THE ORIGIN OF AFRICAN CIVILIZATIONS. 1 



By L. Frobenius 



The day of great exploring expeditions in Africa is over. Bold lines, 

 only occasionally broken up into dots, and great and little bluish-green 

 spots of curious outline fill the white spaces which stare the student 

 in the eyes in the times of scientific truth, and in the times of more 

 vivid fancy were adorned with the figures of grotesque animals and 

 with neat inscriptions like Caput JSfili and Monies Lunce. In its main 

 features, the picture is unrolled before our eyes. One is tempted to 

 believe that the old Roman question about Africa not only has become 

 too trivial to be put, but has lost its justification. That, however, is not 

 quite true. What bold investigators, great pioneers, still find to tell 

 us of civilizatious nearer home, proves more and more clearly that we 

 are ignorant of hoary Africa. Somewhat of its present, perhaps, we 

 know, but of its past little. 



We ethnologists have fared particularly ill. Far from bringing us 

 answers to our questions, the travelers have increased our enigmas by 

 many an addition so peculiar that astouishment has scarcely yet made 

 room for investigation. For the pictures of the inhabitants and the 

 specimens of their civilization are indeed questions. Open an illus- 

 trated geography and compare the "Type of the African Negro," the 

 bluish-black fellow of the protuberant lips, the flattened nose, the stupid 

 expression, and the short curly hair, with the tall bronze figures from 

 Dark Africa, with which we have of late become familiar, their almost 

 fine-cut features, slightly arched nose, long hair, etc., and you have an 

 example of the problems pressing for solution. In other respects, too, 

 the genuine African of the interior bears no resemblance to the accepted 

 negro type as it figures on drug and cigar store signs, wearing a shabby 

 stovepipe hat, plaid trousers, and a varicolored coat. A stroll through 

 the corridors of the Berlin Museum of Ethnology teaches that the real 

 African need by no means resort to the rags and tatters of bygone 

 European splendor. He has precious ornaments of his own, of ivory 

 and plumes, fine plaited willow ware, weapons of superior workmanship. 



'Translated from Sonder-Abdruck aus der Zeitsckr. der Gesellsck., f. Erdk. zu 



Berlin, Bd. XXXIII, 1898. 



637 



