^34 



NATURE 



[September 30, 191 5 



nia'n measuring i-6i m. (about 5 ft. 3 in.), with: 

 defi^iite prognathism, typical Negro hair, and a 

 cephalic index of 80. Presumably these were repre- 

 sentatives of the group of short mesaticephalic 

 Negroes who are at the present time found on both 

 sides of the Nile-Congo divide, but predominantly 

 west of it, a group represented by the Bongo, Azande, 

 and cognate tribes. We thus reach the position that 

 the Nubians, who were proto-Egyptians, were, in the 

 earlier part of their history, in contact with just that 

 class of Negroes among whom customs and ideas 

 apparently of Egyptian origin are found at the pre- 

 sent day. It must not, however, be assumed that it 

 was this contact that led to the dissemination of 

 Egyptian ideas; indeed, our present information 

 suggests that it can scarcely have been sufficiently 

 intense. 



The following table, giving the measurements and 

 indices available for the comparison of the E-group 

 Negroids with the tall Negroes of the present day, 

 shows that the former belonged to the mesaticephalic 

 group, which includes the Burun, the Bari, and the 

 Nuba. As regards head length, head breadth, cephalic 

 index, and stature, the E-group stands closer to the 

 Nuba than to the other tribes, while even in head 

 breadth it is as near the Nuba as the Dinka. 



H.L. H.B. C.I. Stature 



Shilluk ... 195 139 71-3 1776 



Dinka ... 194 141 727 1786 



E-group ... 190^ 143^ 75-68^ 1723 



Nuba ... 190 145 766 1722 



Burun ... 190 150 79-i6 1759 



■ '.Bari ... 190 149 78 1741 



A't the present day the mesaticephalic group includes 

 the Hameg and the Berta of the hills between the 

 \yhite and Blue Niles. The. excavations at Jebel 

 Moya — ^also between these ~ two rivers — have enabled 

 Dr. Derry to show that in Ptolemaic times this hill 

 stronghold was inhabited by tall mesaticephali with a 

 cephalic index almost identical with that of the Nuba, 

 so that we are led to conclude that all these tribes, 

 including the E-group Negroids, belong to one and 

 the same stock. 



A number of similarities between ancient Egypt and 

 rnodern Africa have been set out recently by Prof. 

 Petrie. He does not discuss the routes by which 

 Egyptian influence may have reached Negroland, but 

 simply marshals the evidence of similarity under sixty- 

 one headings. A good many of these are so widely 

 spread outside Africa as to be of little evidential 

 value; others, and this applies specially to material 

 products, include such simple or obvious devices that 

 they can scarcely be regarded as carrying weight ; but 

 there are a number of instances which are highly 

 suggestive, and when to these are added yet other 

 habits and customs common to ancient Egypt and 

 Negro Africa, a mass of evidence is presented which 

 seems decisively indicative of Egyptian influence. This 

 view does not imply that all the features common to 

 ancient Egypt and present-day Negroes are instances 

 of borrowing; on the contrary, I hold that many 

 common custorns are but expressions of the wide 

 diffusion of old Hamitic blood and Ideas. To this 

 ancient stratum I would attribute those customs which 

 I have discussed in a previous paper, including burial 

 by the Nilotes in the crouched position, the. use of the 

 throwing-stick (boomerang) by the Beja, and the kill- 

 lq£^ of the divine king (or rainmaker). 



The ideas and customs reported from tropical Africa 

 which may be due to Egyptian influence may be classi- 

 fied provisionally in the following groups, though, the 



3 The H I,, and H.B of the E-group <;Vulls have heen increased bv 7 mm. 

 and 8*5 mm. resppctiv.Iv in or-^er to make these measurements c<>inpara^>le 

 Mrith those on the living. For the same reason the C.I. has been increased 

 bj 2 uniti. 



NO. 2396, VOL. 96] 



Space at, my disposal here permits only a brief refer- 

 ence to the third group : — . . 



(i) Beliefs connected with the soul. 



(ii) Beliefs and customs connected with the king or 

 the royal office. 



(iii) Death customs. 



In Egypt the body was prepared for the grave 

 by an elaborate process of mummification ; it was 

 then enclosed in a coffin, often of anthropoid 

 shape. In tropical Africa numerous instances 

 of attempts to preserve the body are recorded. 

 In Uganda the body of the king was opened, the 

 bowels removed, emptied, washed in beer, dried, and 

 then replaced, while among the Banyoro and the 

 Makaraka other methods were adopted. It seems a 

 far cry from the mummies of Egypt to the smoke- 

 dried corpses of Equatoria, and it is not difficult to see 

 that ancestor worship might easily give rise to 

 attempts to preserve the body when everyday experi- 

 ence would suggest desiccation or smoking, but there 

 are certain Congo tribes whose practices do suggest 

 an actual link with Egypt. Among the Wambunda 

 of Stanley, Pool the body is placed in the squatting 

 posture, the limbs are tightly 'flexed on the body and 

 tied in that position, the whole being packed with a 

 large quantity of spongy moss which is kept in situ 

 by bandages. A gentle fire is kept up round the body 

 for two or three month's, after which it is rolled in 

 native cloths and buried. The latter part of this cere- 

 mony hints that the attempts to preserve the corpse 

 may have been imposed on an older habit of speedy 

 burial; such an imposition could only have come from 

 without. 



Among the Wangata an important person of either 

 sex is buried in a massive coffin with a lid carved to 

 I represent the deceased. It is difficult not to believe 

 that here is an echo of the Egyptian mummy case. 

 If this be so, may not the practice of a tribe near 

 Lake Leopold II., who, after a rough preparation of 

 the body, roll it in native cloth and place it in a canoe- 

 shaped coffin, be regarded as connected with the 

 funerary boats of Egyptian burial ceremony? Since 

 the anthropoid coffin was unknown before the XI. 

 dynasty, it follows that the northern influence must 

 have been exerted after this period. Egypt's first 

 great expansion (after the pyramid builders) dates 

 from the XII. dynasty, when Egyptian and Negro 

 were in intimate contact at the Second Cataract, as 

 shown by the celebrated decree of Senusert III. Fur- 

 ther, about this time special importance seems to 

 have been attributed to the funerary voyage on the 

 Nile, indeed, almost all the models of funerary boats 

 in our collections are of this period. 



If these facts be accepted as evidence of the date 

 at which Egj-ptian ideas influenced equatorial Africa, 

 there are other customs which seem to indicate that 

 this was not the only period of such cultural drift. 

 The coffins of the III. and IV. dynasties were 

 often large rectangular boxes designed and painted to 

 represent houses. Now the Mayumbe roll the body of 

 a dead chief in layers of cloth and place it in an 

 enormous wooden coffin of rectangular shape, the top 

 of which is carved to present a homestead. Again, 

 the funeral ceremonial of the Ndolo seems reminiscent 

 of this neriod. Immediately after death the Ndolo 

 prepare the body, painting it red, touching up" the eye- 

 ' brows with charcoal, and propping it up with open 

 eves and mouth on a high seat in the very posture 

 of the ka statues of the pyramid-builders, i.e. seated 

 with the forearms and hands upon the thighs, a posi- 

 tion which I venture to say no Negro would adopt. 

 The bodv remains here for a day, while more or less 

 continual drumming and dancing go on, and isthert 

 buried. 



