized: (I) tall men, with a stature of about i•7om., dolicho cephalic, with strongly marked supraorbital ridges, the face long, tending to oval, the cheek bones by no means prominent, nose long and narrow, chin square and rather scant beard. This type appears to form perhaps half the population of Tunisia and is widespread in Algeria. (2) The second type is short, with a stature of about 1.63m., longheaded, with a prominent occiput so that the head when viewed from above is distinctly pentagonal ; the face is short and broad, the cheek bones well developed, the nose tends to be broad, the chin prominent and often well bearded, the lips full. This type is to be found in the mountains of central Tunisia, in the neighbourhood of Gabes and of Algiers, in the south of Algeria, as well as all over Morocco. It seems to be gen erally accepted that the skulls found in the megalithic monu ments of this part of Africa belong to one or other of these types. (3) The third group is of moderate stature, 1.64m. to 1.65m., and brachycephalic. The face is broad and short, the forehead round (bombe), nose short and broad. This type is specially present in the Island of Jerba and in the oasis of M'zab; it is also found in the hills to the south of the Gulf of Gabes, western Tripoli, and on the Algerian littoral, as well as among the Kabyles and the inhabitants of the Aures hill. Many of the M'zab have a skin so pale that they burn wheaten colour rather than brown in the sun.

While the number of the blonde Berbers certainly varies lo cally and their proportion has no doubt often been exaggerated (at least in Algeria), a competent anthropologist, the late Anthony Wilkin, specially studying the problem, has recorded that of the observed population of El Arbaa fully 20% were "fair men" (Among the Berbers of Algeria, 1900, p. 77). Good observers always lay stress on the essentially white quality of the skin of the pure Berber tribes. The origin of this blonde element has been much discussed ; it is no doubt foreign—presumably Nordic, with perhaps Alpine admixture—and it existed in Libya as long ago as the New Empire, as is shown by contemporary paintings in Egyptian tombs.

Cultural Characteristics of the Berbers.

On the psychical side some of the main Berber characteristics can perhaps be best appreciated by contrasting them with those of the Arab ; more over such a comparison is particularly useful since apart from the Nile Valley it in some sense embodies an epitome of the history for some 1,200 years of the whole of North Africa.

The Berber is essentially an agriculturist, with a passionate love of the soil upon which he has been born, though a keen trader, often willing to take service abroad but always anxious to return to his village in his old age or when he has amassed a competence. He is a stern fighter, often a determined brigand and in religious matters a born sceptic, while his strong democratic tendencies are indicated by his social organization in which leadership is usually a matter of election, though raiding and war may give real author ity to individual strong men which may to a limited extent pass to their descendants. In contrast, the Arab is typically a nomad pastoralist, whose attitude to agriculture is mirrored in the proverb that shame enters with the plough, a poor worker, whose real courage is less likely to be shown when raiding than on a point of honour or as an expression of his religious faith. Moreover, Arab society is essentially aristocratic ; the Arab is, and always has been, ruled by hereditary leaders, and his struggles when he does revolt are spasmodic, and directed against the individual rather than the system. With this aristocratic and religious bias there exists a strong contempt not only for the stranger but for Muslims of other sects, and here again he stands in strong con trast to the Berber. These contrasts are of course not absolute ; there are nomad Berbers, and many sedentary Arabs; some Ber bers become really good Mohammedans, though generally there is much truth in the epigram that the Berber is not a Mohammedan but only thinks he is. Moreover, in the West, i.e., in Algiers and Morocco, there is always the difficulty of knowing whether a given people not obviously Berber or Arab should be regarded as Arabized Berbers or Berberized Arabs. Here social organization and history rather than language seem to be the best guides.

Political and Social Organization of the Berbers.—In spite of the religious and cultural influence of Islam the social or ganization of the Berbers differs in every essential from that of the Arabs. The following outline (see Maclver and Wilkins, Libyan Notes, London, 190 1), in principle valid throughout Barbary, applies specifically to the Kabyle Hills. The Berbers are typically hillmen, living in isolated villages, formerly often well fortified or with a central citadel, and, while possessing flocks and herds which in particular instances may regulate their mode of life, are essentially skilled agriculturists, who have long practised irri gation and are quick to take advantage of every scrap of cultiv able ground in the difficult and often sterile hills among which they live.

The unit of government is the village, each possessing complete • autonomy. A number of villages form the tribe, the connection being administrative and not regulated by kinship. A union of several such tribes may be termed a Confederation; the bond is looser than in the lower federative grade and the confederation never interferes in the affairs of its tribes unless directly appealed to or when vitally necessary. In time of war a head is appointed for each of the tribes and for the confederation. The tribe has deliberative and administrative duties, such as the determination of questions of peace and war, the making of roads, and manages tribal property such as mosques, tombs of saints, and educational establishments; it is concerned with the levying of taxes necessary for these purposes, and may act as arbiter between villages. A general assembly of the tribe is almost unknown, its affairs being managed by a deputation of the chief men from each of the vil lages composing it.

Every village is brought into contact with its neighbours by means of its sof, of which there are always two, the term signify ing a group whose members covenant to render mutual aid to one another in cases of necessity. In each village the two sof are in some sense opposed, and each sof will be allied with similar fraternities in neighbouring villages, the ramifications of the sof organization extending through entire districts. Within the village the members of each sof are united by the closest bonds, the obli gations ranking above all personal interests and even ties of kinship. Nevertheless, though loyal to his sof while he is a member of it, the Kabyle thinks little of transferring his alle giance from one sof to another if he thinks he will gain thereby, and outside the village the members of a sof though willing to assist their fellows with provisions and even with money would expect to be paid for any active armed assistance they might. give. The funds of the sof are raised by subscription from mem bers and are administered by the heads of the organization, usually men of powerful families and of private wealth, who may dis burse considerable sums on secret services without rendering account to the members.

Within the village affairs are controlled by the jemaa, the gen eral assembly of the citizens, of which every adult man is a mem ber though in practice only the old men and heads of families exercise the right to speak. Nothing which concerns the welfare of the village escapes the control of the jemda—it exercises judicial authority, makes laws, levies taxes and administers the public property. Decisions are not taken by a majority of votes but unanimity is required, and if the assembly fails to arrive at an agreement the discussion may be adjourned, or reference made to an arbiter chosen from among its members or from another village. The executive head of the Assembly is the Amin, sometimes called amekkeran (chief) or amran (old man), usually a member of one of the leading families, a man of wealth and able to rely absolutely on the support of his sof. He is put for ward by the influential persons of the village, the appointment being ratified by the Assembly. His duties include public finance, but except in small matters he has no independence' or initiative and cannot act without the consent of the jemaa, over whose meetings he presides. He has assistants who are in some sense "police," supervising the various quarters of the village and giving information of all that passes.

Although emphasis must be laid on the agriculture and even the horticulture of the Berbers—the Shawia of the Aures Moun tains and the Kabyles being regarded as typical—the Berbers are also pastoralists, and in the higher mountains the seasonal change of pasture-land (cf. French transhumance), plays an important part in their social life. Thus in the Middle Atlas, a tract of plateaux and peaks some 7,000 feet high merging in the west into the Tadla plain and in the south into the High Atlas, there is a heavy winter snowfall as low as 3,00o feet, which de termines a transhumance of the winter type (as in Europe in the Carpathians and Balkans), the flocks being driven down to the lowlands. The familiar summer type of transhumance of the Mediterranean valleys also occurs in the Middle Atlas, the ani mals leaving the dried sun-parched valleys for mountains; indeed in the Middle Atlas some tribes—as the Beni Mgild—practise both forms, and such tribes when the winter movement leads theta far into foreign territory do in fact approach a nomadic life. The so called nomadism of the Berbers in Morocco should not, therefore, be classed with the wanderings of such true nomads as, e.g., the Berber-speaking Tuareg.

Arts and Crafts.

The Berbers are good craftsmen. The best Kabyle silver work is probably as good as any made by Africans, many of their tribes make excellent carpets, and in studying their decorative art it is possible to make the generalization that apart from Arab influence their limiting lines are straight, not circular or even arcs of circles. This is particularly obvious in their archi tecture, even when advanced, as in the minarets of their finest mosques, e.g., in Marrakesh, Rabat (and even in Seville) the mosque towers are square in section, or sometimes hexagonal, con trasting notably with the rounded minarets of Egypt and the Near East generally. So too the designs woven into their carpets by the more typically Berber peoples of Morocco is geometrical, often rectangular, and always made up of straight lines. Nevertheless, Arabic influence has brought in the arc and the cupola, the latter as common in the Qubba (saints' tombs) of the countryside as in Egypt.

The hand made pottery of the Berbers of Algeria, and espe cially of the Kabyles has excited much interest ; it was even sug gested that it betokened a direct and somewhat close relationship between the ancient inhabitants of Algeria and the proto-Egyp tians (MacIver and Wilkins, op. cit., give good coloured plates of Kabyle pottery ; see also papers by MacIver and by J. L. Myres in J.R.A.I., vol. xxxii., 1902). It is now generally held that the red-faced pot fabrics of Kabylia descend directly from the widespread red-ware of the Neolithic period, so that their re semblance to certain types of pottery of pre-dynastic Egypt is secondary. As regards the characteristic geometric designs, usually black on white or yellow, of the area, these too descend from the endemic geometrical art of north Africa, though affected by Mediterranean influences, especially Aegean. Further, since the Punic settlers of the early Iron Age used the wheel, the survival of hand-made fabrics in the mountains is of interest as defining the rather limited quality of outside influences to which the mountaineers have been subjected.

Medicine and Surgery.

By far the greater part of medi cine proper is little more than magic, but there is evidence that, in spite of the recognized danger of the necessarily large doses, henbane (Hyoscyamus albus) may be used before operations for its sedative and alleged paralytic and anaesthetic qualities, while in surgery trepanning is successfully performed for frac tured skulls. The dura mater is never incised—indeed every at tempt is made to avoid touching it—and the danger of the brain bulging through the wound (hernia cerebri) is appreciated and special means taken to prevent it. As might be expected, dead bone is freely removed when necessary, but the repair of limbs does not stop here ; bone grafting is practised, grafts taken from a dog being most approved, and the cases recorded seem to indicate that the operation may be successful. Other operations include the removal of pterygium from the eye, and, it is said, occasionally lithotomy.

Berber Folklore.

The folk beliefs and customs of the Ber bers are particularly well known as the subject of the classical works of Doutte (Magie & Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord, Alger, 1908) and, especially, Westermarck (Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco, 1914, Ritual & Belief in Morocco, 2 vols., 1926). Among outstanding examples of the successful study of the magi6 and superstitions (in the sense of unorthodox beliefs) of a bar baric people, may be mentioned the ceremonial use during the ashura ceremony (i.e., the festival held on the tenth day of Mo harram, the first month of the Muslim year) of two figures, male and female, called by the names Yaghussa and Yauka, who ac cording to local popular belief were idols of olden days. These can be none other than the pre-Islamic gods Yaghfith and Ya'fiq mentioned in the Koran (sura lxxi., v. 23). The extreme rarity of the persistence of the names of pre-Islamic deities makes this of particular interest, and suggests the early date at which Arab influence began to be felt.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-WOrks mentioned in the text, also, Villes et Tribus Bibliography.-WOrks mentioned in the text, also, Villes et Tribus du Maroc, tomes 1-7 (Paris, 1915-21) ; Archives marocaines, Publ. de la Mission Scientifique du Maroc (Paris, 1904— ) ; Hanoteau and Letourneux, La Kabylie et les Coutumes Kabyles (Paris, 1893 ; in three. volumes, invaluable with regard to law and custom) ; Stuhlmann, Ein kulturgeschichtlicher Ausfiug in den Aures (1912) ; Oric Bates, The Eastern Libyans (1914, Archaeology, and Egyptian connections of Tripoli) ; Gsell, Histoire Ancienne de l'Afrique du Nord (1914); Pdronnet, Le Probleme Nord-Africain, vol. 1 (1924).

Sudan.

The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, including Darfur, in corporated in 1916, has an area of over a million square miles, measuring roughly 1,300 miles from north to south (lat. 22° N. to lat. 4° N.) and at its greatest breadth over i,000 miles from east to west (long. 21° 3o' E. and long. 3o° E.). It is divided into fifteen Provinces and one Military District, the latter the Sobat-Pibor between the Nile and the Abyssinian frontier. Although a number of these Provinces are well characterized units from the historical or graphical standpoint, they are not generally delimited on lines of ethnic significance, and no tempt to hold to them will be made in the following account.

The population of the Anglo Egyptian Sudan may most con veniently be considered under two headings, Northern or Mo hammedan, and Southern or Pagan. The former embraces the peoples of the dry regions of the north, Islamic in religion and cul ture, predominantly Arab in language, and at least in part Arab in origin. • The Pagans include the great mass of the negro or ne groid tribes of the south, though nowhere are the two zones clearly defined by any single degree of latitude.

Even the northern area has no ethnic unity: in the east the Red Sea and Kassala provinces are in the main Hamitic, and many of the riverain Arabs of the White and Blue Niles carry at least as much negro as Arab blood, both superimposed upon older Hamitic stocks which were predominant in the land before the introduction of Islam. In the south, although the negro has given his name to the Sudan (Bilad el-Sudan, the Land of the Blacks of mediaeval Arab authors) and has excited the greatest interest from mediaeval times onwards, yet adequate knowledge is lacking of the habits, customs and religion of any one tribe.

The tribes of the Northern area belong to two great families, (a) Hamite, and (b) Arab. The Hamites proper include the group of tribes known historically as the Beja (q.v.) inhabiting the Red Sea Province and outside the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ex tending into Eritrea. Less purely Hamitic, but none the less to be classed as Hamites, are the inhabitants of Nubia, commonly called Berberines or Barabra (q.v.), for, in spite of much negro blood and a language which is commonly regarded as negro, his tory indicates that fundamentally they are of Hamitic origin, while their civilization is not and seems never to have been negro in character. (See ARABS, BARABRA, BEJA.) The true negro undoubtedly represents one of the most prim itive of the African stocks. His main physical characteristics are tall stature, a "black" skin, woolly hair and moderate dolicho cephaly, a flat broad nose and thick and often everted lips, prominent cheekbones and a varying degree of prognathism. With these qualities there go certain cultural characteristics. Such true negroes are found in the far western Sudan and the Guinea Coast, but hardly in the valleys of the Nile or of its affluents where as far as many of its most characteristic groups are concerned there is evidence of old Hamitic mixture. It is indeed scarcely possible to go further than this at the present time. In a classification proposed by Westermann, based on linguistic criteria, the term Nilotic is used in a sense so wide that it seems to signify no more than related to the Nile valley, but within it three groups are con stituted, "High," "Middle" and "Low" Nilotic, which in part at least may be natural.

I. The High Nilotic group, comprising Mittu, Madi, Abukaya, Abaka, Luba, Wira, Lendu and Moru.

2. The Middle Nilotic group, comprising Shilluk, Anuak, Beir, Jur, Belanda and many of the peoples of Eastern Uganda, the Acholi, Lango (q.v.), Aturu and Jaluo.

3. The Low Nilotic group, comprising Dinka and Nuer.

This classification, though of wider geographical scope, em braces the whole of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, but the Bari with their numerous constituent "sub-tribes" are not mentioned, nor are the Lotuko-speaking tribes. Westermann places the former in his Nilotic-Hamitic group, i.e. with the Masai, Turkana, etc. to which the Lotuko-speaking tribes may also be assigned. For descriptive purposes, the following scheme is proposed: A. Tall "black" dolichocephals, comprising Dinka, Shilluk, Nuer, Anuak, with perhaps some others as yet unclassified. These are the typical Nilotes of most writers, and in this article the term will be confined to this group. The mesaticephalic Acholi no doubt arose within this group, which probably also gave origin to the Belanda and the (Shilluk-speaking) Jur.

B. Tall "black" mesaticephals (probably sometimes brachy cephals) comprising some Nuba and probably a number of the little-known tribes of Dar-Fung, including the Barun.

C. Medium statured "black" dolichocephals, comprising the Bari (but probably not the majority of the Bari-speaking tribes of the west bank), the Lotuko-speaking tribes and perhaps some of Westermann's High Nilotic group.

D. Short mesaticephals, with skin showing a coppery tinge— the Azande—or with blacker skins as the Bongo, Mittu and prob ably a number of the tribes now constituting the Azande nation. Knowledge of this group is very limited.

This classification by no means includes all the tribes of the Sudan. Many of the peoples of the Bahr-el-Ghazal Province are quite unknown ethnologically, e.g. the Moro, the Kaliko, the Bukuru (Babuckur) and the Liggi, and even the relations of such important Bari-speaking tribes of the west bank as the Mandari, Kuku, Kakuak, Nyangbwara and Fajelu, are far from clear. Nor is there any substantial knowledge of the Madi, who in the south cross the political boundary into Uganda. In the east, on the borders of Uganda and Abyssinia, are groups of unknown tribes, some of which may constitute ethnic units, e.g. Didinga, Longarim, Murle, with perhaps further north and nearer the Nile the Beir (Ajiba), all said by J. H. Driberg (unpublished information) to speak dialects of one language. The position of the Dongotono is obscure, while Driberg considers the Lorwama to be a section of Lotuko-speaking Lango. (C. G. S.) BIBLIOGRAPHY.-D. Westermann, The Shilluk People. N. D. H. A. Bibliography.-D. Westermann, The Shilluk People. N. D. H. A. MacMichael, Tribes of Northern and Central Kordofan (1912) ; History of the Arabs in the Sudan (1922). Sudan Notes and Records (1918). See also articles Arabs, Beja, Bakkara, Barabra, Nilotes ; Bah speaking tribes ; Lotuko speaking tribes ; Nuba ; Hameg ; Azande.

tribes, egypt, arab, berbers and egyptian