culture distinctive of this area, irrespective of the linguistic
line dividing the Bantu from the Negro proper, has now been
recognized. Its main features may be summed as follows:---a
purely agricultural life, with the plantain, yam and manioc (the
last two of American origin) as the staple food; cannibalism
common; rectangular houses with ridged roofs; scar-tattooing;
clothing of bark-cloth or palm-fibre; occasional chipping
or extraction of upper incisors; bows with strings of cane,
as the, principal weapons, shields of wood or wickerwork;
religion, a primitive form of fetishism with the belief
that death is due to witchcraft; ordeals, secret societies,
the use of masks and anthropomorphic figures, and wooden
gongs. With this may be contrasted the culture of the Bantu
peoples to the south and east, also agriculturists, but in
addition, where possible, great cattle-breeders, whose
staple food is millet and milk. These are distinguished
by circular huts with domed or conical roofs; clothing of
skin or leather; occasional chipping or extraction of lower
incisors; spears as the principal weapons, bows, where found,
with a sinew cord, shields of hide or leather; religion,
ancestor-worship with belief in the power of the magicians as
rain-makers. Though this difference in culture may well
be explained on the supposition that the first is the older
and more representative of Africa, this theory must not be
pushed too far. Many of the distinguishing characteristics
of the two regions are doubtless due simply to environment,
even the difference in religion. Ancestor-worship occurs
most naturally among a people where tribal organization
has reached a fairly advanced stage, and is the natural
outcome of patriotic reverence for a successful chief and his
councillors. Rain-making, too, is of little importance in
a well-watered region, but a matter of vital interest to an
agricultural people where the rainfall is slight and irregular.
Within the eastern and southern Bantu area certain cultural
variations occur; beehive huts are found among the Zulu-Xosa
and Herero, giving place among the Bechuana to the cylindrical
variety with conical roof, a type which, with few exceptions,
extends north to Abyssinia. The tanged spearhead characteristic
of the south is replaced by the socketed variety towards the
north. Circumcision, characteristic of the Zulu-Xosa and
Bechuana, is not practised by many tribes farther north;
tooth-mutilation, on the contrary, is absent among the
more southern tribes. The lip-plug is found in the eastern
area, especially among the Nyasa tribes, but not in the
south. The head-rest common in the south-east and the
southern fringe of the forest area is not found far
north of Tanganyika until the Horn of Africa is reached.
In the regions outside the western area occupied by the Negro
proper, exclusive of the upper Nile, the similarities of
culture outweigh the differences. Here the cylindrical type
of hut prevails; clothing is of skin or leather but is very
scanty; iron ornaments are worn in profusion; arrows are not
feathered; shields of hide, spears with leather sheaths are
found and also fighting bracelets. Certain small differences
appear between the eastern and western portions, the dividing
line being formed by the boundary between Bornu and Hausaland.
Characteristic of the east are the harp and the throwing-club
and throwing-knife, the last of which has penetrated into
the forest area. Typical of the west are the bow and the
dagger with the ring hilt. The tribes of the upper Nile
are somewhat specialized, though here, too, are found the
cylindrical hut, iron ornaments, fighting bracelets, &c.,
characteristic of the Sudanese tribes. Here the removal of
the lower incisors is common, and circumcision entirely absent.
Throughout the rest of the Sudan is found Semitic culture
introduced by the Arabized Libyan. Circumcision, as is usual
among Mahommedan tribes, is universal, and tooth-mutilation
absent; of other characteristics, the use of the sword has
penetrated to the northern portion of the forest area. The
culture prevailing in the Horn of Africa is, naturally, mainly
Hamito-Semitic; here are found both cyhnddcal and bee-hive
huts, the sword (which has been adopted by the Masai to the
south), the lyre (which has found its way to some of the Nilotic
tribes) and the head-rest. Circumcision is practically universal.
As has been said earlier, the history of Africa reaches back
but a short distance, except, of course, as far as the lower
Nile valley and Roman Africa is concerned; elsewhere no records
exist, save tribal traditions, and these only relate to very
recent events. Even archaeology, which can often sketch
the main outlines of a people's history, is here practically
powerless, owing to the insufficiency of data. It is true
that stone imple. ments of palaeolithic and neolithic types
are found sporadically in the Nile valley, Somaliland, on the
Zambezi, in Cape Colony and the northern portions of the
Congo Free State, as well as in Algeria and Tunisia; but the
localities are far too few and too widely separated to warrant
the inference that they are to be in any way connected.
Moreover, where stone implements are found they are, as a rule,
very near, even actually on, the surface of the earth; nothing
occurs resembling the regular stratification of Europe, and
consequently no argument based on geological grounds is possible.
The lower Nile valley, however, forms an exception; flint
implements of a palaeolithic type have been found near Thebes.
not only on the surface of the ground, which for several
thousand years has been desert owing to the contraction of
the river-bed, but also in stratified gravel of an older
date. References to a number of papers bearing on the
discussion to which then discovery has given rise may be
found in an article by Mr H. R. Hall in Man, 1905, No. 19.
The Egyptian and also the Somali land finds appear to be true
palaeoliths in type and remarkably similar to those found in
Europe. But evidence bearing on the Stone age in Africa,
if the latter existed apart from the localities mentioned,
is so slight that little can be said save that from the
available evidence the palaeoliths of the Nile valley alone
can with any degree of certainty be assigned to a remote
period of antiquity, and that the chips scattered over
Mashonaland and the regions occupied within historic times
by Bushmen are the most recent; since it has been shown
that the stone flakes were used by the medieval Makalanga to
engrave their hard pottery and the Bushmen were still using
stone implements in the 19th century. Other early remains,
but of equally uncertain date, are the stone circles of
Algeria, the Cross river and the Gambia. The large system of
ruined forts and ``cities'' in Mashonaland, at Zimbabwe and
elsewhere, concerning which so many ingenious theories have
been woven, have been proved to date from medieval times.
Origin and spread of the racial stocks.
Thus while in Europe there is a Stone age. divided into
periods according to various types of implement disposed
in geological strata, and followed in orderly succession by
the ages of Bronze and Iron, in Africa can be found no true
Stone age and practically no Bronze at all. The reason is
not far to seek; Africa is a country of iron, which is found
distributed widely throughout the continent in ores so rich
that the metal can be extracted with very little trouble
and by the simplest methods. Iron has been worked from
time immemorial by the Negroid peoples, and whole tribes are
found whose chief industry is the smelting and forging of the
metal. Under such conditions, questions relating to the
origin and spread of the racial stocks which form the
population of Africa cannot be answered with any certainty;
at best only a certain amount of probability can be attained.
Five of these racial stocks have been mentioned: Bushman,
Negro, Hamite, Semite, Libyan, the last three probably related
through some common ancestor. Of these the honour of being
considered the most truly African belongs to the two first.
It is true that people of Negroid type are found elsewhere,
principally in Melanesia, but as yet their possible connexion
with the African Negro is little more than theoretical,
and for the present purposes it need not be considered.
The origin of the Bushman is lost in obscurity, but he may be
conceived as the original inhabitant of the southern portion
of the continent. The original home of the Negro, at first an
agriculturist, is most probably to be found in the neighbourhood
of the great lakes, whence he penetrated along the fringe
of the Sahara to the west and across the eastern highlands
southward. Northerly expansion was prevented by the early
occupation of the Nile valley, the only easy route to the
Mediterranean, but there seems no doubt that the population
of ancient Egypt contained a distinct Negroid element. The
question as to the ethnic affinities of the pre-dynastic Egyptians
is still unsolved; but they may be regarded as, in the main,
Hamitic, though it is a question how far it is just to apply
a name which implies a definite specialization in what may
be comparatively modern times to a people of such antiquity.
The Horn of Africa appears to have been the centre from
which the Hamites spread, and the pressure they seem to have
applied to the Negro tribes, themselves also in process of
expansion, sent forth larger waves of emigrants from the
latter. These emigrants, already affected by the Hamitic
pastoral culture, and with a strain of Hamitic blood in
their veins, passed rapidly down the open tract in the
east, doubtless exterminating their predecessors, except
such few as took refuge in the mountains and swamps. The
advance-guard of this wave of pastoral Negroids, in fact
primitive Bantu, mingled with the Bushmen and produced the
Hottentots. The penetration of the forest area must certainly
have taken longer and was probably accomplished as much from
the south-east, up the Zambezi valley, as from any other
quarter. It was a more peaceful process, since natural
obstacles are unfavourable to rapid movements of large bodies
of immigrants, though not so serious as to prevent the spread
of language and culture. A modern parallel to the spread
of Bantu speech is found in the rise of the Hausa language,
which is gradually enlarging its sphere of influence in the
western and central Sudan. Thus those qualities, physical and
otherwise, in which the Bantu approach the Hamites gradually
fade as we proceed westward through the Congo basin, while
in the east, among the tribes to the west of Tanganyika and
on the upper Zambezi, ``transitional'' forms of culture are
found. In later times this gradual pressure from the
south-east became greater, and resulted, at a comparatively
recent date, in the irruption of the Fang into the Gabun.
The earlier stages of the southern movement must have
been accompanied by a similar movement westward between
the Sahara and the forest; and, probably, at the same
time, or even earlier, the Libyans crossing the desert had
begun to press upon the primitive Negroes from the north.
In this way were produced the Fula, who mingled further
with the Negro to give birth to the Mandingo, Wolof and
Tukulor. It would appear that either Libyan (Fula) or, less
probably, Hamitic, blood enters into the composition of the
Zandeh peoples on the Nile-Congo watershed. These Libyans or
Berbers, included by G. Sergi in his ``Mediterranean Race,''
