662 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION H, 



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 vyeight ; 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 AJicient 

 Egypt and present-day Negroes are instances of borrowing; on the contrary, I 

 hold that many common customs 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 (22), including burial by 

 the Nilotes in the crouched position, the use of the throwing-stick (boomerang) 

 by the Beja, and the killing of the divine king (or rainmaker). 



The ideas and customs reported from tropical Africa which may be due to 

 Egyptian influence may be classified provisionally in the following groups : 



(i) Beliefs connected with the soul. 



(ii) Beliefs and customs connected with the king or the royal office, 

 (iii) Death customs. 



(i) Beliefs concerning the soul. The Egyptians believed that each individual 

 possessed several souls, the most important being (a) the ka or human double ; 

 (6) the ba, the bird soul which accompanied Ra in the sun barque through the 

 other-world; (c) the akh or khu (fate unknown); {d) the khaibet or shadow; 

 and (e) the ab or heart ; that in one aspect at least this was something more than 

 the physical heart is shown by the fact that after death the ab was weighed by 

 Anubis in the presence of Osiris against the feather of truth. Numerous 

 instances of ' multiple souls ' resembling those of Egypt have been recorded 

 from the Congo and West Africa ; perhaps the most striking is afforded by the 

 Bambala, who say that man is composed of four parts, the body Id, the double 

 Uo, the soul n'shanga, and the shadow lumcluine, while some have an additional 

 element called viOMxa (1, vol. ii. fasc. i. 124). 



(ii) Beliefs and customs connected with the king or the royal office. The 

 fact that the Pharaoh, the Shilluk king, the Dinka rainmaker, and many other 

 African rulers were, or are, divine kings, who were at one time ceremonially 

 killed and with whose bodily well-being the welfare of their kingdom was 

 bound up, does not, to ray mind, indicate borrowing, but points rather to a 

 common origin, for I believe that the divine king is an old Hamitic institution, 

 and that Hamitic blood or cultural influence has been active over a very great 

 part of Negro Africa. On the other hand, there does seem a possible connec- 

 tion between the Egyptian Horus and the eagle totem of the Baganda king. 

 In Egypt, once totemistic, the king was identified with the falcon, and was 

 spoken of as Horus ; the falcon was placed over one of his names, and on the 

 great slate palette of Narmer, dating back to protodynastic times, the falcon 

 (with one human arm) leading captive the north country obviously represents 

 the king. Among the Baganda every king and prince, in addition to his clan 

 totem, claimed the eagle totem, though no eagle clan existed ' (18, 128). 



(iii) Death customs. Tlie majority of the customs which can probably be 

 attributed to Egyptian influence are associated with death and burial ; this is 

 not surprising, considering how greatly the Egyptians were concerned with the 

 after-life. Let us consider the main features of Egyptian burial in the follow- 

 ing order : posture of the body in the grave, preparation of the body and coffin, 

 form of the grave, offerings in and at the grave, worship at the grave. I have 

 sliown elsewhere that the custom of burying on the side in the embryonic posi- 

 tion was widespread in Africa among peoples of Hamitic blood ; but I do not 

 regard this as due to Egyptian influence, but rather as part of a common 

 Hamitic heritage. 



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, 



' Dr. Allan Gardiner informs me that even in Egypt there are indications 

 that the eagle and falcon were confused in Hellenistic times. 



