Identifier: handbooktoethnog00brit (find matches)
Title: Handbook to the ethnographical collections
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: British Museum. Dept. of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography Joyce, Thomas Athol, 1878-1942 Dalton, O. M. (Ormonde Maddock), 1866-1945
Subjects:
Publisher: (London) : Printed by order of the Trustees
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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ehigh ground on the east is occupied by a number of tribes calledAnti by the Ancient Egyptians, Blemmyes by the Romans, andBeja by the Arabs. They include the Ababdeh, Bisharin, BeniAmer, Habab and Hadendoa, and are usually said to be in the AFRICA 189 main of Hamitic stock, but for some reasons it seems preferableto regard them i-ather as very early Himyarites who have beeninfluenced, though slightly, by contact with the Negro. It wasby people of Beja affinities that the Christian kingdom of Meroewas founded, which lasted from the sixth century until its over-throw in the fifteenth by the Funj, a negro people under Arableadership. These peoples are but poorly represented in theMuseum Collection. West of the Nile are the districts of Kordofanand Dar Fur. In the former are found those tribes which were calledby the Ancient Egyptians Mentiu, by the Romans Nobatae, andare known to-day as Nuba. These include the Baggara and theBerabra (Danakala, Mahass, Sukkot, Haifa), who seem physically
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Fio. 165.—Hide shields of the Hamitic tribes, a. Coastal Somali.h. Inland Somali (also Galla and Danakil). to stand midway between the Egyptians and the Negroes ; theyseem to have little affinity with the Beja peoples, but, on tlieother hand, may possibly be connected distantly with the Libyans.Dar Fur was in early days the seat of a negro kingdom establishedby the For, though some of the kings aj^pear to have been ofArab extraction. Many of the tribes mentioned now contain anArab element, and Aral) tribes of every degree of racial impurityare scattered throughout the territory. Arab immigration com-menced in the seventh century, and has profoundly affected theoriginal inhabitants ; the Mahdist movement, in which the Baggarajdayed a i)rominent part, completed the growing ethnic confusion,wliicli it is now extremely difficult to disentangle. Matters havebeen complicated by the fact that many tribes have adojDtedfictitious genealogies in order to boast of an Arabian origin. In 190 AFR

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