504 , KHODESIAN RUIxXS. 



what in one case is regarded as a later and decadent wall at 

 Zimbabwe is simply a fracture in the wall caused by a sub- 

 sidence of the ground. It is also asserted that the Maho- 

 bohobo tree was introduced by the " ancients," and is therefore 

 not a native of the country. Mr. C. H. Munro has shown 

 that it is not confined to the gold belts or ruins areas, but is 

 an indigenous tree. It is of the genus Photiiiia. is often called 

 the wild locjuat. and is of pretty coiumon occurrence.* All 

 this only shows how general and how unsifted much of the 

 evidence really is. But apart from all this, the Semitic theory 

 assumes two things that themselves require to be proved. First, 

 that there was an}- Semitic occu])ation of this coiuitry before the 

 thirteenth century a.d., or nitich between that date and the 

 coming of the Portuguese at the beginning of the sixteenth. 

 Second, that tlie natives are or were incapable of producing 

 unaided such buildings. 



A further jiroof is sometimes advanced that the natives 

 of Zimbabwe and other districts have been largely influenced 

 mor])]iologicall\- and culturally l)y the Semitic colonists. < )f 

 the first, no satisfactory- ])roof has l)een forthconung, beyond 

 vague inferences which mean little or nothing. The second 

 rests upon the fallacious assun-iption that because the natives 

 could not build these ruins, or do not build similar ones now, 

 ergo the\- did not l)ifild them. The third ma\- l)e disnussed 

 with the remark that general agreements in a])pearance and 

 customs can be found amongst widely separated peoples, who 

 have otherwise no near relationshi]:) at all. Lord Kingsborough 

 attempted to show, for instance, by the resemblances in cust(Mns 

 and architecture, that Mexico -was colonized by the Israelites ! 

 But the fact is the Makaranga of the Zimbabwe and other 

 districts have no special Semitic or even Hamitic character- 

 istics, and their language has not been influenced to any appre- 

 ciable degree, either in grammar or vocabulary, yet Mr. R. 

 N. Hall states that the Bantu arrived south of the Zambesi 

 River some time about 300 b.c. Idiey would thus arrive in 

 the n-iiddle of the Scnfitic colonization, and yet they show no 

 trace of foreign influence. 



The second theor}- is identified with Maciver, thotigh others 

 had suspicions before him. whose investigations were carried 

 out on scientific principles. They led him to the conclusion 

 that these ruins were medieval and post-medieval, that they 

 were built b_\- negroes, and that in the case of Zinibabwe itself 

 not earlier than the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The 

 evidence was convincing enough. Nothing but native work 

 was found in or about the ruins with the exception of Persian 

 fayence and Nankin China, the introduction of which was easily 

 explained. When the buildings themselves were examined, the 



* Professor H. H. W. Pearson informs me tliat little evidence can be 

 adduced of Semitic inllnence from the distribution of vine or orange, 

 t Prescott : " Histor}- of the Conquest of Mexico." 



