10 Perry, .4;/ Ethnological Study of Warfare. 



known among the Bantu tribes of Eastern Africa, whilst this 

 form of worship is followed bv all the Nilotic or Hamitic 

 tribes."^^ 



The past history of the Bantu j>eoples and their social 

 organisation are such as to suggest that the northern group at 

 least learned the art of warfare and acquired their religion 

 from the Gal la, who formed their hereditary fighting aristo- 

 cracy, for Hamitic peoples have formed many of the fighting 

 tribes of Africa. The southern group perhaps learned their 

 fighting from those who originally introduced the methods of 

 architecture represented in the Zimbabwe ruins. The possession 

 of the knowledge of the art of warfare would explain the ability 

 of the Bantu to conquer the greater part of Southern Africa, 

 and to found in many ])laces warrior empires of similar social 

 constitution.^^ 



The warlike nature of the Hamitic peoples of Africa thus 

 seems to have effected immense changes in the ethnography of 

 that continent. How comes it that such a powerful social 

 ferment was at work in the north-cast, whence the Galla came ? 

 Whence had the Galla peoples acquired their social organisa- 

 tion ? From the headwaters of the Nile southwards we find 

 a succession of warlike peoples who possess similar social 

 organisations and religious beliefs, these peoples alone having 

 such organisations. In the Nile valley the Egyptian ci\ili- 

 sation persisted for thousands of years. The social organisa- 

 tion of Egypt under the Pharoahs consisted of the king, who 

 was descended from the sun, and was the high priest of the sun- 

 cult; then came a military and governing aristocracy, com- 

 moners and slaves. Have we any reason to believe that the 

 Egy{:)tians taught the African peoples to fight and to overrun 

 the continent with a military organisation similar to their own? 

 Prof Elliot Smith has lately published evidence which puts the 

 matter beyond doubt.-^"^ He has shown that some of the Bantu 

 peoples who possess hereditary chiefs, i.e., the warrior peoples, 

 subject the bodies of their deceased chiefs to a process of pre- 

 servation, and the methods employed are directly copied from 

 those practised in Egypt. Only hereditary chiefs are so treated 

 in Africa, and, as the institution of hereditary chiefs is accom- 

 panied so closely by the warrior nobility and a sky-cult, the 

 presumption that the social organisation of the warrior peoples 

 was ultimately derived from Egypt becomes very strong. Since 

 the bodies of the chiefs of the Baduma and Barotse in Rhodesia 

 are mummified, we have further evidence for the Egyptian origin 

 of the civilisation of the builders of the Zimbabwe ruins, and 

 therefore of the social organisation of the warrior tribes of the 

 southern Bantu peoples. 



.35. " The Religion of the Xandi," Proceedings nf the hiteniatioiinl 

 Congress of Religions, Oxford, iqoS, p. go. 



36. See Sir H. Johnston, " The Opening up of Africa,'' p. i34- " A 

 Sketch of the Ethnography of Africa." Jonrl. Roy. .Anth. Inst., XLTII. 



37. "The Migrations of Early Culture,'' Manchester, IQ15. 



