Africa

Africa and around the margins of the rest of the continent, Africa received

its last great accumulation of strata and at the same time underwent a

consecutive series of earth-movements. The additional strata consist of the

immense quantities of volcanic material on the plateau of East Africa, the

basalt flows of West Africa and possibly those of the Zambezi basin. The

exact period of the commencement of volcanic activity is unknown. In

Abyssinia the Ashangi traps are certainly post-Oolitic. In East Africa the

fissure eruptions are considered to belong to the Cretaceous. These early

eruptions were followed by those of Kenya, Mawenzi, Elgon, Chibcharagnani,

and these by the eruptions of Kibo, Longonot, Suswa and the Kyulu

Mountains. The last phase of vulcanicity took place along the great

meridional rifts of East Africa, and though feebly manifested has not

entirely passed away. In northern Africa a continuous sequence of volcanic

events has taken place from Eocene times to latest Tertiary; but in South

Africa it is doubtful if there have been any intrusions later then

Cretaceous.

During this long continuance of vulcanicity, earth-movements were in

progress. In the north the chief movements gave rise to the system of

latitudinal folding and faulting of the Moroccan and Algerian Atlas, the

last stages being represented by the formation of the Algerian and Moroccan

coast-outline and the sundering of Europe from Africa at the Straits of

Gibraltar. Whilst northern Africa was being folded, the East African

plateau was broken up by a series of longitudinal rifts extending from

Nyasaland to Egypt. The depressed areas contain the long, narrow,

precipitously walled lakes of East Africa. The Red Sea also occupies a

meridional trough.

Lastly there are the recent elevations of the northern coastal regions,

the Barbary coast and along the east coast. (W. G.*)

III. ETHNOLOGY In attempting a review of the races and tribes which

inhabit Africa, their distribution, movements and culture, it is advisable

that three points be borne in mind. The first of these is the comparative

absence of natural barriers in the interior, owing to which

intercommunication between tribes, the dissemination of culture and tribal

migration have been considerably facilitated. Hence the student must be

prepared to find that, for the most part, there are no sharp divisions to

mark the extent of the various races composing the population, but that the

number of what may be termed ``transitional'' peoples is unusually large.

The second point is that Africa, with the exception of the lower Nile

valley and what is known as Roman Africa (see AFRICA, ROMAN), is, so far as

its native inhabitants are concerned, a continent practically without a

history, and possessing no records from which such a history might be

reconstructed. The early movements of tribes, the routes by which they

reached their present abodes, and the origin of such forms of culture as

may be distinguished in the general mass of customs, beliefs, &c., are

largely matters of conjecture. The negro is essentially the child of the

moment; and his memory, both tribal and individual, is very short. The

third point is that many theories which have been formulated with respect

to such matters are unsatisfactory owing to the small amount of information

concerning many of the tribes in the interior.

The chief African races.

Excluding the Europeans who have found a home in various parts of Africa,

and the Asiatics, Chinese and natives of India introduced by them (see

section History below), the population of Africa consists of the following

elements: —the Bushman, the Negro, the Eastern Hamite, the Libyan and the

Semite, from the intermingling of which in various proportions a vast

number of ``transitional'' tribes has arisen. The Bushmen (q.v.), a race of

short yellowish-brown nomad hunters, inhabited, in the earliest times of

which there is historic knowledge, the land adjoining the southern and

eastern borders of the Kalahari desert, into which they were gradually

being forced by the encroachment of the Hottentots and Bantu tribes. But

signs of their former presence are not wanting as far north as Lake

Tanganyika, and even, it is rumoured, still farther north. With them may be

classed provisionally the Hottentots, a pastoral people of medium stature

and yellowish-brown complexion. who in early times shared with the Bushmen

the whole of what is now Cape Colony. Though the racial affinities of the

Hottentots have been disputed, the most satisfactory view on the whole is

that they represent a blend of Bushman, Negroid and Hamitic elements.

Practically the rest of Africa, from the southern fringe of the Sahara and

the upper valley of the Nile to the Cape, with the exception of Abyssinia

and Galla and Somali-lands, is peopled by Negroes and the ``transitional''

tribes to which their admixture with Libyans on the north, and Semites

(Arabs) and Hamites on the north-east and east, has given rise. A slight

qualification of the last statement is necessary, in so far as, among the

Fula in the western Sudan, and the Ba-Hima, &c., of the Victoria Nyanza,

Libyan and Hamitic elements are respectively stronger than the Negroid. Of

the tracts excepted, Abyssinia is inhabited mainly by Semito-Hamites

(though a fairly strong negroid element can be found), and Somali and Galla-

lands by Hamites. North of the Sahara in Algeria and Morocco are the

Libyans (Berbers, q.v.), a distinctively white people, who have in certain

respects (e.g. religion) fallen under Arab influence. In the north-east the

brown-skinned Hamite and the Semite mingle in varied proportions. The

Negroid peoples, which inhabit the vast tracts of forest and savanna

between the areas held by Bushmen to the south and the Hamites, Semites and

Libyans to the north, fall into two groups divided by a line running from

the Cameroon (Rio del Rey) crossing the Ubangi river below the bend and

passing between the Ituri and the Semliki rivers, to Lake Albert and thence

with a slight southerly trend to the coast. North of this line are the

Negroes proper, south are the Bantu. The division is primarily

philological. Among the true Negroes the greatest linguistic confusion

prevails; for instance, in certain parts of Nigeria it is possible to find

half-a-dozen villages within a comparatively small area speaking, not

different dialects, but different languages, a fact which adds greatly to

the difficulty of political administration. To the south of the line the

condition of affairs is entirely different; here the entire population

speaks one or another dialect of the Bantu Languages (q.v..) As said

before, the division is primarily linguistic and, especially upon the

border line, does not always correspond with the variations of physical

type. At the same time it is extremely convenient and to a certain extent

justifiable on physical and psychological grounds; and it may be said

roughly that while the linguistic uniformity of the Bantu is accompanied by

great variation of physical type, the converse is in the main true of the

Negro proper, especially where least affected by Libyan and Hamitic

admixture, e.g. on the Guinea coast. The variation of type among the Bantu

is due probably to a varying admixture of alien blood, which is more

apparent as the east coast is approached. This foreign element cannot be

identified with certainty, but since the Bantu seem to approach the Hamites

in those points where they differ from the Negro proper, and since the

physical characteristics of Hamites and Semites are very similar, it seems

probable that the last two races have entered into the composition of the

Bantu, though it is highly improbable that Semitic influence should have

permeated any distance from the east coast. An extremely interesting

section of the population not hitherto mentioned is constituted by the

Pygmy tribes inhabiting the densely forested regions along the equator from

Uganda to the Gabun and living the life of nomadic hunters. The affinities

of this little people are undecided, owing to the small amount of knowledge

concerning them. The theories which connected them with the Bushmen do not

seem to be correct. It is more probable that they are to be classed among

the Negroids, with whom they appear to have intermingled to a certain

extent in the upper basin of the Ituri, and perhaps elsewhere. As far as is

known they speak no language peculiar to themselves but adopt that of the

nearest agricultural tribe. They are of a dark brown complexion, with very

Страницы: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39