ct (MEMO' 5(t(I1MET• fiAltOtOHHE4GfO HATHOl\-ASMTAi\f 0E\I1l: HALF MAti AtSO '''fJ1nFHH> \.,/i1'~ NUT. t1At~ Bl~t),WHO HEAD OF· PROPElS HIM:. ENtiAt 5ftFwITI'f ("ufCn MATr4OR, (OW ~F f1AA~AI PLATE: .0'\. PREFACE. The research with which this review deals having been entirely carried out here in Central Africa, far away from all centres of science, the writer is only too well aware that his work must shown signs of the inadequacy of the material for reference at his disposal. He has been obliged to rely entirely on such literature as he could get out from Home, and, in this respect, being obliged for the most psrt to base his selection on the scanty information supplied by publishers' catalogues, he has often had many disappointments when, after months of waiting, the books eventually arrived. That in consequence certain errors may have found their way into the following pages is quite posaible, but he ventures to believe that they are neither many nor of great importance to the subject as a whole. With regard to linguistic comparisons, these have been confined within restricted limits, and the writer has only been able to make comparison with Hebrew, though possibly Aramaic and other Semitic dialects might have carried him further. As there is no Hebrew type in this country he has not been able to give the Hebrew words in their original character as he should have wished. All the quotations from Capt. M. Merker in the following pages are translations of the writer; he is aware that it would have been more correct to have given them in the original German, but in this case they would have been of little value to the majority of the readers of this Journal in Kenya. From lack of Ilvailable space, too, he i8prevented in this issue from giving the original text in an appendix, for which he apologizes to the Editors of Capt. Merker's book. This and much else he hopes to rectify in an extended edition of this study whiCh he intends to bring out in England in due course. Not only will the present pages be revised and a considerable amount of additional evidence given, but a completely fresh section be included, dealing with the origin of the Bantu tribes of Africa-principally with the Akamba and Kikuyu of Kenya Colony and the Amazulu of South Africa-and also with the native tribes of Australia. The writer hopes to be able to show that all these people have-as he believes, in historic times-come from Western Asia. It would even seem that the different races of ancient Western Asia are as liberally represented in Australia as they appear to be on the African Continent. This work is already well under way, and should be published before many months are over .. C. C. L. Lumbwa, Kenya Colony, July, 1926. 91 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION. Previous to ooming to Kenya Colony, six years ago, the writer had, in oonneotion with the study of art, taken a particular interest in Egyptian soulpture, and on arriving here was immediately struck with the strong resemblanoe of the natives, particularly those of the " Hamitio " group and of the Kikuyu and their fellows, to the typell portrayed in Egyptian statuary. This resemblance was not merely a matter of physioal types; the ornaments and, above all, the elaborate head-dresses of these tribes, seemed surprisingly similar to those of the anoient Egyptians, and his interest and ouriosity aroused, after a time he began to study the matter more closely. The highly organised religious ceremonials and tribal oustoms and laws, so similar in many respeots to those of the Mosaio oode, strengthened his first impression that these people must, at some earlier period of their history, have been in very intimate touoh with a higher oivilisation, probably that of Egypt, and he believed at first that they were the degenerate desoendants of the anoient Egyptians themselves. He seemed thus, in the different types, almost to reoognise the representatives of the different periods of Egyptian history, from the coarser-featured earlier people, through the Hyksos, to the slighter and more"elegantly formed Egyptians of the later Dynasties. Little did the wriiier imagine, that the people of the tribe with whioh the following review more espeoially deals, and whioh above all others is markedly distinguished by outward signs of a possible Egyptian origin, should on closer investigation prove to be, not Egyptian, but Semites who in their passage through Egypt had adapted to themselves these unmistakeable and most striking Egyptian fashions. This tribe, the famous Maasai, is, as is known, one of a large group inoluding such other well-known tribes as the Nandi, Lumbwa, Suk and Turkana, and also the Dinka, Bari, Latuka, and Shilluk further to the north, generally known as Nilotic or Hamitic, and if we manage to prove the origin of the Maasai, we have also suoceeded in establishing, or at least hold the key that enable. us to establish, the identity of these various peoples, and in aU probability that of innumerable other Afrioan tribes as well. The research that the present study oomprises, was based on the theory that the order of past oivilizations showed a process of continually recurring degeneration, and that this prOC6SShad applied to what are oommonly believed to be primitive peoples. While studying this problem, in following up oulture sequenoe in other parts of the world, W. J. Perry's" The Children of the Sun" oame into the writer's hands. On reading this very interesting work he was 92 l!ltruck with certain strong resemblances in the traditions of Bornean tribes to those of the Maasai, and in tracing these further, he was obliged to take up the study of these 130rnean tribes in greater detail. The result is, as will be shown in the following, that it would seem possible that they have a similar origin to that of the Maasai, though they are not of the same original nation; he believes the Maasai to be ancient Israelites, and the greater portion of the Borneans to be the ancient Edomites. This disribution of Canaanitish races to such widely separated parts of the world is not very difficult to understand if we look back on history, and see what took place in western Asia from about 1,000 B.C. right into the beginning of our present era, when we shall realize how complete was the dispersal effected as the result of the great and ruthless wars of the Babylonians and Assyrians, followed by those of the Persians and others, in which, besides the barbarous treatment that was meted out as punishment in the case of opposition, whole tribes were carried away into captivity to the countries of the victors to the East, or fled in other directions before the invaders. In this way the original populations of Canaan, of Syria, and of Phrenicia were dispersed, and as the result of Semitic and Persian conquests of Egypt itself, even Egyptians were taken away into captivity into the lands of the East. If one realizes how, in the days of ancient Canaan, tribes and nations and different races lived side by side, intermingling within the same areas, yet each still keeping apart, distinct and separate from one another, we need not be surprised to see how this strong instinct for the preservation of the tribal identity, has lasted down to the present time; an instinct that will come more in evidence as greater light is thrown on the problems of racial and tribal distinctions existing over large areas of the world to-day. In this review we give a number of traditions collected from the Maasai by M. Merker. In his introduction to A. C. Hollis' " The Nandi," Sir Charles Eliot refers to these traditions in connection with the theories held by Merker as to how the Maasai have arrived in the country of their present abode, as follows :-" Merker, and those who accept his' statements, are of opinion that the Masai (and preRumablY with them the Nandi, Turkana, etc.) are the remains of Ii Semitic race which has wandered southwards from Arabia and been mingled with African elements. The chief objection to this theory is that the undisputed facts which support it are very slight. seeing that in spite of search no confirmation has been found of most of the traditions reported by Merker."* These traditions do appear almost too good to be true, but when viewed in the setting of the * A.C.H., II., xvi. 93 fresh evidence of another character that we shall now bring forward they seem to take their proper place in the records of the people, who, as will be shown, have retained ancient traditions in 80 many other respects with a faithfulness that one would not have credited. It has been objected that these traditions may not have been of primitive origin, but are traces of Christian influences, recollections of missionary teaching at an earlier period. If this were so, it seems quite inexplicable that only Old Testament accounts should have survived, and that not one single trace of any New Testament teaching should be found, which after all would obviously have been the central point of missionary instruction. Amongst these ancient traditions of the Maasai collected by Merker, is one of their earlier neighbours the Dinet, a story which is, when considered in detail, of such unmistakeably Ca~aanitish origin that it should serve as evidence as to the value of the rest. In this connection we wish to give the following account of a tradition held by the Elgeyo, a tribe closely allied to the Maasai, which was given to the writer by Mr.