We have already seen how a branch of the conquering Bantus turned eastward
by the Great Lakes and thus reached the sea and eventually both the Nile
and South Africa.
This brought them into the ancient and mysterious land far up the Nile,
south of Ethiopia. Here lay the ancient Punt of the Egyptians (whether we
place it in Somaliland or, as seems far more likely, around the Great
Lakes) and here, as the Egyptians thought, their civilization began. The
earliest inhabitants of the land were apparently of the Bushman or
Hottentot type of Negro. These were gradually pushed southward and
westward by the intrusion of the Nilotic Negroes. Five thousand years
before Christ the mulatto Egyptians were in the Nile valley below the
First Cataract. The Negroes were in the Nile valley down as far as the
Second Cataract and between the First and Second Cataracts were Negroes
into whose veins Semitic blood had penetrated more or less. These mixed
elements became the ancestors of the modern Somali, Gala, Bishari, and
Beja and spread Negro blood into Arabia beyond the Red Sea. The Nilotic
Negroes to the south early became great traders in ivory, gold, leopard
skins, gums, beasts, birds, and slaves, and they opened up systematic
trade between Egypt and the Great Lakes.
The result was endless movement and migration both in ancient and modern
days, which makes the cultural history of the Great Lakes region very
difficult to understand. Three great elements are, however, clear: first,
the Egyptian element, by the northward migration of the Negro ancestors of
predynastic Egypt and the southern conquests and trade of dynastic Egypt;
second, the Semitic influence from Arabia and Persia; third, the Negro
influences from western and central Africa.
The migration of the Bantu is the first clearly defined movement of modern
times. As we have shown, they began to move southward at least a thousand
years before Christ, skirting the Congo forests and wandering along the
Great Lakes and down to the Zambesi. What did they find in this land?
We do not know certainly, but from what we do know we may reconstruct the
situation in this way: the primitive culture of the Hottentots of Punt had
been further developed by them and by other stronger Negro stocks until it
reached a highly developed culture. Widespread agriculture, and mining of
gold, silver, and precious stones started a trade that penetrated to Asia
and North Africa. This may have been the source of the gold of the Ophir.
The state that thus arose became in time strongly organized; it employed
slave labor in crushing the hard quartz, sinking pits, and carrying
underground galleries; it carried out a system of irrigation and built
stone buildings and fortifications. There exists to-day many remains of
these building operations in the Kalahari desert and in northern Rhodesia.
Five hundred groups, covering over an area of one hundred and fifty
thousand square miles, lie between the Limpopo and Zambesi rivers. Mining
operations have been carried on in these plains for generations, and one
estimate is that at least three hundred and seventy-five million dollars'
worth of gold had been extracted. Some have thought that the older
workings must date back to one or even three thousand years before the
Christian era.
"There are other mines," writes De Barros in the seventeenth century,[30]
"in a district called Toroa, which is otherwise known as the kingdom of
Butua, whose ruler is a prince, by name Burrow, a vassal of Benomotapa.
This land is near the other which we said consisted of extensive plains,
and those ruins are the oldest that are known in that region. They are all
in a plain, in the middle of which stands a square fortress, all of
dressed stones within and without, well wrought and of marvelous size,
without any lime showing the joinings, the walls of which are over
twenty-five hands thick, but the height is not so great compared to the
thickness. And above the gateway of that edifice is an inscription which
some Moorish [Arab] traders who were there could not read, nor say what
writing it was. All these structures the people of this country call
Symbaoe [Zymbabwe], which with them means a court, for every place where
Benomotapa stays is so called."
Later investigation has shown that these buildings were in many cases
carefully planned and built fortifications. At Niekerk, for instance, nine
or ten hills are fortified on concentric walls thirty to fifty feet in
number, with a place for the village at the top. The buildings are forts,
miniature citadels, and also workshops and cattle kraals. Iron implements
and handsome pottery were found here, and close to the Zambesi there are
extraordinary fortifications. Farther south at Inyanga there is less
strong defense, and at Umtali there are no fortifications, showing that
builders feared invasion from the north.
These people worked in gold, silver, tin, copper, and bronze and made
beautiful pottery. There is evidence of religious significance in the
buildings, and what is called the temple was the royal residence and
served as a sort of acropolis. The surrounding residences in the valley
were evidently occupied by wealthy traders and were not fortified. Here
the gold was received from surrounding districts and bartered with
traders.
As usual there have been repeated attempts to find an external and
especially an Asiatic origin for this culture. So far, however,
archeological research seems to confirm its African origin. The
implements, weapons, and art are characteristically African and there is
no evident connection with outside sources. How far back this civilization
dates it is difficult to say, a great deal depending upon the dating of
the iron age in South Africa. If it was the same as in the Mediterranean
regions, the earliest limit was 1000 B.C.; it might, however, have been
much earlier, especially if, as seems probable, the use of iron originated
in Africa. On the other hand the culmination of this culture has been
placed by some as late as the modern middle ages.
What was it that overthrew this civilization? Undoubtedly the same sort of
raids of barbarous warriors that we have known in our day. For instance,
in 1570 there came upon the country of Mozambique, farther up the coast,
"such an inundation of pagans that they could not be numbered. They came
from that part of Monomotapa where is the great lake from which spring
these great rivers. They left no other signs of the towns they passed but
the heaps of ruins and the bones of inhabitants." So, too, it is told how
the Zimbas came, "a strange people never before seen there, who, leaving
their own country, traversed a great part of this Ethiopia like a scourge
of God, destroying every living thing they came across. They were twenty
thousand strong and marched without children or women," just as four
hundred years later the Zulu impi marched. Again in 1602 a horde of people
came from the interior called the Cabires, or cannibals. They entered the
kingdom of Monomotapa, and the reigning king, being weak, was in great
terror. Thus gradually the Monomotapa fell, and its power was scattered
until the Kaffir-Zulu raids of our day.[31]
The Arab writer, Macoudi, in the tenth century visited the East African
coast somewhere north of the equator. He found the Indian Sea at that time
frequented by Arab and Persian vessels, but there were no Asiatic
settlements on the African shore. The Bantu, or as he calls them, Zenji,
inhabited the country as far south as Sofala, where they bordered upon the
Bushmen. These Bantus were under a ruler with the dynastic title of
Waklimi. He was paramount over all the other tribes of the north and could
put three hundred thousand men in the field. They used oxen as beasts of
burden and the country produced gold in abundance, while panther skin was
largely used for clothing. Ivory was sold to Asia and the Bantu used iron
for personal adornment instead of gold or silver. They rode on their oxen,
which ran with great speed, and they ate millet and honey and the flesh of
animals.
Inland among the Bantu arose later the line of rulers called the
Monomotapa among the gifted Makalanga. Their state was very extensive,
ranging from the coast far into the interior and from Mozambique down to
the Limpopo. It was strongly organized, with feudatory allied states, and
carried on an extensive commerce by means of the traders on the coast. The
kings were converted to nominal Christianity by the Portuguese.
There are indications of trade between Nupe in West Africa and Sofala on
the east coast, and certainly trade between Asia and East Africa is
earlier than the beginning of the Christian era. The Asiatic traders
settled on the coast and by means of mulatto and Negro merchants brought
Central Africa into contact with Arabia, India, China, and Malaysia.
The coming of the Asiatics was in this wise: Zaide, great-grandson of Ali,
nephew and son-in-law of Mohammed, was banished from Arabia as a heretic.
He passed over to Africa and formed temporary settlements. His people
mingled with the blacks, and the resulting mulatto traders, known as the
Emoxaidi, seem to have wandered as far south as the equator. Soon other
Arabian families came over on account of oppression and founded the towns
of Magadosho and Brava, both not far north of the equator. The first town
became a place of importance and other settlements were made. The
Emoxaidi, whom the later immigrants regarded as heretics, were driven
inland and became the interpreting traders between the coast and the
Bantu. Some wanderers from Magadosho came into the Port of Sofala and
there learned that gold could be obtained. This led to a small Arab
settlement at that place.
Seventy years later, and about fifty years before the Norman conquest of
England, certain Persians settled at Kilwa in East Africa, led by Ali, who
had been despised in his land because he was the son of a black Abyssinian
slave mother. Kilwa, because of this, eventually became the most important
commercial station on the East African coast, and in this and all these
settlements a very large mulatto population grew up, so that very soon the
whole settlement was indistinguishable in color from the Bantu.
In 1330 Ibn Batuta visited Kilwa. He found an abundance of ivory and some
gold and heard that the inhabitants of Kilwa had gained victories over the
Zenji or Bantu. Kilwa had at that time three hundred mosques and was
"built of handsome houses of stone and lime, and very lofty, with their
windows like those of the Christians; in the same way it has streets, and
these houses have got terraces, and the wood-work is with the masonry,
with plenty of gardens, in which there are many fruit trees and much
water."[32] Kilwa after a time captured Sofala, seizing it from Magadosho.
Eventually Kilwa became mistress of the island of Zanzibar, of Mozambique,
and of much other territory. The forty-third ruler of Kilwa after Ali was
named Abraham, and he was ruling when the Portuguese arrived. The latter
reported that these people cultivated rice and cocoa, built ships, and had
considerable commerce with Asia. All the people, of whatever color, were
Mohammedans, and the richer were clothed in gorgeous robes of silk and
velvet. They traded with the inland Bantus and met numerous tribes,
receiving gold, ivory, millet, rice, cattle, poultry, and honey.
On the islands the Asiatics were independent, but on the main lands south
of Kilwa the sheiks ruled only their own people, under the overlordship of
the Bantus, to whom they were compelled to pay large tribute each year.
Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1497 and went north on the
east coast as far as India. In the next ten years the Portuguese had
occupied more than six different points on that coast, including
Sofala.[33]
Thus civilization waxed and waned in East Africa among prehistoric
Negroes, Arab and Persian mulattoes on the coast, in the Zend or Zeng
empire of Bantu Negroes, and later in the Bantu rule of the Monomotapa.
And thus, too, among later throngs of the fiercer, warlike Bantu, the
ancient culture of the land largely died. Yet something survived, and in
the modern Bantu state, language, and industry can be found clear links
that establish the essential identity of the absorbed peoples with the
builders of Zymbabwe.
So far we have traced the history of the lands into which the southward
stream of invading Bantus turned, and have followed them to the Limpopo
River. We turn now to the lands north from Lake Nyassa.
The aboriginal Negroes sustained in prehistoric time invasions from the
northeast by Negroids of a type like the ancient Egyptians and like the
modern Gallas, Masai, and Somalis. To these migrations were added attacks
from the Nile Negroes to the north and the Bantu invaders from the south.
This has led to great differences among the groups of the population and
in their customs. Some are fierce mountaineers, occupying hilly plateaus
six thousand feet above the sea level; others, like the Wa Swahili, are
traders on the coast. There are the Masai, chocolate-colored and
frizzly-haired, organized for war and cattle lifting; and Negroids like
the Gallas, who, blending with the Bantus, have produced the race of
modern Uganda.
It was in this region that the kingdom of Kitwara was founded by the Galla
chief, Kintu. About the beginning of the nineteenth century the empire was
dismembered, the largest share falling to Uganda. The ensuing history of
Uganda is of great interest. When King Mutesa came to the throne in 1862,
he found Mohammedan influences in his land and was induced to admit
English Protestants and French Catholics. Uganda thereupon became an
extraordinary religious battlefield between these three beliefs. Mutesa's
successor, Mwanga, caused an English bishop to be killed in 1885,
believing (as has since proven quite true) that the religion he offered
would be used as a cloak for conquest. The final result was that, after
open war between the religions, Uganda was made an English protectorate in
1894.
The Negroes of Uganda are an intelligent people who had organized a
complex feudal state. At the head stood the king, and under him twelve
feudal lords. The present king, Daudi Chua, is the young grandson of
Mutesa and rules under the overlordship of England.
Many things show the connection between Egypt and this part of Africa. The
same glass beads are found in Uganda and Upper Egypt, and similar canoes
are built. Harps and other instruments bear great resemblance. Finally the
Bahima, as the Galla invaders are called, are startlingly Egyptian in
type; at the same time they are undoubtedly Negro in hair and color.
Perhaps we have here the best racial picture of what ancient Egyptian and
upper Nile regions were in predynastic times and later.
Thus in outline was seen the mission of The People--La Bantu as they
called themselves. They migrated, they settled, they tore down, and they
learned, and they in turn were often overthrown by succeeding tribes of
their own folk. They rule with their tongue and their power all Africa
south of the equator, save where the Europeans have entered. They have
never been conquered, although the gold and diamond traders have sought to
debauch them, and the ivory and rubber capitalists have cruelly wronged
their weaker groups. They are the Africans with whom the world of
to-morrow must reckon, just as the world of yesterday knew them to its
cost.