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Hamitic hypothesis

Learn about this topic in these articles:, history of western africa.

…thus evolved the so-called “Hamitic hypothesis,” by which it was generally supposed that any progress and development among agricultural Blacks was the result of conquest or infiltration by pastoralists from northern or northeastern Africa. Specifically, it was supposed that many of the ideas and institutions of tribal monarchy had…

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The “hamitic hypothesis” in indigenous west african historical thought.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2014

This paper explores the use of versions of the “Hamitic hypothesis” by West African historians, with principal reference to amateur scholars rather than to academic historiography. Although some reference is made to other areas, the main focus is on the Yoruba, of southwestern Nigeria, among whom an exceptionally prolific literature of local history developed from the 1880s onwards. The most important and influential work in this tradition, which is therefore central to the argument of this paper, is the History of the Yorubas of the Rev. Samuel Johnson, which was written in 1897 although not published until 1921.

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1 See Law , Robin , “ Early Yoruba historiography ,” HA 3 ( 1976 ), 69 – 89 . Google Scholar

2 Rev. Johnson , Samuel , The History of the Yorubas from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate ( London , 1921 ; reprinted Lagos, 1937, and frequently thereafter). Google Scholar For assessments of this work, see Falola , Toyin , ed., Pioneer, Patriot and Patriarch: Samuel Johnson and the Yoruba People ( Madison , 1993 ) Google Scholar ; Doortmont , Michel R. , “ Recapturing the Past: Samuel Johnson and the Construction of the History of the Yoruba ” (Doctoral thesis, Erasmus University of Rotterdam , 1994 ). Google Scholar

3 See Drake , St. Clair , “ The Responsibility of Men of Culture for Destroying the Hamitic myth ,” Presence Africaine 24/25 special issue, 2nd Congress of Negro Writers & Artists, Rome , 26 03 –1 April 1959 , 228 –43. Google Scholar

4 Seligman , C.G. , Races of Africa ( 4th ed.: London , 1966 ), 61, 100 . Google Scholar

5 E.g., Oliver , Roland & Fage , J.D. , A Snort History of Africa ( Harmondsworth , 1962 ), chaps 4–5 Google Scholar ; Fage , , A History of West Africa ( Cambridge , 1969 ), 8 – 10 Google Scholar ; Oliver , Roland & Fagan , Brian M. , Africa in the Iron Age, c.500 B.C. to A.D. 1400 ( Cambridge , 1975 ), 41–2, 67 –9. Google Scholar In a later formulation, Fage abandoned the hypothesis of the Egyptian origins of African kingship, but still posited a critical role for conquering Saharan pastoralists in the process of state-formation in the Sahel: A History of Africa ( London , 1978 ), 39–43, 61 –9. Google Scholar

6 Lange , Dierk , Ancient Kingdoms of West Africa: Africa-Centred and Canaanite-lsraelite Perspectives ( Dettelbach , 2004 ). Google Scholar

7 Saunders , Edith R. , “ The Hamitic Hypothesis, Its Origin and Functions in Time Perspective ,” JAH 10 ( 1969 ), 521 –32. CrossRef Google Scholar

8 Cf. “Putaya,” the name given to the province formed in this area after its conquest by Persia in 512 BCE: Olmstead , A.T. , History of the Persian Empire ( Chicago , 1948 ), 149 . Google Scholar

9 Saunders , , “ Hamitic Hypothesis ,” 521 –22. Google Scholar This view is contested by Isaac , Ephraim , “ Genesis, Judaism and the Sons of Ham ,” in Willis , John Ralph , ed., Slaves and Slavery in Muslim Africa ( 2 vols.: London , 1985 ), 1: 75 – 91 Google Scholar ; but the latter's own account in detail concedes that the idea of blackness deriving from a curse on Ham does occur in certain Talmudic texts (88, 90n44). See also Goldenberg , David M. , The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam ( Princeton , 2003 ), 102 –06. Google Scholar

10 Goldenberg , , Curse of Ham , 99 – 102 . Google Scholar

11 Strictly, the classic “curse of Ham” represented the conflation of two stories which were originally distinct: the Biblical story of a curse condemning the descendants of Canaan to slavery, and the post-Biblical story of a curse of blackness on the descendants of Ham collectively: for this development, see ibid., 170-74. Goldenberg finds the origin of this “dual curse” in Christian and Islamic (but not, initially, Jewish) sources from the seventh century onwards, or even more specifically (ibid., 170) “in seventh-century Arabia.” However, the earliest source explicitly cited is of the eighth century.

12 Davis , David Brion , The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 ( Ithaca , 1975 ), 539–41, 553 –54. Google Scholar

13 Lewis , Bernard , Race and Color in Islam ( New York , 1971 ), 66 – 67 . Google Scholar

14 Barbour , Bernard and Jacobs , Michelle , “ The Mi'raj: a Legal Treatise on Slavery by Ahmad Baba ” in Willis , , Slaves and Muslim Society in Africa , 1 : 125 –59. Google Scholar

15 Saunders , , “ Hamitic Hypothesis ,” 524 –27. Google Scholar

16 Lynch , Hollis R. , Edward Wilmot Blyden, Pan-Negro Patriot, 1832-1912 ( Oxford , 1967 ), 55 – 56 Google Scholar ; for an example of his argument, see an aside in the lecture “ Philip and the Eunuch ” ( 1882 ), reprinted in his Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race ( London , 1887 ), 154n2 Google Scholar ; Du Bois , W.E. B. , The Negro ( London , 1915 ), 30 – 34 . Google Scholar

17 Some other languages of sub-Saharan Africa, including Fulani and Maasai, were sometimes included incorrectly in this group. The term “Hamitic” for these languages is now obsolete: see Greenberg , Joseph H. , The Languages of Africa ( 2nd ed.: Bloomington , 1966 ), 41 – 65 . Google Scholar

18 Saunders , , “ Hamitic Hypothesis ,” 528 Google Scholar ; Speke , J.H. , Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile ( London , 1863 ), chapter 9. Google Scholar

19 See Curtin , Philip D. , The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780-1850 ( 2 vols.: Madison , 1964 ), 2: 411 –12. CrossRef Google Scholar The Fulani were variously supposed to descend from Persians or Carthaginians, or even to have immigrated from Malaya. Note, however, the alternative suggestion that the Fulani were descendants of Put (or Phut), son of Ham, on the basis of the Fulani toponym “Futa,” apparently first in d'Eichthal , Gustave , “ Histoire de l'origine des Foulahs ou Fellans ,” Mémoires de la Société d'Ethnologie (Paris) 1 / 2 ( 1841 ), 1 – 294 . Google Scholar

20 Sir Johnston , Harry , A History of the Colonization of Africa by Alien Races ( London , 1899 ; 2nd ed., 1913), chapter 1. Google Scholar

21 See Parfitt , Tudor , The Lost Tribes of Israel: The History of a Myth ( London , 2002 ) Google Scholar , though this seems weak on West Africa.

22 E.g. Smith , , Migrations of Early Culture ( London , 1915 ) Google Scholar ; idem, The Diffusion of Culture (London, 1935).

23 Frobenius , Leo , The Voice of Africa , trans. Blind , R. ( 2 vols,: London , 1913 ). Google Scholar

24 As explicitly asserted in the conclusion of his book: ibid., 2:680. I am fortified in this reading of Frobenius by the fact that this is clearly how the significance of his work was seen by the pioneer Afro-American historian, Bois , W.E.B. Du : see Law , Robin , “ Du Bois as a Pioneer of Africa History ,” in Keller , Mary and Fontenot , Chester J. Jr. , eds., Re-Cognizing Du Bois in the Twenty-First Century: Essays on W.E.B. Du Bois ( Macon GA , 2007 ), 45 – 64 . Google Scholar

25 In the Islamic tradition, Nimrud is considered a son of Canaan; rather than, as in the Old Testament, of Cush.

26 Arnett , E.J. , The Rise of the Sokoto Fulani, Being a Paraphrase and in Some Part a Translation of the Infaku'l Maisuri of the Sultan Mohammed Bello ( Kano , 1922 ), 16 . Google Scholar

27 Reference to Baghdad probably reflects its eminence as the seat of the Caliph, the (nominal) supreme ruler of all (Orthodox) Muslims, between 762 and 1258.

28 al-Idrisi , , in Levtzion , N. and Hopkins , J.F.P. , Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History ( Cambridge , 1981 ), 109 Google Scholar , referring to Salih b. 'Abd-Allah b. al-Hasan b. al-Hasan b. al-Hasan b. ‘Ali b. Abi Talib. Ibn Khaldun later commented that “this Salih is not known among the descendants of 'Abd Allah b. al-Hasan:” ibid., 320.

29 Hunwick , John , ed., Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sa'di's Tarikh al-sudan down to 1613 and Other Contemporary Documents ( Leiden , 2003 ), 5 – 6 . Google Scholar

30 Hallam , W.K.R. , “ The Bayajidda Legend in Hausa Folklore ,” JAH 7 ( 1966 ), 47 – 60 . CrossRef Google Scholar

31 Although it has also been suggested that “Bayajjida” should be identified with Abu Yazid, leader of an Islamic sectarian uprising in Tunisia in the late eighth century CE: Palmer , H..R. , Bornu Sahara and Sudan ( London , 1936 ), 273 –74. Google Scholar

32 Conrad , David C. , “ Islam in the Oral Traditions of Mali: Bilali and Surakata ,” JAH 26 ( 1985 ), 33 – 49 . CrossRef Google Scholar

33 Robinson , David , The Holy War of Umar Tal: the Western Sudan in the Mid-Nineteenth Century ( Oxford , 1985 ), 82 – 84 . Google Scholar The claim is already found in Muhammad Bello's Infaq al-Maisur .

34 First recorded by Said , Ibn , in Levtzion , / Hopkins , , Corpus of Early Arabic Sources , 188 . Google Scholar

35 Kuba , Richard , Wasangari und Wangara: Borgu und sein Nachbaren in historischer Perspektive ( Hamburg , 1996 ), 98 – 148 . Google Scholar

36 Another version makes Kisra clash with “Anabinuhu,” i.e., the Prophet Noah: Frobenius , , Voice of Africa , 2 : 617 . Google Scholar

37 Johnson , , History , 3 – 4 . Google Scholar

38 For discussion, see Law , Robin , “ How Truly Traditional is Our Traditional History? The Case of Samuel Johnson and the Recording of Yoruba Oral Tradition ,” HA 11 ( 1984 ), 195–221, esp. 202 –05. Google Scholar

39 E.g. Hallam , , “ Bayajidda Legend ,” 49 – 50 Google Scholar , accepting the identification of “Bayajidda” with the historical Abu Yazid (see note 31 above), supposed that remnants of his army might have fled south into West Africa, following his defeat and death in Tunisia.

40 Fage , , History of West Africa , 9 – 10 Google Scholar ; Lange , , Ancient Kingdoms , esp. 277 –85. Google Scholar

41 First recorded in the ninth century: Morris , John , ed., Nennius: British History and Welsh Annals ( London , 1980 ), 18 – 20 . Google Scholar Note that this work also supplies a genealogy tracing the ancestry of Brutus to Javan, son of Japhet, son of Noah (and beyond to Adam and Eve).

42 Conrad, “Islam in the Oral Traditions of Mali.”

43 For the context see Robinson , , Holy War of Umar Tal , 81 – 89 . Google Scholar

44 Fage , , History of West Africa , 9 . Google Scholar

45 For Islam in Borgu see Levztion , Nehemiah , Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa ( Oxford , 1968 ), 173 –78 Google Scholar ; for Oyo see Law , Robin , The Oyo Empire c.1600-c.1836 ( Oxford , 1977 ), 75–76, 255 –60. Google Scholar

46 Stevens , Philips Jr , “ The Kisra Legend and the Distortion of Historical Tradition ,” JAH 16 ( 1975 ), 185 – 200 . CrossRef Google Scholar It should be noted that the defense of the historicity of the Kisra traditions by Stewart , Marjorie Helen , “ The Kisra legend as Oral History ,” IJAHS 13 ( 1980 ), 51 – 70 Google Scholar , although cast in part as a critique of Stevens, does not relate to the alleged Persian connection.

47 For the Oyo case see further Law , , “ How Truly Traditional? ,” 204 –05. Google Scholar

48 As noted already in the 1790s: “[t]hey evidently consider all the Negro natives as their inferiors; and when talking of different nations, always rank themselves among the white people:” Park , Mungo , Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa ( London , 1799 ), 46 . Google Scholar This statement has to be understood in its local (Senegambian) context, in which “white” (Arabic bidan ) denoted (patrilineal) Arab descent and free status, rather than skin color.

49 Frobenius , , Voice of Africa , 2 : 617 –20. Google Scholar

50 Equiano , Olaudah , The Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, written by himself ( 2 vols, London , 1789 ), 1: 38 – 41 . Google Scholar

51 Horton , James Africanus , West African Countries and Peoples ( London , 1868 ), 167 –71. Google Scholar This example is missed by Parfitt, Lost Tribes .

52 See Law , Robin , “ Local Amateur Scholarship in the Construction of Yoruba Ethnicity, 1880-1914 ” in de la Gorgendière , Louise , King , Kenneth , and Vaughan , Sarah , eds., Ethnicity in Africa: Roots, Meanings and Interpretations ( Edinburgh , 1996 ), 55–90, esp. 56 – 63 . Google Scholar

53 Johnson , , History , 3 – 7 . Google Scholar

54 Lucas , Archdeacon J. Olumide , The Religion of the Yorubas ( Lagos , 1948 ). Google Scholar

55 Sibthorpe , A.B.C. , Bible Review of Reviews: the Discovery of the Ten Lost Tribes, Yorubas or Akus ( Cline Town , Sierra Leone , 1909 ) Google Scholar , for which, see Fyfe , Christopher , “ A.B.C. Sibthorpe; a Tribute ,” HA 19 ( 1992 ), 327 –52. Google Scholar This example is also missed by Parfitt, although he does allude to other theories of exotic origins of the Yoruba (referring to Frobenius, Samuel Johnson, and Biobaku): Lost Tribes , 199, 203.

56 Biobaku , S.O. , The Lugard Lectures–1955 ( Lagos , n.d.) Google Scholar ; reprinted as The Origin of the Yorubas ( Lagos , 1960 ). Google Scholar

57 For Johnson's “purely patriotic motive,” see History , vii.

58 Ibid., 7.

59 Ibid., 9; for other claims that Yoruba traditions contained “garbled forms of scriptural stories,” explained as “showing that the ancestors of the Yorubas were acquainted with Christianity in their land of origin,” cf. ibid., 148, 154.

60 Law , Robin , “ Constructing ‘a Real National History:’ a Comparison of Edward Blyden and Samuel Johnson ” in Farias , P.F. de Moraes and Barber , Karin , eds., Self-Assertion and Brokerage: Early Cultural Nationalism in West Africa ( Birmingham , 1990 ), 78 – 100 , esp. 96. Google Scholar

61 Afigbo , A.E. , “ Traditions of Igbo Origins: a Comment ,” HA 10 ( 1983 ), 1 – 11 . Google Scholar

62 Zachernuk , Philip S. , “ Of Origins and Colonial Order: Southern Nigerian Historians and the ‘Hamitic Hypothesis’, c.1870-1970 ,” JAH 35 ( 1994 ), 427 –55 CrossRef Google Scholar , quotations from 430, 454-55. For an application of the argument in a wider context, cf. Zachernuk , Philip S. , Colonial Subjects: an African Intelligentsia and Atlantic Ideas ( Charlottesville , 2000 ). Google Scholar

63 Zachernuk himself does make this point in general terms in Colonial Subjects , 6-7, but he seems to lose sight of it in relation to the “Hamitic hypothesis.”

64 See Law , , “ Constructing ,” 84–88, 98 . Google Scholar

65 For a contrary view see Zachernuk , Philip S. , “ Johnson and the Victorian Image of the Yoruba ,” in Falola , , Pioneer, Patriot and Patriarch , 33 – 46 . Google Scholar In particular, Zachernuk argues that Johnson was responding to the work of Ellis , A.B. , The Yoruba-Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa ( London , 1894 ). Google Scholar This connection is confessedly “inferred,” since Johnson nowhere explicitly cites Ellis. But in any case, the argument of Ellis that Johnson supposedly sought to refute was not the “Hamitic hypothesis,” but rather his “evolutionist” interpretation of Yoruba religion.

66 Johnson , , History , 538 –60. Google Scholar Most, and perhaps all, of these critical comments seem to be the work of Johnson's posthumous editor, his brother Dr Obadiah Johnson.

67 Ibid., 5-6, citing Denman , Dixon and Clapperton , Hugh , Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa ( London , 1826 ), Appendix XII, 165 . Google Scholar

68 Zachernuk , , “ Johnson ,” 40 – 41 Google Scholar , argues that rudimentary versions of the “Hamitic” theory of Yoruba origins can already be found in Bowen , T.J. , Adventures and Missionary Labours in Several Countries in the Interior of Africa from 1849 to 1856 ( Charleston , 1857 ) Google Scholar , and Burton , Richard F. , Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains ( 2 vols.: London , 1863 ). Google Scholar The former does indeed posit “large immigrations of white people into Africa,” producing a partly “mulatto” population in much of West Africa, including Yorubaland (pp. 267-69, 276-80), but although he stresses the “somewhat civilized” character of the Yoruba, he does not relate this explicitly to the supposed admixture of “white” blood; while the latter work likewise hypothesizes a “stream of immigration from the lands nearer Arabia,” but explicitly regards the Yoruba as “a race of pagans” displaced by this immigration, rather than deriving from it (1:231). In any case, here again, Johnson does not cite (or show any evidence of acquaintance with) either of these works. Another writer of the 1850s identified the Yoruba as descendants of Canaanites dispersed from Palestine by the Israeli conquest (in the thirteenth century BCE), and more explicitly linked this to their relative “civilization.” But this work was still unpublished when Johnson wrote: Clarge , W.H. , Travels and Explorations in Yorubaland, 1854-1858 , ed. Atanda , J.A. ( Ibadan , 1972 ), 287 –92. Google Scholar

69 Lucas , , Religion , 3–4, 344 –45. Google Scholar

70 For his critique of Frobenius, see ibid., 347-52.

71 Chief Ojo , S. , Bada of Saki, Iwe Itan Oyo, Ikoyi ati AFIJIO ( Oyo , n.d. [ ca. 1961 ]), 16 – 17 . Google Scholar

72 The pioneer of the integration of the Borgu legend of Kisra with Yoruba traditions of origin (as reported by Johnson) seems to have been Hermon-Hodge , H.B. , Gazetteer of Ilorin Province ( London , 1929 ), 115 –21. Google Scholar

73 “Educated natives of Yoruba are well acquainted with the history of England and with that of Rome and Greece, but of the history of their own country they know nothing whatever! This reproach it is one of the author's objects to remove:” Johnson , , History , vii . Google Scholar

74 Again, this point is made by Zachernuk in general terms, in Colonial Subjects , 66, but he does not apply it to the case of the “Hamitic hypothesis.”

75 Burns , A.C. , History of Nigeria ( London , 1929 ), 32 – 33 Google Scholar ; Niven , C.R. , A Short History of Nigeria ( London , 1937 ; 3rd ed., 1948), 64 – 65 . Google Scholar Also Niven , C.R. , A Short History of the Yoruba Peoples ( London , 1958 ), 6 – 7 . Google Scholar

76 Zachernuk , , “ Origins ,” 453 –54. Google Scholar

77 Chief Fabunmi , M.A. , Ife, the Genesis of Yoruba Race ( Lagos , 1985 ). Google Scholar

78 Fajemisin , Canon R.A. , Primacy in Post-Oduduwa Yorubaland ( Ilesa , 1984 ). Google Scholar

79 Zachernuk , , “ Origins ,” 451 –52. Google Scholar

80 Johnson , , History , xxi – xxii Google Scholar ; for the claim of Johnson and other early local historians to the distinctiveness of the Yoruba, see more generally Law , , “ Constructing ,” 91 – 92 Google Scholar ; idem.,”Local Amateur Scholarship,” 79-82.

81 Law , , “ Early Yoruba Historiography ,” 78 . Google Scholar

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• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hia.2010.0004

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• DOI: 10.1353/hia.2010.0004
• Corpus ID: 166150373

The “Hamitic Hypothesis” in Indigenous West African Historical Thought

• Published in History in Africa 7 November 2010

9 Citations

Visions of the sahara: negotiating the history and historiography of premodern saharan slavery, stories of the ‘dark’ continent: crude constructions, diasporic identity, and international aid to africa, the founding of kanem by assyrian refugees ca. 600 bce: documentary, linguistic, and archaeological evidence, vernacular historiography and self-translation in early colonial nigeria: ajiṣafẹ's history of abẹokuta, ancient egyptians in black and white: ‘exodus: gods and kings’ and the hamitic hypothesis, church involvement in the trans-atlantic slave trade: its biblical antecedent vis-à-vis the society’s attitude to wealth, history as hidden truth: imagining the kongo past on religious websites, tracing a genealogy of ideas, seeing, and not seeing bias: legacies in science and society of charles seligman's biocultural theory of africa (hamitic hypothesis) and ashley montagu's on race, being a "good muslim": the muslim students' society of nigeria (mssn), islamic reform and religious change in yorubaland, 1954 - 2014, 53 references, of origins and colonial order: southern nigerian historians and the ‘hamitic hypothesis’ c. 1870–1970, early yoruba historiography, the kisra legend and the distortion of historical tradition, corpus of early arabic sources for west african history, the hamitic hyopthesis; its origin and functions in time perspecive, the history of africa, colonial subjects : an african intelligentsia and atlantic ideas, history of the persian empire, the problem of slavery in the age of revolution, 1770–1823 by david brion davis (review), races of africa, related papers.

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Charles Gabriel Seligman and the Hamitic Hypothesis

Charles Gabriel Seligman (1873 – 1940), image: William Rothsteinעברית: ויליאם רוטשטיין, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

On December 24 , 1873 ,  British physician and ethnologist Charles Gabriel Seligman was born. Seligman ‘s main ethnographic work described the culture of the Vedda people of Sri Lanka and the Shilluk people of the Sudan . He was a proponent of the Hamitic hypothesis , according to which, some civilizations of Africa were thought to have been founded by Caucasoid Hamitic peoples.

Charles Gabriel Seligman – Background

Seligman was born into a middle class Jewish family in London, UK, the only son of wine merchant Hermann Seligmann  and his wife Olivia (Charles shortened his name to Seligman after 1914). His interests in natural science became early manifest: while still at a preparatory school, he began to collect butterflies and, at the house of a boy friend, carried out chemical experiments.[3] He studied medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital.Charles Gabriel Seligman studied medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital. He later worked as a physician and pathologist and then served the 1898 Cambridge University expedition to the Torres Strait. Later expedition included New Guinea, Ceylon, and Sudan. Seligman served as chair of Ethnology at the London School of Economics from 1913 to 1934.

Ethnographic Work in Africa

Charles Seligman is probably best known for his ethnographic work on the races of Africa. He recognized four major distinct races of the African continent: Bushmanoids (Bushmen), Pygmies, Negroids, and Caucasoids (Hamites). Further, the Hottentots, according to Seligman are a mixture of Bushmanoid, Negroid and Hamitic. As a staunch proponent of the Hamitic theory, in his work Seligman asserts that Hamitic Caucasoid North and Northeast Africans were responsible for introducing non-Semitic Afro-Asiatic languages (Berber-Cushitic-Egyptian) into Africa, as well as civilization, technology and all significant cultural developments.

He did acknowledge varying degrees of Negroid admixture amongst the Hamitic groups, but emphasized throughout his major works the essential racial and cultural unity of the various Hamitic peoples. In his Some Aspects of the Hamitic Problem in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1913), he wrote that the Northern and Eastern Hamitic “ groups shade into each other, and in many parts a Negro admixture has taken place, nevertheless, culturally if not always physically, either division stands apart from its fellow .”

The Hamites in general, and the Northern Hamites in particular, he asserted, have close “ kinship with the European representatives of the Mediterranean race “. Drawing from Coon, Seligman also discusses fairer features observed amongst a minority of Berbers or Northern Hamites, such as lighter skin, golden beards and blue eyes. Races of Africa, however, notably questions the belief held by some anthropologists in the early 20th century that these fairer traits, such as blondism, were introduced by a Nordic variety. Seligman’s most famous work Races of Africa is regarded the first major published work in English on the ethnography of Africa, widely regarded as an “ethnological classic”.

Selected works:

• Melanesians of British New Guinea   (1910)
• The Veddas   (1911) with   Brenda Seligman
• Some Aspects of the Hamitic Problem in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan   (1913)
• Races of Africa   (1930, 1939,1957,1966)
• The Pagan Tribes of Nilotic Sudan   (London: Routledge, 1932) with Brenda Seligman

References and Further Reading:

• [1]  Charles Seligman Short Biographical and Works at Britannica
• [2]  Charles Seligman Biographical at the Royal Society
• [3] Myers, C. S.  (1941).  “ Charles Gabriel Seligman. 1873–1940 “ .  Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society .  3 (10): 627–646.
• [4]  Catalogue of the Seligman papers   at the   Archives Division   of the   London School of Economics.
• [5] C. G. Seligman, The Races of Africa , London, 1930
• [6] Charles Seligman at Wikidata
• [7]  A Theory You’ve Never Heard Of | Michael Robinson | TEDxUniversityofHartford , TEDx Talks @ youtube
• [8] Timeline of British Ethnologists , via Wikidata and DBpedia

Tabea Tietz

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“Nordics” and “Hamites”: Joseph Deniker and the Rise (and Fall) of Scientific Racism

• First Online: 27 April 2017

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• Nigel Eltringham 4  

Part of the book series: Palgrave Critical Studies of Antisemitism and Racism ((PCSAR))

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The “Hamite” as “Caucasian” civilizers of Central Africa was central to colonial discourse in Rwanda-Urundi in the first half of the twentieth century and the notion of Rwandan Tutsi as “Hamitic invaders” was to return as a component in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The idea of an exogenous, Hamitic aristocracy in East and Central Africa is pronounced in the writings (from 1913) of Charles Seligman (1873–1940) in which “race” infers biogenetic superiority. Seligman drew on the work of the Italian anthropologist Guisseppe Sergi (1841–1936) who, in turn, drew on the work of the French anthropologist Joseph Deniker (1852–1918). Another key racial theory of the early twentieth century implicated in genocide can also be traced to Deniker. In The Myth of the Twentieth Century (1930), the Nazi race theorist Alfred Rosenberg adopted “Nordic” (as Aryan) from Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race (1916), who had, in turn adopted “Nordic Race” from William Z. Ripley’s The Races of Europe (1899). Ripley had adopted “Nordic” from Deniker. In other words, fantasies of both the “Hamite” and the “Aryan” as biogenetically superior races can both be traced to Deniker. And yet, notions of racial (biogenetic) superiority are entirely absent from Deniker who did not associate any intellectual or “cultural” superiority with any of his “races.” Contrary to the idea of a progression from early twentieth-century writings espousing “biogenetic” racial superiority to our contemporary rejection of racial determinism, there was, in reality, a regression from Deniker’s late nineteenth-century position.

A part of this chapter originally appeared in Nigel Eltringham, “‘Invaders who have stolen the country’: The Hamitic Hypothesis, Race and the Rwandan Genocide,” Social Identities 12 (2006): 425–444. See http://www.tandfonline.com .

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Eltringham, N. (2017). “Nordics” and “Hamites”: Joseph Deniker and the Rise (and Fall) of Scientific Racism. In: Morris-Reich, A., Rupnow, D. (eds) Ideas of 'Race' in the History of the Humanities. Palgrave Critical Studies of Antisemitism and Racism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49953-6_10

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49953-6_10

Published : 27 April 2017

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Online ISBN : 978-3-319-49953-6

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The Portal for Public History. Please read the rules before participating, as we remove all comments which break the rules. Answers must be in-depth and comprehensive, or they will be removed.

Is the “Hamitic hypothesis” an example of intellectual colonization imposed by Europeans on West Africans? Or does it have its roots among indigenous peoples?

some of its roots I should say

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