HAMITIC RACES. The term Hamitic as applied to race is not only extremely vague but has been much abused by anthropological writers. Sergi and Meinhof have both made classi fications. Sergi includes the Hamites, racially, as a branch of his Mediterranean Race and distinguishes an eastern branch includ ing the Nubians, Bejas, Abyssinians, Gallas, Somalis, Masais, etc., and a northern branch including the Berbers, Fulani, etc. Mein hof's classification is on broad lines essentially the same but he would include the Hottentots, on very unsatisfactory grounds, mainly linguistic. The southern Abyssinians have certainly ab sorbed Galla blood but the majority are Semitic or Semito Negroid. There is still some support for the contention that only Sergi's eastern branch should be called definitely Hamitic and that the northern should take the name Libyan.
The definition of the term Hamitic as an anthropological de scription is still a type of brown people with frizzy hair, of lean and sinewy physique, with slender but muscular limbs, a thin, straight or even aquiline nose with delicate nostrils, thin lips and utter absence of prognathism. There is still much confusion in the use of the term from lin guistic and ethnologic viewpoints. See G. Sergi, Africa Antropol ogia della stirpe camitica (1897), and The Mediterranean Race (1901) ; C. Meinhof, Die Ham itensprachen (Hamburg Kolon ials-Institute).