{"id":41167,"date":"2019-01-29T07:49:38","date_gmt":"2019-01-29T07:49:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/?p=41167"},"modified":"2019-01-29T08:02:30","modified_gmt":"2019-01-29T08:02:30","slug":"archive-3643","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/archive-3643\/","title":{"rendered":"Archive 3643"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>Full text of “Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A Critical Review of the Evidence of Archaeology, Anthropology, History<\/p>\n

and Comparative Religion: According to the Most Reliable Sources and<\/p>\n

Authorities<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By John G. Jackson (1939)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“It is pretty well settled that the city is the Negro’s great contribution to civilization, for it was in<\/p>\n

Africa where the first cities grew up.” E. Haldeman-Julius<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Those piles of ruins which you see in that narrow valley watered by the Nile, are the remains of<\/p>\n

opulent cities, the pride of the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia. … There a people, now forgotten,<\/p>\n

discovered while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences. A race of<\/p>\n

men now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the study of the<\/p>\n

laws of nature, those civil and religious systems which still govern the universe.” Count Volney<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“The accident of the predominance of white men in modern times should not give us supercilious<\/p>\n

ideas about color or persuade us to listen to superficial theories about the innate superiority of the<\/p>\n

white-skinned man. Four thousand years ago, when civilization was already one or two thousand<\/p>\n

years old, white men were just a bunch of semi-savages on the outskirts of the civilized world. If<\/p>\n

there had been anthropologists in Crete, Egypt, and Babylonia, they would have pronounced the<\/p>\n

white race obviously inferior, and might have discoursed learnedly on the superior germ-plasm or<\/p>\n

glands of colored folk.” Joseph McCabe<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The late Professor George A. Dorsey noted that “H. G. Wells’ heart beats faster in nearly<\/p>\n

every chapter of his Outline of History, because he cannot forget that he is Nordic, Aryan,<\/p>\n

English British, white, civilized.” (Why We Behave Like Human Beings, p. 40.) This<\/p>\n

patriotic zeal of Mr. Wells’ has, in truth, caused him to suppress certain facts that do not<\/p>\n

fit into his pet theories. In the latest edition of his Outline of History, Mr. Wells ends his<\/p>\n

chapter on The Early Empires with the following remarks: “No less an authority than Sir<\/p>\n

Flinders Petrie gives countenance to the idea that there was some very early connection<\/p>\n

between Colchis (the country to the south of the Caucasus) and prehistoric Egypt.<\/p>\n

Herodotus remarked upon a series of resemblances between the Colchians and the<\/p>\n

Egyptians.” (Wells’ New and Revised Outline of History, p. 184, Garden City, 1931.) It<\/p>\n

would have been proper for Wells to have quoted the remarks of Herodotus, so as to give<\/p>\n

us precise information on the series of resemblances between the Cholchians and the<\/p>\n

Egyptians. Why he did not do so we shall now see. In Book II, Section- 104, of his<\/p>\n

celebrated History, Herodotus states: “For my part I believe the Colchi to be a colony of<\/p>\n

Egyptians, because like them they have black skins and frizzled hair.” (See any English<\/p>\n

translation of The History of Herodotus. The translation by Professor George Rawlinson<\/p>\n

is the best. See also W.E.B. DuBois, The Negro, p. 31, and Count Volney’s Travels in<\/p>\n

Egypt and Syria, Vol. I. pp. 80-81.) After discussing the civilizations of Egypt,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Babylonia and India, Wells had already referred to them as a “triple system of white man<\/p>\n

civilizations.” (Outline of History, Chap. XIII, Sect. 5, p. 175) On concluding that the<\/p>\n

civilization of Egypt was a white man civilization, he naturally would be careful not to<\/p>\n

quote the above passage from Herodotus.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Most history texts, especially the ones on ancient history, start off by telling us that there<\/p>\n

are either three, four or five races of man, but that of those races only one has been<\/p>\n

responsible for civilization, culture, progress and all other good things. The one race is of<\/p>\n

course the white race, and particularly that branch of said race known as the Nordic or<\/p>\n

Aryan. The reason for this is obvious; the writers of these textbooks are as a rule Nordics,<\/p>\n

or so consider themselves. However, prejudice alone will not account for this sort of<\/p>\n

thing. There is a confusion among historians and anthropologists concerning the proper<\/p>\n

classification of races, and this confusion is used by biased writers to bolster up their<\/p>\n

preconceptions. It is therefore necessary that we discuss the subject of race classification<\/p>\n

in a rational manner before proceeding further.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The early scientific classifications of the varieties of the human species were<\/p>\n

geographical in nature. The celebrated naturalist, Linneaus (1708-1778), for instance,<\/p>\n

listed four races, according to continent, namely: (1) European (white), (2) African<\/p>\n

(black), (3) Asiatic (yellow), and (4) American (red). Blumenback, in 1775, added a fifth<\/p>\n

type, the Ocieanic or brown race. This classification is still used in some grammar school<\/p>\n

Geographies, where the races of man are tabulated as: Ethiopian (black), Caucasian<\/p>\n

(white), American (red), Mongolian (yellow) and Malayan (brown). During the year<\/p>\n

1 800, the French naturalist, Cuvier, announced the hypothesis that all ethnic types were<\/p>\n

traceable to Ham, Chem and Japhet, the three sons of Noah. After that date race<\/p>\n

classification developed into an amazing contest; a struggle which still rages. By 1873,<\/p>\n

Haeckel had found no less than twelve distinct races of mankind; and to show the<\/p>\n

indefatigable nature of his researches, he annexed twenty-two more races a few years<\/p>\n

later, bringing the grand total of human types up to thirty-four. Deniker, in 1900,<\/p>\n

presented to the world a very imposing system of race classification. He conceived of the<\/p>\n

human species existing in the form of six grand divisions, seventeen divisions and<\/p>\n

twenty-nine races. And despite all this industry among anthropologists, ethnologists and<\/p>\n

the like, there is yet no agreement on the classification of races. Where one<\/p>\n

anthropologist finds three racial types, another can spot thirty-three without the least<\/p>\n

difficulty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Classifiers of race, however, regardless of how abundantly they disagreed with each<\/p>\n

other as to the correct groupings of human types, were of unanimous accord in the belief<\/p>\n

that the white peoples of the world were far superior to the darker races. This opinion in<\/p>\n

still very popular, but modern science is making it hard for intelligent people to accept<\/p>\n

the fallacy. Many years ago the German philosopher, Schopenhauer, remarked that,<\/p>\n

“there is no such thing as a white race, much as this is talked of, but every white man is a<\/p>\n

faded or bleached one.” Schopenhauer possessed keen and sagacious foresight on this<\/p>\n

point. For example, the English scholar, Joseph McCabe, expresses the following view as<\/p>\n

the consensus of opinion among modern anthropologists: “There is strong reason to think<\/p>\n

that man was at first very dark of skin, woolly-haired and flat-nosed, and, as he wandered<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

into different climates, the branches of the race diverged and developed their<\/p>\n

characteristics.” (Key to Culture, No. 11, p. 10.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Professor Franz Boas, the nestor of American anthropologists, has divided the whole<\/p>\n

human race into only two divisions. This classification of Boas’ is admirably explained<\/p>\n

by Professor George A. Dorsey:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Open your atlas to a map of the world. Look at the Indian Ocean: on the<\/p>\n

west, Africa; on the north, the three great southern peninsulas of Asia: on<\/p>\n

the east, a chain of great islands terminating in Australia. Wherever that<\/p>\n

Indian Ocean touches land, it finds dark-skinned people with strongly<\/p>\n

developed jaws, relatively long arms and kinky or frizzly hair. Call that<\/p>\n

the Indian Ocean or Negroid division of the human race.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now look at the Pacific Ocean: on one side, the two Americas; on the<\/p>\n

other, Asia. (Geographically, Europe is a tail to the Asiatic kite.) The<\/p>\n

aboriginal population of the Americas and of Asia north of its southern<\/p>\n

peninsula was a light-skinned people with straight hair, relatively short<\/p>\n

arms, and a face without prominent jaws. Call that the Pacific Ocean or<\/p>\n

Mongoloid division. (Why We Behave Like Human Beings, pp. 44-45.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Professors A. L. Kroeber and Fay-Cooper Cole are of the opinion that the peoples of<\/p>\n

Europe have (been) bleached out enough to merit classification as a distinct race. This<\/p>\n

would add a European or Caucasoid division to the Negroid and Mongoloid races of the<\/p>\n

classification proposed by Professor Boas. If we accept this three-fold division of the<\/p>\n

human species, our classification ought to read as follows: the races of man are three in<\/p>\n

number; (1) the Negroid, or Ethiopian or black race; (2) the Mongoloid, or Mongolian or<\/p>\n

yellow race; and (3) the Caucasoid or European or white race. This is the very latest<\/p>\n

scheme of race classification.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now that we have straightened out ourselves on the issue of the classification of races,<\/p>\n

we may property turn to the main subject matter of this essay, i.e., the ancient Ethiopians<\/p>\n

and their widespread influence on the early history of civilization. In discussing the origin<\/p>\n

of civilization in the ancient Near East, Professor Charles Seignobos in his History of<\/p>\n

Ancient Civilization, notes that the first civilized inhabitants of the Nile and Tigris-<\/p>\n

Euphrates valleys, were a dark-skinned people with short hair and prominent lips; and<\/p>\n

that they are referred to by some scholars as Cushites (Ethiopians), and as Hamites by<\/p>\n

others. This ancient civilization of the Cushites, out of which the earliest cultures of<\/p>\n

Egypt and Mesopotamia grew, was not confined to the Near East. Traces of it have been<\/p>\n

found all over the world. Dr. W. J. Perry refers to it as the Archaic Civilization. Sir<\/p>\n

Grafton Elliot Smith terms it the Neolithic Heliolithic Culture of the Brunet-Browns. Mr.<\/p>\n

Wells alludes to this early civilization in his Outline of History, and dates its beginnings<\/p>\n

as far back as 15,000 years B.C. “This peculiar development of the Neolithic culture,”<\/p>\n

says Mr. Wells, “which Elliot Smith called the Heliolithic (sun-stone) culture, included<\/p>\n

many or all of the following odd practices: (1) Circumcision, (2) the queer custom of<\/p>\n

sending the father to bed when a child is born, known as Couvade, (3) the practice of<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Massage, (4) the making of Mummies, (5) Megalithic monuments (i.e. Stonehenge), (6)<\/p>\n

artificial deformation of the heads of the young by bandages, (7) Tattooing, (8) religious<\/p>\n

association of the Sun and the Serpent, and (9) the use of the symbol known as the<\/p>\n

Swastika for good luck. . . . Elliot Smith traces these associated practices in a sort of<\/p>\n

constellation all over this great Mediterranean \/ Indian Ocean-Pacific area. Where one<\/p>\n

occurs, most of the others occur. They link Brittany with Borneo and Peru. But this<\/p>\n

constellation of practices does not crop up in the primitive home of Nordic or Mongolian<\/p>\n

peoples, nor does it extend southward much beyond equatorial Africa. … The first<\/p>\n

civilizations in Egypt and the Euphrates-Tigris valley probably developed directly out of<\/p>\n

this widespread culture.” (Outline of History, pp. 141-143).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This ancient civilization is called NEOLITHIC by Wells. This is a mistake; for we have<\/p>\n

overwhelming evidence that these ancient peoples had long passed out of the New Stone<\/p>\n

Age stage of culture, and were erecting edifices which could only have been constructed<\/p>\n

by means of hard metal tools. Iron is the very backbone of civilization, and the Iron Age<\/p>\n

began very anciently in Africa. The researches of scholars like Boas, Torday and DuBois<\/p>\n

would lead us to believe that the art of mining iron was first developed in the interior of<\/p>\n

Africa, and that the knowledge of it passed through Egypt to the rest of the world. (See<\/p>\n

W.E.B. DuBois, The Negro, pp. 114-116, Home University Library, New York and<\/p>\n

London, 1915.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In modern geography the name Ethiopia is confined to the country known as Abyssinia,<\/p>\n

an extensive territory in East Africa. In ancient times Ethiopia extended over vast<\/p>\n

domains in both Africa and Asia. “It seems certain,” declares Sir E. A. Wallis Budge,<\/p>\n

“that classical historians and geographers called the whole region from India to Egypt,<\/p>\n

both countries inclusive, by the name of Ethiopia, and in consequence they regarded all<\/p>\n

the dark-skinned and black peoples who inhabited it as Ethiopians. Mention is made of<\/p>\n

Eastern and Western Ethiopians and it is probable that the Easterners were Asiatics and<\/p>\n

the Westerners Africans.” (History of Ethiopia, Vol. I., Preface, by Sir E. A. Wallis<\/p>\n

Budge.) In addition Budge notes that, “Homer and Herodotus call all the peoples of the<\/p>\n

Sudan, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine and Western Asia and India Ethiopians.” (Ibid., p. 2.)<\/p>\n

Herodotus wrote in his celebrated History that both the Western Ethiopians, who lived in<\/p>\n

Africa, and the Eastern Ethiopians who dwelled in India, were black in complexion, but<\/p>\n

that the Africans had curly hair, while the Indians were straight-haired. (The aboriginal<\/p>\n

black inhabitants of India are generally referred to as the Dravidians, of whom more will<\/p>\n

be said as we proceed.) Another classical historian who wrote about the Ethiopians was<\/p>\n

Strabo, from whom we quote the following: “I assert that the ancient Greeks, in the same<\/p>\n

way as they classed all the northern nations with which they were familiar as Scythians,<\/p>\n

etc., so, I affirm, they designated as Ethiopia the whole of the southern countries toward<\/p>\n

the ocean.” Strabo adds that “if the moderns have confined the appellation Ethiopians to<\/p>\n

those only who dwell near Egypt, this must not be allowed to interfere with the meaning<\/p>\n

of the ancients.” Ephorus says that: “The Ethiopians were considered as occupying all the<\/p>\n

south coasts of both Asia and Africa,” and adds that “this is an ancient opinion of the of<\/p>\n

the Greeks.” Then we have the view of Stephanus of Byzantium, that: “Ethiopia was the<\/p>\n

first established country on earth; and the Ethiopians were the first who introduced the<\/p>\n

worship of the gods, and who established laws.” The vestiges of this early civilization<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

have been found in Nubia, the Egyptian Sudan, West Africa, Egypt, Mashonaland, India,<\/p>\n

Persia, Mesopotamia, Arabia, South America, Central America, Mexico, and the United<\/p>\n

States. Any student who doubts this will find ample evidence in such works as The Voice<\/p>\n

of Africa, by Dr. Leo Froebenius; Prehistoric Nations, and Ancient America, by John D.<\/p>\n

Baldwin; Rivers of Life, by Major-General J. G. R. Forlong; A Book of the Beginnings by<\/p>\n

Gerald Massey; Children of the Sun and The Growth of Civilization, by W. J. Perry; The<\/p>\n

Negro by Professor W.E.B. DuBois; The Anacalypsis, by Sir Godfrey Higgins; Isis<\/p>\n

Unveiled by Madam H. P. Blavatsky; The Diffusion of Culture, by Sir Grafton Elliot<\/p>\n

Smith; The Mediterranean Race, by Professor Sergi; The Ruins of Empires, by Count<\/p>\n

Volney; The Races of Europe, by Professor William Z. Ripley; and last but not least, the<\/p>\n

brilliant monographs of Mr. Maynard Shipley: New Light on Prehistoric Cultures and<\/p>\n

Americans of a Million Years Age. (See also Shipley’s Sex and the Garden of Eden Myth,<\/p>\n

a collection of essays, the best of the lot being one entitled: Christian Doctrines In Pre-<\/p>\n

Christian America.) These productions of Mr. Shipley, have been issued in pamphlet<\/p>\n

form in the Little Blue Book Series, published by Mr. E. Haldeman- Julius, of Girard,<\/p>\n

Kansas.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The efforts of certain historians to classify these ancient Cushites as Caucasoids does not<\/p>\n

deceive honest historical students any longer. This may well be illustrated by a passage<\/p>\n

from the pen of our scholarly friend Bishop William Montgomery Brown: “For the first<\/p>\n

two or three thousand years of civilization, there was not a civilized white man on the<\/p>\n

earth. Civilization was founded and developed by the swarthy races of Mesopotamia,<\/p>\n

Syria and Egypt, and the white race remained so barbaric that in those days an Egyptian<\/p>\n

or a Babylonian priest would have said that the riffraff of white tribes a few hundred<\/p>\n

miles to the north of their civilization were hopelessly incapable of acquiring the<\/p>\n

knowledge requisite to progress. It was southern colored peoples everywhere, in China,<\/p>\n

in Central America, in India, Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt and Crete who gave the<\/p>\n

northern white peoples civilization.” (The Bankruptcy of Christian Supernaturalism, Vol.,<\/p>\n

p. 192.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Quite a few Egyptologists have defended the idea that the ancient Egyptians<\/p>\n

originally came from Asia. There never was any evidence to back up this view; and the<\/p>\n

only reason it was adopted, was because it was fashionable to believe that no African<\/p>\n

people was capable of developing a great civilization. Geoffrey Parsons refers to<\/p>\n

Egyptian civilization in his Stream of History, p. 154, New York & London, 1932, as<\/p>\n

“genuinely African in its origin and development.” Herodotus came to the same<\/p>\n

conclusion over 2,000 years ago, but he is not taken seriously by the majority of modern<\/p>\n

historians, except where his facts agree with certain theories of said historians. Theories<\/p>\n

are more precious to some scholars than facts, even when the facts flatly contradict their<\/p>\n

theories. Dr. Froebenious, the great German anthropologist, has examined the ruins of<\/p>\n

ancient cultures in southern, eastern and western Africa, of an antiquity rivaling those of<\/p>\n

Egypt and Sumer. Sir John Marshall and Dr. E. Mackay have uncovered the remains of a<\/p>\n

great Dravidian civilization in India, which rose to its peak over 5,000 years ago. The<\/p>\n

newspaper generally report these discoveries as startling and unexpected. They tell us<\/p>\n

that nobody ever dreamed that these ancient nations ever existed. This novelty, however,<\/p>\n

does not exist for real students. Anyone familiar with the works of G. Elliot Smith, W. J.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Perry, Sir Godfrey Higgins, Dr. H.R. Hall, Sir Henry Rawlinson, John D. Baldwin,<\/p>\n

Gerald Massey and General Forlong, will not be surprised at the very novel<\/p>\n

archaeological discoveries announced by the press. Since we are dealing with historical<\/p>\n

sources and authorities, a study of the researches of Sir Henry Rawlinson, the Father of<\/p>\n

Assyriology, on the Ethiopians in the ancient East, is in order. The following extract is<\/p>\n

condensed from an essay entitled: On the Early History of Babylonia:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1 . The system of writing which they brought with them has the closest<\/p>\n

affinity with that of Egypt \u2014 in many cases indeed, there is an absolute<\/p>\n

identity between the two alphabets.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2. In the Biblical genealogies, Cush (Ethiopia) and Mizraim (Egypt) are<\/p>\n

brothers, while from the former sprang Nimrod (Babylonia.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3. In regard to the language of the primitive Babylonians, the vocabulary is<\/p>\n

undoubtedly Cushite or Ethiopian, belonging to that stock of tongues<\/p>\n

which in the sequel were everywhere more or less mixed up with the<\/p>\n

Semitic languages, but of which we have probably the purest modern<\/p>\n

specimens in the Mahra of Southern Arabia and the Galla of Abyssinia.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4. All the traditions of Babylonia and Assyria point to a connection in very<\/p>\n

early times between Ethiopia, Southern Arabia and the cities on the lower<\/p>\n

Euphrates.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

5. In further proof of the connection between Ethiopia and Chaldea, we must<\/p>\n

remember the Greek tradition both of Cepheus and Memnon, which<\/p>\n

sometimes applied to Africa, and sometimes to the countries at the mouth<\/p>\n

of the Euphrates; and we must also consider the geographical names of<\/p>\n

Cush and Phut, which, although of African origin, are applied to races<\/p>\n

bordering on Chaldea, both in the Bible and in the Inscriptions of Darius.<\/p>\n

(Essay- VI, Appendix, Book-I, History of Herodotus, translated by<\/p>\n

Professor George Rawlinson, with essays and notes by Sir Henry<\/p>\n

Rawlinson and Sir J. G. Wilkinson.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The opinions of Sir Henry Rawlinson are reinforced by the researches of his equally<\/p>\n

distinguished brother, Professor George Rawlinson, in his essay On the Ethnic Affinities<\/p>\n

of the Races of Western Asia, which directs our attention to: “the uniform voice of<\/p>\n

primitive antiquity, which spoke of the Ethiopians as a single race, dwelling along the<\/p>\n

shores of the Southern Ocean from India to the Pillars of Hercules.” {Herodotus, Vol. I.,<\/p>\n

Book. I., Appendix, Essay XL, Section-5.) Rawlinson adds an explanatory note to this<\/p>\n

section of his essay, which we here reproduce: “Recent linguistic discovery tends to show<\/p>\n

that a Cushite or Ethiopian race did in the earliest times extend itself along the shores of<\/p>\n

the Southern Ocean from Abyssinia to India. The whole peninsula of India was peopled<\/p>\n

by a race of their character before the influx of the Aryans; it extended from the Indus<\/p>\n

along the seacoast through the modern Beluchistan and Kerman, which was the proper<\/p>\n

country of the Asiatic Ethiopians; the cities on the northern shores of the Persian Gulf are<\/p>\n

shown by the brick inscriptions found among their ruins to have belonged to this race; it<\/p>\n

was dominant in Susiana and Babylonia, until overpowered in the one country by Aryan,<\/p>\n

in the other by Semitic intrusion; it can be traced both by dialect and tradition throughout<\/p>\n

the whole south coast of the Arabian peninsula.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the study of ancient affairs, folklore and tradition throw an invaluable light on<\/p>\n

historical records. In Greek mythology we read of the great Ethiopian king, Cepheus,<\/p>\n

whose fame was so great that he and his family were immortalized in the stars. The wife<\/p>\n

of King Cepheus was Queen Cassiopeia, and his daughter, Princess Andromeda. The star<\/p>\n

groups of the celestial sphere, which are named after them are called the ROYAL<\/p>\n

family \u2014 (the constellations: cepheus, CASSIOPEIA and ANDROMEDA.) It may seem<\/p>\n

strange that legendary rulers of ancient Ethiopia should still have their names graven on<\/p>\n

our star maps, but the voice of history gives us a clue. A book on astrology attributed to<\/p>\n

Lucian declares that: “The Ethiopians were the first who invented the science of stars,<\/p>\n

and gave names to the planets, not at random and without meaning, but descriptive of the<\/p>\n

qualities which they conceived them to possess; and it was from them that this art passed,<\/p>\n

still in an imperfect state, to the Egyptians.” The Ethiopian origin of astronomy is<\/p>\n

beautifully explained by Count Volney in a passage in his Ruins of Empires, which is one<\/p>\n

of the glories of modern literature, and his argument is not based on guesses. He invokes<\/p>\n

the weighty authority of Charles F. Dupuis, whose three monumental works, The Origin<\/p>\n

of Constellations, The Origin of Worship and The Chronological Zodiac, are marvels of<\/p>\n

meticulous research. Dupuis placed the origin of the zodiac as far back as 15,000 B.C.,<\/p>\n

which would give the world’s oldest picture book an antiquity of 17,000 years. (This<\/p>\n

estimate is not as excessive as it might at first appear, since the American ast5ronomer<\/p>\n

and mathematician, Professor Arthur M. Harding, traces back the origin of the zodiac to<\/p>\n

about 26,000 B.C) In discussing star worship and idolatry, Volney gives the following<\/p>\n

glowing description of the scientific achievements of the ancient Ethiopians, and of how<\/p>\n

they mapped out the signs of the zodiac on the star-spangled dome of the heavens:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Should it be asked at what epoch this system took its birth, we shall<\/p>\n

answer on the testimony of the monuments of astronomy itself, that its<\/p>\n

principles appear with certainty to have been established about seventeen<\/p>\n

thousand years ago, and if it be asked to what people it is to be attributed,<\/p>\n

we shall answer that the same monuments, supported by unanimous<\/p>\n

traditions, attribute it to the first tribes of Egypt; and reason finds in that<\/p>\n

country all the circumstances which could lead to such a system; when it<\/p>\n

finds there a zone of sky, bordering on the tropic, equally free from the<\/p>\n

rains of the equator and the fogs of the north; when it finds there a central<\/p>\n

point of the sphere of the ancients, a salubrious climate, a great but<\/p>\n

manageable river, a soil fertile without art or labor, inundated without<\/p>\n

morbid exhalations, and placed between two seas which communicate<\/p>\n

with the richest countries; it conceives that the inhabitant of the Nile,<\/p>\n

addicted to agriculture from the facility of communications, to astronomy<\/p>\n

from the state of his sky, always open to observation, must have been the<\/p>\n

first to pass from the savage to the social state; and consequently to attain<\/p>\n

the physical and moral sciences necessary to civilized life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It was, then, on the borders of the upper Nile, among a black race of men,<\/p>\n

that was organized the complicated system of the worship of the stars,<\/p>\n

considered in relation to the productions of the earth and the labors of<\/p>\n

agriculture. … Thus the Ethiopian of Thebes named stars of inundation, or<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Aquarius, those stars under which the Nile began to overflow; stars of the<\/p>\n

ox or bull, those under which they began to plow, stars of the lion, those<\/p>\n

under which that animal, driven from the desert by thirst, appeared on the<\/p>\n

banks of the Nile; stars of the sheaf, or of the harvest virgin, those of the<\/p>\n

reaping season; stars of the lamb, stars of the two kids, those under which<\/p>\n

these precious animals were brought forth. … Thus the same Ethiopian<\/p>\n

having observed that the return of the inundation always corresponded<\/p>\n

with the rising of a beautiful star which appeared towards the source of the<\/p>\n

Nile, and seemed to warn the husbandman against the coming waters, he<\/p>\n

compared this action to that of the animal who, by his barking, gives<\/p>\n

notice of danger, and he called this star the dog, the barker (Sirius). In the<\/p>\n

same manner he named the stars of the crab, those where the sun, having<\/p>\n

arrived at the tropic, retreated by a slow retrograde motion like the crab of<\/p>\n

Cancer. He named stars of the wild goat, or Capricorn, those where the<\/p>\n

sun, having reached the highest point in his annuary tract, . . . imitates the<\/p>\n

goat, who delights to climb to the summit of the rocks. He named stars of<\/p>\n

the balance, or Libra, those where the days and nights being equal, seemed<\/p>\n

in equilibrium, like that instrument; and stars of the scorpion, those where<\/p>\n

certain periodical winds bring vapors, burning like the venom of the<\/p>\n

scorpion. (Volney’s Ruins of Empires, pp. 120-122, New York, 1926)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The traditions concerning Memnon are interesting as well as instructive. He was claimed<\/p>\n

as a king by the Ethiopians, and identified with the Pharaoh Amunoph or Amenhotep, by<\/p>\n

the Egyptians. A fine statue of him is located in the British Museum, in London. Charles<\/p>\n

Darwin makes a reference to this statue on his Descent of Man which is well worth<\/p>\n

reproducing: “When I looked at the statue of Amunoph III, I agreed with two officers of<\/p>\n

the establishment, both competent judges, that he had a strongly marked Negro type of<\/p>\n

features.” The features of Akhnaton (Amennhotep IV), are even more Negroid than those<\/p>\n

of his illustrious predecessor. That the earliest Egyptians were African Ethiopians<\/p>\n

(Nilotic Negroes), is obvious to all unbiased students of oriental history. Breasted’s claim<\/p>\n

that the early civilized inhabitants of the Nile Valley and Western Asia were members of<\/p>\n

a Great White Race, is utterly false, and is supported by no facts whatsoever. A similar<\/p>\n

racial bias is shown by Elliot Smith in his work, The Ancient Egyptians and Their<\/p>\n

Influence Upon the Civilization of Europe, p. 30, New York & London, 1911. “Not a few<\/p>\n

writers,” says he, “like the traveler Volney in the 18 th century, have expressed the belief<\/p>\n

that the ancient Egyptians were Negroes, or at any rate strongly Negroid. In recent times<\/p>\n

even a writer so discriminating as Ripley usually is has given his adhesion to this view.”<\/p>\n

(The writers referred to here, are Count Volney, the French Orientalist and Professor<\/p>\n

William Z. Ripley, of Harvard University, an eminent American Anthropologist.)<\/p>\n

Professor Smith is convinced that these men are wrong, because he holds that there is a<\/p>\n

“profound gap that separates the Negro from the rest of mankind, including the<\/p>\n

Egyptian.” (Ancient Egyptians, p. 74.) Another English scholar, Philip Smith, is far more<\/p>\n

rational in discussing this point:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No people have bequeathed to us so many memorials of its form<\/p>\n

complexion and physiognomy as the Egyptians. … If we were left to form<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

an opinion on the subject by the description of the Egyptians left by the<\/p>\n

Greek writers we should conclude that they were, if not Negroes, at least<\/p>\n

closely akin to the Negro race. That they were much darker in coloring<\/p>\n

than the neighboring Asiatics; that they had their frizzled either by nature<\/p>\n

or art; that their lips were thick and projecting, and their limbs slender,<\/p>\n

rests upon the authority of eye-witnesses who had traveled in the country<\/p>\n

and who could have had no motive to deceive. . . . The fullness of the lips<\/p>\n

seen in the Sphinx of the Pyramids and in the portraits of the kings is<\/p>\n

characteristic of the Negro. (The Ancient History of the East, pp. 25-26,<\/p>\n

London, 1881.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We read of Memnon, King of Ethiopia, in Greek mythology, to be exact in Homer’s Iliad,<\/p>\n

where he leads an army of Elamites and Ethiopians to the assistance of King Priam in the<\/p>\n

Trojan War. His expedition is said to have started from the African Ethiopia and to have<\/p>\n

passed through Egypt on the way to Troy. According to Herodotus, Memnon was the<\/p>\n

founder of Susa, the chief city of the Elamites. “There were places called Memnonia,”<\/p>\n

asserts Professor Rawlinson, “supposed to have been built by him both in Egypt and at<\/p>\n

Susa; and there was a tribe called Memnones at Moroe. Memnon thus unites the eastern<\/p>\n

with the western Ethiopians, and the less we regard him as an historical personage the<\/p>\n

more must we view him as personifying the ethnic identity of the two races.” (Ancient<\/p>\n

Monarchies, Vol. I, Chap. 3.) The ancient peoples of Mesopotamia are sometimes called<\/p>\n

the Chaldeans, but this is inaccurate and confusing. Before the Chaldean rule in<\/p>\n

Mesopotamia, there were the empires of the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians and<\/p>\n

Assyrians. The earliest civilization of Mesopotamia was that of the Sumerians. They are<\/p>\n

designated in the Assyrio-Babylonian inscriptions as the black-heads or black-faced<\/p>\n

people, and they are shown on the monuments as beardless and with shaven heads. This<\/p>\n

easily distinguishes them from the Semitic Babylonians, who are shown with beards and<\/p>\n

long hair. From the myths and traditions of the Babylonians we learn that their culture<\/p>\n

came originally from the south. Sir Henry Rawlinson concluded from this and other<\/p>\n

evidence that the first civilized inhabitants of Sumer and Akkad were immigrants from<\/p>\n

the African Ethiopia. John D. Baldwin, the American Orientalist, on the other hand,<\/p>\n

claims that since ancient Arabia was also known as Ethiopia, they could have just as well<\/p>\n

come from that country. These theories are rejected by Dr. II. R. Hall, of the Dept. Of<\/p>\n

Egyptian & Assyrian Antiquities of the British Museum, who contends that Mesopotamia<\/p>\n

was civilized by a migration from India. “The ethnic type of the Sumerians, so strongly<\/p>\n

marked in their statues and reliefs,” says Dr. Hall, “was as different from those of the<\/p>\n

races which surrounded them as was their language from those of the Semites, Aryans, or<\/p>\n

others; they were decidedly Indian in type. The face-type of the average Indian of today<\/p>\n

is no doubt much the same as that of his Dravidian race ancestors thousands of years ago.<\/p>\n

. . . And it is to this Dravidian ethnic type of India that the ancient Sumerian bears most<\/p>\n

resemblance, so far as we can judge from his monuments. … And it is by no means<\/p>\n

improbable that the Sumerians were an Indian race which passed, certainly by land,<\/p>\n

perhaps also by sea, through Persia to the valley of the Two Rivers. It was in the Indian<\/p>\n

home (perhaps the Indus valley) that we suppose for them that their culture developed. . . .<\/p>\n

On the way they left the seeds of their culture in Elam. . . . There is little doubt that India<\/p>\n

must have been one of the earliest centers of human civilization, and it seems natural to<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

suppose that the strange un-Semitic, un-Aryan people who came from the East to civilize<\/p>\n

the West were of Indian origin, especially when we see with our own eyes how very<\/p>\n

Indian the Sumerians were in type.” {The Ancient History of the Near East, pp. 173-174,<\/p>\n

London, 1916.) Hall is opposed in his theory of Sumerian origins by Dr. W. J. Perry, the<\/p>\n

great anthropologist, of the University of London. “The Sumerian stories or origins<\/p>\n

themselves tell a very different tale,” Perry points out, “for from their beginnings the<\/p>\n

Sumerians seem to have been in touch with Egypt. Some of their early texts mention<\/p>\n

Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha. . . . Dilmun was the first settlement that was made by the<\/p>\n

god Enki, who was the founder of Sumerian civilization. … Magan was famous among<\/p>\n

the Sumerians as a place whence they got diorite and copper, Meluhha as a place whence<\/p>\n

they got gold. Dilmun has been identified with some place or other in the Persian Gulf,<\/p>\n

perhaps the Bahrein Islands, perhaps a land on the eastern shore of the Gulf. … In a late<\/p>\n

inscription of the Assyrians it is said that Magan and Meluhha were the archaic names for<\/p>\n

Egypt and Ethiopia, the latter being the south-western part of Somaliand that lay<\/p>\n

opposite.” {The Growth of Civilization, pp. 60-61, 2 nd Edition, Harmondsworth,<\/p>\n

Middlesex, England, 1937, Published by Penguin Books, Ltd.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Another great nation of Ethiopian origin was Elam, a country which stretched from the<\/p>\n

Tigris River to the Zagros Mountains of Persia. Its capital was the famous city of Susa,<\/p>\n

which was founded about 4,000 B.C., and flourished from that date to its destruction by<\/p>\n

Moslem invaders about the year 650 C.E. (Christian Era). In speaking of the Elamites, H.<\/p>\n

G. Wells H. H. Johnston, to have been Negroid in type. There is a strong Negroid strain<\/p>\n

in the modern people of Elam.” {Outline of History, p. 166.) Archaeological evidence<\/p>\n

favors this view. Reginald S. Poole, the English Egyptologist noted that: “There is one<\/p>\n

portrait of an Elamite (Cushite) king on a vase found at Susa; he is painted black and thus<\/p>\n

belongs to the Cushite race.” (Quoted by Professor Alfred C. Haddon, in his History of<\/p>\n

Anthropology, p. 6, London, 1934. Thinker’s Library Edition, published by Watts & Co.,<\/p>\n

5 & 6 Johnson’s Court, Fleet St., London, E. c-4, England.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We cannot devote much space to the early inhabitants of India, though they were beyond<\/p>\n

all doubt an Ethiopic ethnic type. They are described by Professor Lynn Thorndike as<\/p>\n

“short black men with almost Negro noses.” {Short History of Civilization, p. 227, New<\/p>\n

York, 1936.) Dr. Will Durant pictures these early Hindus as “a dark-skinned, broad-nosed<\/p>\n

people whom, without knowing the origin or the word, we call Dravidians.” {Short<\/p>\n

History of Civilization, Part I, p. 396, New York, 1935.) The student is advised to consult<\/p>\n

pp. 650-666, of the new edition of Sir John A. Hammerton’s Wonders of the Past, in<\/p>\n

which there is an instructive article, with fine illustrations, by S. G. Blaxland Stubbs,<\/p>\n

entitled: Wonder Cities of Most Ancient India. That Mr. Stubbs is a candid writer may be<\/p>\n

seen from the following excerpt:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The early Aryan literature of India, the Hymns of the Rigveda, which, it is<\/p>\n

commonly agreed, date from about 1,000 B.C., speak of the people whom<\/p>\n

the proud Aryan invaders found in India as black-skinned barbarians,<\/p>\n

Dasas or slaves. But Aryan pride of race has received something of a<\/p>\n

shock from archaeological investigations carried out by Sir John Marshall<\/p>\n

and, more recently, by Dr. E. Mackay in the valley of the Indus. Here<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ample evidence has been found of a race whose complex civilization and<\/p>\n

high culture were equal, and in some respects superior to those of early<\/p>\n

Mesopotamia and Egypt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

These Asiatic black men were not confined to the mainland, for we are informed by no<\/p>\n

less an authority than Sir Harry H. Johnston, that:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In former times this Asiatic Negro spread, we can scarcely explain how,<\/p>\n

unless the land connections of those days were more extended, through<\/p>\n

Eastern Australia to Tasmania, and from the Solomon Island to New<\/p>\n

Caledonia and even New Zealand, to Fiji and Hawaii. The Negroid<\/p>\n

element in Burma and Annam is, therefore, easily to be explained by<\/p>\n

supposing that in ancient times Southern Asia had a Negro population<\/p>\n

ranging from the Persian Gulf to Indo-China and the Malay Archipelago.<\/p>\n

(See An Introduction to African Civilizations, by Willis N. Huggins. Ph.D.<\/p>\n

and John G. Jackson, pp. 188-190, New York, 1937.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Most readers of history know about the Celts, ancient inhabitants of Europe, whose<\/p>\n

priests were known as the Druids. It is generally thought that these Celts were<\/p>\n

Caucasoids, but Sir Godfrey Higgins, after much study came to the conclusion that they<\/p>\n

were a Negroid people. Higgins wrote a ponderous volume entitled The Celtic Druids. In<\/p>\n

the following passage from his Anacalypsis he modestly refers to it as an essay: “In my<\/p>\n

essay on the Celtic Druids, I have shown that a great nation called Celtae, of whom the<\/p>\n

Druids were the priests, spread themselves almost over the whole earth, and are to be<\/p>\n

traced in their rude gigantic monuments from India to the extremity of Britain. The<\/p>\n

religion of Buddha of India is well known to have been very ancient.” (Higgins is here<\/p>\n

referring to the first Buddha, who is supposed to have lived between 5,000 and 6,000<\/p>\n

years ago, and not to Gautama Buddha who lived about 600 years B.C. There were at<\/p>\n

least ten Buddhas mentioned in the sacred books of India.) “Who these can have been but<\/p>\n

the early individuals of the black nation of whom we have been treating I know not, and<\/p>\n

in this opinion I am not singular. The learned Maurice says Cuthies (Cushites), i.e. Celts,<\/p>\n

built the great temples in India and Britain, and excavated the caves of the former; and<\/p>\n

the learned mathematician, Reuben Burrow, has no hesitation in pronouncing Stonehenge<\/p>\n

to be a temple of the black curly-headed Buddha.” {Anacalypsis, Vol. I, Book I, Chap.<\/p>\n

IV, New York, 1927.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Though it is generally believed that Columbus discovered America, it is now definitely<\/p>\n

known to students of American archaeology that Columbus came late. Professor Leo<\/p>\n

Weiner has written a three volume work, Africa and the Discovery of America, in which<\/p>\n

he argues that the New World was discovered by Africans long before the time of<\/p>\n

Columbus. Professor Weiner was led to this conclusion partly from the following<\/p>\n

evidence:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. African works in American Indian languages.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2. Vases and pipe-bowls found in the ruins of the Mound-Builders, showing<\/p>\n

Negro faces on their surfaces.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3. The presence of African foods in America, such the peanut and the yam.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4. The totemic organization of the Amerindians tribes, very similar to<\/p>\n

African totemism. (Totemism is a sort of primitive theory of evolution.<\/p>\n

For instance, certain tribes are divided into clans, and each clan is, as a<\/p>\n

rule named after some species of animal. Let us suppose a tribe is divided<\/p>\n

into four clans, bearing the following names: (1) eagle, (2) Bear, (3) Crow<\/p>\n

and (4) Wolf. A member of the Bear Clan will consider himself as<\/p>\n

descended from bears, a member of the Wolf Clan will tell you that he is a<\/p>\n

wolf and that all of his ancestors were wolves, and so on; this clan<\/p>\n

ancestor being known as the Totem. There are numerous definitions of<\/p>\n

totemism, the best I have come across being the following one by<\/p>\n

Professor A. VB. Haddon: “Totemism, as Dr. Frazer and I understand it in<\/p>\n

its fully developed condition, implies the division of a people into several<\/p>\n

totem kins, or as they are usually termed, totem clans, each of which has<\/p>\n

one or sometimes more that one totem. The totem is usually a species of<\/p>\n

animal, sometimes a species of plant, occasionally a natural object or<\/p>\n

phenomenon, very rarely a manufactured article. . . . The totems are<\/p>\n

regarded as kinsfolk or protectors of the kinsmen, who respect them and<\/p>\n

refrain from killing and eating them. There is thus a recognition of mutual<\/p>\n

rights and obligations between the members of the kin and their totem.<\/p>\n

The totem is the crest of symbol of the Kin.” We see vestiges of totemism<\/p>\n

in our political organizations; for example, the Democratic DONKEY and<\/p>\n

the republican ELEPHANT. Baseball clubs present an even better example<\/p>\n

of totemistic atavism; for instance, who has not heard of baseball teams<\/p>\n

bearing such names as: tigers, cardinals, bears, bees, bisons, etc.)<\/p>\n

Weiner’s theories have not been kindly received by his colleagues.<\/p>\n

Professor H. J. Spinden sneers sarcastically in the following condensed<\/p>\n

extract from Culture, the Diffusion Controversy, pp. 53-54, New York,<\/p>\n

1927:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

“Professor Weiner solves the riddle of old American civilizations<\/p>\n

with an Arabico-Mandingo lexicon and derives everything of<\/p>\n

importance in the New World from the highly civilized coast of<\/p>\n

Gambia and Sierra Leone. From brightest Africa came the<\/p>\n

principal American food plants, the Mayan calendar and the<\/p>\n

Mexican religion. It may be added that Professor Weiner swarms<\/p>\n

his Negroes across the Atlantic in no less than fifty voyages before<\/p>\n

Columbus.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Indian was not the original American. Professor Ales Hrdlicka of the Smithsonian<\/p>\n

Institution, as authority on the Amerinds, contends that the ancestors of the Indians came<\/p>\n

from Asia via Bering Strait 10,000 years ago. American civilization is older than that.<\/p>\n

The ruins of Tiahuanaco, in Bolivia, according to Dr. Rudolph Muller, a noted German<\/p>\n

astronomer, are between 10,000 and 14,000 years old. The remains of this ancient city<\/p>\n

show that it was inhabited by a highly civilized people. (See an article entitled “The<\/p>\n

Oldest City in the World,” by A. H. Verrill, in the N. Y. Herald-Tribune Magazine, July<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

31, 1932.) Excavations in Mexico have produced equally startling results. Dr. Maximus<\/p>\n

Neumayer, a distinguished Brazilian archaeologist, in cooperation with a group of<\/p>\n

Mexican archaeologists, has made a very thorough study of the pyramids and monuments<\/p>\n

in the vicinity of Mexico City. He estimates the monument of Cuicuilco to be about<\/p>\n

13,000 years old. An interesting feature of this structure is that it resembles the Assyrio-<\/p>\n

Babylonian type of architecture, bearing a striking resemblance to the Tower of Babel as<\/p>\n

it has been restored by the Assyriologists. Dr. Neumayer also examined the pyramids of<\/p>\n

Teotihuacan, which he estimates to be 4,500 years of age. He thinks that these pyramids<\/p>\n

were built by a people akin to the Egyptians; and from their arrangement, suggests that<\/p>\n

they form a sort of model of the solar system, with a pedestal in the center, representing<\/p>\n

the sun. We must also mention the discoveries of Professor Ramon Mena, Curator of the<\/p>\n

Department of Archaeology of the Mexican Government. This scientist explored the<\/p>\n

ruins of the great city of Palenque, and concluded that the ancient metropolis was built<\/p>\n

over 10,000 years ago. He also found that the inhabitants of the city were familiar with<\/p>\n

the manufacture and use of Stucco. The celebrated French archaeologist, Desiree<\/p>\n

Charnay, unearthed statues around Mexico City, more than fifty years ago, with faces<\/p>\n

showing Negroid features. Pictures of some of them may be seen in Ignatius Donelley’s<\/p>\n

Atlantis, pp. 174-175. Donnelly also has illustrations of two similar statues, one from<\/p>\n

Palenque and the other from Vera Cruz. Finding that the Indians show both Mongoloid<\/p>\n

and Negroid ethnic traces, Charnay justly concluded that the Amerinds were a mixed race<\/p>\n

of both Asiatic and African ancestry. (See The Ancient Cities of the New World, by<\/p>\n

Desiree Charnay.) We have perfectly reliable proof of the presence of men of the<\/p>\n

Ethiopian race in pre-Columbian America. Father Roman, one of he first Catholic<\/p>\n

missionaries to arrive in the New World, records that a tribe of black men came from the<\/p>\n

south and landed in Haiti, and that they were armed with darts of guanin (a composition<\/p>\n

of gold, silver and copper), and were known as the black Guaninis. “These might have<\/p>\n

been the Negroes of Quareca, mentioned by Peter Martyr d Angleria, or some other<\/p>\n

American Negro nation,” asserts De Roo, “the like of which there were many, as we may<\/p>\n

see in Rafinesque’s Account of the Ancient Black Nations of America. Such are the<\/p>\n

Charruas of Brazil, the black Carabees of St. Vincent in the Gulf of Mexico, the Jamassi<\/p>\n

of Florida, the dark complexioned Californians who are perhaps the dark men mentioned<\/p>\n

in the Quiche traditions and by some old Spanish adventures. Such, again, is the tribe of<\/p>\n

which Balboa saw some representatives in his passage of the Isthmus of Darien in the<\/p>\n

year 1513. It would seem from the expressions made use of by Gomara, that these were<\/p>\n

Negroes.” {History of America Before Columbus, pp. 306-307, by P. De Roo,<\/p>\n

Philadelphia and London, 1900.) Spanish and Portugese explorers found colonies of<\/p>\n

black men on the eastern coasts of South and Central America, and in Yucatan and<\/p>\n

Nicaragua. De Roo quotes John T. Short, author of The North Americans of Antiquity,<\/p>\n

New York, 1880, on the similarity of African and American languages, as follows \u2014 “It is<\/p>\n

worthy of note that several eminent scholars have observed the remarkable similarity of<\/p>\n

grammatical structure between the Central American and certain transatlantic languages,<\/p>\n

especially the Basque and some of the languages of Western Africa.” {History of America<\/p>\n

Before Columbus, pp. 164-165.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Most of us are familiar with the Mayan civilization of Yucatan and Central America,<\/p>\n

since American archaeologists have devoted many years of intensive research to these<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

territories. Among the speculations concerning the origin of this culture, those of<\/p>\n

LePlongeon and Raquena are the most valuable. Professor Rafael Requena, a Venezuelan<\/p>\n

archaeologist, holds that there was once an island in the Atlantic Ocean, of continental<\/p>\n

dimensions, known to the ancients as Atlantis, that this island was settled by Egyptians,<\/p>\n

who in turn established colonies in America before the submergence of Atlantis. The<\/p>\n

findings of Professor Augustus LePlongeon are of great interest. This Franco-American<\/p>\n

archaeologist discovered the ruins of a palace in Chichen Itza in 1 874. He found in this<\/p>\n

structure, known as Prince Coh’s Palace, pictographs and inscriptions which he was able<\/p>\n

to decipher. The story, as unraveled by LePlongeon, may be read by the student in Queen<\/p>\n

Moo and the Egyptian Sphinx, where the professor gives his interpretation of the<\/p>\n

inscriptions and reproductions of the pictographs. Mrs. LePlongeon’s work, Queen Moo’s<\/p>\n

Talisman, might also be consulted. The story runs roughly as follows:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About 1 1,000 years ago, two brothers Princes of Yucatan, sought the hand<\/p>\n

of the ruling monarch of the land, Queen Moo, in marriage. The brothers<\/p>\n

were named Coh and Aac, respectively. Prince Coh was the successful<\/p>\n

suitor; which so enraged Prince Aac that he stabbed his brother through<\/p>\n

the heart with a stone knife, which, needless to say, caused his death. Then<\/p>\n

Aac attempted to force Queen Moo to wed him. The Queen, rather than<\/p>\n

submit, decided to flee to Atlantis. On reaching the coast she learned that<\/p>\n

great earthquakes had submerged Atlantis beneath the sea; so she sailed<\/p>\n

for Africa instead, and ended her journey in Egypt. There she was hailed<\/p>\n

as Queen, and erected the Sphinx as a memorial to her slain husband.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The foregoing story sounds like a fable, but there is probably a core of fact in it. If the<\/p>\n

Sphinx, with its Ethiopian face, is a memorial to an ancient Mayan prince, it shows that<\/p>\n

the Mayas were of African origin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where flows the river Nile,<\/p>\n

The queen found rest;<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

There once again her days<\/p>\n

With peace were blessed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Did Moo a giant Sphinx from<\/p>\n

Out of the ground<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cause to arise, and<\/p>\n

Thus Coh’s fame renew?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Did she immortalize<\/p>\n

Her consort true?”<\/p>\n

{Queen Moo’s Talisman, p. 65, by Alice D. LePlongeon.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That Atlantis was connected with the history of ancient Ethiopia there can be little doubt.<\/p>\n

The Greek philosopher, Proclus, stated in his works that he could present evidence that<\/p>\n

Atlantis at one time actually existed. He cited as his authority The Ethiopian History of<\/p>\n

Marcellus. In referring to Ethiopian history to prove the existence of Atlantis, Proclus<\/p>\n

plainly infers that Atlantis was a part of Ethiopia. (See Cory’s Ancient Fragments of the<\/p>\n

Phoenician, Carthaginian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Other Authors, London, 1876. See<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

also, Maynard Shipley’s New Light on Prehistoric Cultures and Bramwell’s Lost<\/p>\n

Atlantis.) Although there is scientific evidence that an island of continental dimensions<\/p>\n

once existed in what is now the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, many students of the<\/p>\n

problem of Atlantis have located it in other parts of the globe, particularly in Central<\/p>\n

America and Africa. Count deProrok ways that Atlantis, in the dimness of antiquity,<\/p>\n

covered the region now occupied by the Sahara Desert. Kirchmaier placed it in South<\/p>\n

Africa and Froebenius in West Africa. In reviewing James Bramwell’s Lost Atlantis, Mr.<\/p>\n

Lewis Gannett states that: “The German anthropologist Frobenius definitely locates it in<\/p>\n

Nigeria, whose ancient civilization he relates to that of the Etruscans and the Assyrians.”<\/p>\n

{New York Herald-Tribune, Mar. 3, 1938.) Doctor Froebenius found ruins of palaces,<\/p>\n

terra cotta fragments and beautiful statuary in Jorubaland, a district in Nigeria between<\/p>\n

the Niger River and the Atlantic Ocean; and he heard among the Jorubians legends of an<\/p>\n

ancient royal city and its palace with walls of gold, which in the long ago had sunk<\/p>\n

beneath the waves. The German scholar, Eugen Georg, is a keen student of the Atlantis<\/p>\n

question, and the following remarks of his are worthy of our attention:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The new age that began after the disappearance of Atlantis was marked at<\/p>\n

first by the world-wide dominance of Ethiopian representatives of the<\/p>\n

black race. They were supreme in Africa and Asia . . . and they even<\/p>\n

infiltrated through Southern Europe. . . . During the present era \u2014 that is the<\/p>\n

last 10,000 years \u2014 the white race… has come to possess the world.<\/p>\n

According to the occult tradition, Semitic peoples developed wherever the<\/p>\n

immigrating white colonists from the north were subjugated by the black<\/p>\n

ruling class, and inter-mixture occurred, as in oldest Egypt, Chaldea,<\/p>\n

Arabia and Phoenicia.” {The Adventure of Mankind, by Eugen Georg, pp.<\/p>\n

121-122, New York, 1931.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So far we have given little or no attention to the evidence of comparative religion. The<\/p>\n

study of ancient religious history is important, for religion, like philosophy, changes but<\/p>\n

slowly. Institutional religion, being conservative and static in its outlook, has preserved<\/p>\n

much ancient lore that would have otherwise been lost to the modern student. The Greek<\/p>\n

philosopher Xenophanes (572-480 B.C.), pointed out a profound truth when he observed<\/p>\n

that the gods men worship very closely resemble the worshippers. In the words of this<\/p>\n

ancient sage: “Each man represents the gods as he himself is. The Ethiopian as black and<\/p>\n

flat-nosed the Thracian as red-haired and blue-eyed; and if horses and oxen could paint,<\/p>\n

they would no doubt depict the gods as horses and oxen.” This being the case; when we<\/p>\n

find the great nations of the world, both past and present, worshipping black gods, then<\/p>\n

we logically conclude that these peoples are either members of the black race, or that they<\/p>\n

originally received their religion in toto or in part from black people. The proofs are<\/p>\n

abundant. The ancient gods of India are shown with Ethiopian crowns on their heads.<\/p>\n

According to the Old Testament, Moses first met Jehovah during his sojourn among the<\/p>\n

Midianites, who were an Ethiopian tribe. We learn from Hellenic tradition that Zeus, king<\/p>\n

of the Grecian gods, so cherished the friendship of the Ethiopians that he traveled to their<\/p>\n

country twice a year to attend banquets. “All the gods and goddesses of Greece were<\/p>\n

black,” asserts Sir Godfrey Higgins, “at least this was the case with Jupiter, Baccus,<\/p>\n

Hercules, Apollo, Ammon. The goddesses Benum, Isis, Hecate, Diana, Juno, Metis,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ceres, Cybele were black.” (Anacalypsis, Vol. I, Book IV, Chap. I.) Even the Romans,<\/p>\n

who received their religion mainly from the Greeks, admitted their debt to Egypt and<\/p>\n

Ethiopia. This may be well illustrated by the following passage from The Golden Ass or<\/p>\n

Metamorphosis, by Apuleius. The author, as an initiate of the Isis cult is represented as<\/p>\n

being addressed by that goddess: “I am present; I who am Nature, the parent of things,<\/p>\n

queen of all the elements . . . the primitive Phrygians called me Press imunitica, the mother<\/p>\n

or the gods; the native Athenians, Ceropian Minerva; the floating Cyprians, Paphian<\/p>\n

Venus … the inhabitants of Eleusis, the ancient goddess Ceres. Some again have invoked<\/p>\n

me as Juno, others as Bellona, others as Hecate, and others Rhamnusia; and those who<\/p>\n

are enlightened by the emerging rays of the rising sun, the Ethiopians, Ariians and<\/p>\n

Egyptians, powerful in ancient learning, who reverence by divinity with ceremonies<\/p>\n

perfectly proper, call me by my true appellation, Queen Isis.” (Doane’s Bible Myths,<\/p>\n

Note, p. 478.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A study of the images of ancient deities of both the Old and New Worlds reveal their<\/p>\n

Ethiopic origin. This is noted by Kenneth R. H. Mackezie in T. A. Buckley’s Cities of the<\/p>\n

Ancient World, p. 180: “From the wooly texture of the hair, I am inclined to assign to the<\/p>\n

Buddha of India, the Fuhi of China, the Sommonacom of the Siamese, the Zaha of the<\/p>\n

Japanese, and the Quetzalcoatl of the Mexicans, the same, and indeed an African, or<\/p>\n

rather Nubian, origin.” Most of these black gods were regarded as crucified saviors who<\/p>\n

died to save mankind by being nailed to a cross, or tied to a tree with arms outstretched as<\/p>\n

if on a cross, or slain violently in some other manner. Of these crucified saviors, the most<\/p>\n

prominent were Osiris and Horus of Egypt, Krishna of India, Mithra of Persia,<\/p>\n

Quetazlcoatl of Mexico, Adonis of Babylonia and Attis of Phrygia. Nearly all of these<\/p>\n

slain savior-gods have the following stories related about them: They are born of a virgin,<\/p>\n

on or near Dec. 25 th (Christmas); their births are heralded by a star; they are born either in<\/p>\n

a cave or stable; they are slain, commonly by crucifixion; they descend into hell, and rise<\/p>\n

from the dead at the beginning of Spring (Easter), and finally ascend into heaven. The<\/p>\n

parallels between the legendary lives of these pagan messiahs and the life of Jesus Christ<\/p>\n

as recorded in the Bible are so similar that progressive Bible scholars now admit that<\/p>\n

stories of these heathen Christs have been woven into the life-story of Jesus. (These<\/p>\n

remarkable parallels are discussed and interpreted in a pamphlet, Christianity Before<\/p>\n

Christ, by John G. Jackson, New York, 1938.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The late Mr. Maynard Shipley, President of The Science League of America, made a very<\/p>\n

scholarly study of the various mythologies and religions of the world, and in the<\/p>\n

concluding passage of a brilliant essay, Christian Doctrines in Pre-Christian America, he<\/p>\n

offers a profoundly thought-provoking statement:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That the ancient pagan creeds, legends and myths \u2014 part of the universal<\/p>\n

mythos \u2014 should be found embodied in the religion of the ancient<\/p>\n

Mexicans, and that all these again are found to be but the original sources<\/p>\n

of the modern orthodox Christian religion, is by no means inexplicable,<\/p>\n

and need not be attribute to the subtlety of the Ubiquitous Devil. The<\/p>\n

explanation is that all religions and all languages of the civilized races of<\/p>\n

men had a common origin in an older seat of civilization.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where that original center of culture was is another story.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The evidence seems to show that the “original center of culture,” referred to by Mr.<\/p>\n

Shipley, was that vast domain known to the classical geographers and historians as<\/p>\n

Ethiopia. A study of religious images throws much light on this early civilization. The tau<\/p>\n

(T-shaped) cross is thought by many Christians to be a unique emblem of their faith. The<\/p>\n

fact is that this cross is of ancient Ethiopian origin. In the words of an outstanding student<\/p>\n

of symbolism: “The Ethiopic form of the tau is an exact prototype of the conventional<\/p>\n

Christian cross; or, to state the fact in its chronological relation, the Christian cross is<\/p>\n

made in the exact image of the Ethiopian tau.” (Sex Symbolism. P. 9, by William J,<\/p>\n

Fielding, Little Blue Book No. 904.) The cross was known to all the great ancient<\/p>\n

nations, and was sometimes shown with the image of a man upon it. The Church Father,<\/p>\n

Minucius Felix, writing in the early part of the third century, severely rebukes the Pagans<\/p>\n

for their adoration of crosses: “I must tell you that we neither adore crosses nor desire<\/p>\n

them; you it is ye Pagans … for what else are your ensigns, flags and standards, but<\/p>\n

crosses gilt and beautiful. Your victorious trophies not only represent a cross, but a cross<\/p>\n

with a man upon it.” Commenting on the preceding extract, the American scholar, T. W.<\/p>\n

Doane, notes that:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It is very evident that this celebrated Christian Father alludes to some<\/p>\n

Gentle mystery, of which the prudence of his successors has deprived us.<\/p>\n

When we compare this with the fact that for centuries after the time<\/p>\n

assigned for the birth of Jesus Christ, he was not represented as a man on a<\/p>\n

cross, and that the Christians did not have such a thing as a crucifix, we<\/p>\n

are inclined to think that the effigies of a black or dark-skinned crucified<\/p>\n

man, which were to be seen in many places in Italy even during the last<\/p>\n

century, may have had something to do with it. (Bible Myths, p. 197, 7 th<\/p>\n

Edition.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The same writer also refers to “the Mexican crucified god being sometimes represented<\/p>\n

as black,” and that “crosses were also found in Yucatan, as well as Mexico, with a man<\/p>\n

upon them.” (Ibid., p. 201.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The numerous black madonnas and infants in European cathedrals are discussed in detail<\/p>\n

by Sir Godfrey Higgins in The Anacalypsis, Vol. I, Book JV, Chap. I, to which the<\/p>\n

interested student is referred. However, the remarks of Mr. Shipley on this point are<\/p>\n

worthy of our attention:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Very suggestive is the fact that representations of the virgin mother and<\/p>\n

infant savior are often black. This is true in the case of the paintings and<\/p>\n

images of Isis and Horus, of Devaki and Krishna, and in many cases of<\/p>\n

Mary and Jesus. The most ancient pictures and statues in Italy and other<\/p>\n

parts of Europe, which are adored by the faithful as representations of the<\/p>\n

Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus, reveal the infant draped in white, but<\/p>\n

with face black and in the arms of a black mother. . . . How does it happen<\/p>\n

that the Virgin Mother of the Mexican Savior-God so closely resembled<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the Black Virgins of Egypt and Europe? Had they not all a common<\/p>\n

origin?” (Sex and The Garden of Eden Myth, pp. 50-51, by Maynard<\/p>\n

Shipley, Little Blue Book No. 1 188.) Mr. A. H. Verrill, an American<\/p>\n

archaeologist, visited an Indian shrine in a small town in Guatemala a few<\/p>\n

years ago, and found that on a special festival day Indians traveled to this<\/p>\n

little church to bow down to the image of a Black Christ. From the<\/p>\n

attendant ceremonies, Verrill judged the rite to be of Mayan origin, (see<\/p>\n

Verrill’s Old Civilizations of the New World, New York, 1938.) The<\/p>\n

Mayas possessed knowledge of the arts and sciences equivalent to that of<\/p>\n

the ancients of the Old World, but upon that we cannot dwell, since<\/p>\n

limitations of space forbid it. The reader is referred to Professor Paul<\/p>\n

Radin’s fine book on the American Indians, where after surveying the<\/p>\n

marvelous scientific achievements of the Mayas of Yucatan and Central<\/p>\n

America , Dr. Radin admits that: “No excavations have ever revealed to us<\/p>\n

any civilization of a simpler nature from which this very elaborate culture<\/p>\n

could possibly have been developed.” (The Story of the American Indian,<\/p>\n

p. 77, Garden City, 1937.) Egypt and Western Asia tell the same story. “In<\/p>\n

each case we have a standard or measuring-rod of authentic historical<\/p>\n

record,” declares Samuel Laing, “of certainly not less than 8,000 and more<\/p>\n

probably 9,000 or 10,000 years, from the present time; and in each case<\/p>\n

we find ourselves at this remote date, in the presence, not of rude<\/p>\n

beginnings, but of a civilization already ancient and far advanced. We<\/p>\n

have populous cities, celebrated temples, an organized priesthood, an<\/p>\n

advanced state of agriculture and of the industrial and fine arts; writing<\/p>\n

and books so long known that their origin is lost in myth; religions in<\/p>\n

which advanced philosophical and moral ideas are already developed;<\/p>\n

astronomical systems which imply a long course of accurate observations.<\/p>\n

How long this prehistoric age may have lasted, and how many centuries it<\/p>\n

may have taken to develop such a civilization, from the primitive<\/p>\n

beginnings of Neolithic and Paleolithic origins, is a matter of conjecture.<\/p>\n

All we can infer is, that it must have required an immense time, much<\/p>\n

longer than that embraced by the subsequent period of historical record.”<\/p>\n

(Human Origins, by Samuel Laing, p. 30, London, 1913.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Much more could be said on this subject, but since this essay is addressed<\/p>\n

mainly to readers who have little time for the study of history, it must be<\/p>\n

made as concise as possible. The numerous citations from standard<\/p>\n

scientific and historical works, it is hoped, will be of some benefit to<\/p>\n

students who are out of reach of large public libraries, or who lack the<\/p>\n

leisure time necessary for reading and research along these lines.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Full text of “Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization”   Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization   A Critical Review of the Evidence of Archaeology, Anthropology, History and Comparative Religion: According to the Most Reliable Sources and Authorities   By John G. Jackson (1939)   “It is pretty well settled that the city is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5322],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlantipedia.ie\/samples\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}