African Art

an epoch far more remote than that which is generally assigned to
it and to attribute to the prehistoric peoples who preceded the
Egyptians, the Libyan Berbers and the Semites in North Africa, the
influence which has often been accorded to these latter. It does not
follow that the role of the Egyptians, the Libyan Berbers, and the
Semites has been of no consequence in the definitive constitution
of certain Negroid peoples labeled, the one as Chamites or
Hamites, the other as Sudanese. But if this role cannot be denied
in the development of the civilisation of such peoples, or in a
certain measure regarding the evolution of their languages, it
seems very likely that it has been much less important, from the
physiological point of view, than the role played by the most
ancient populations of whom, after all, it must be remembered, we
know almost nothing except that they already existed before the
epoch of the first Egyptian dynasty.

In general we have a tendency to place much too near to us facts
whose date we ignore and to put into periods with whose history
we are approximately familiar, events which generally have pre-
ceded these periods by many centuries or even by many
thousands of years and which, moreover, have required several
centuries or even several millennia for their integral development.
This tendency may be remarked in many authors who deal with
the formation of countries or peoples, and it is necessary to react
against such an unfortunate habit.

It seems indeed that the Sahara has not always been the desert
that it is today, but its drying up probably occurred no more
quickly than the transformation into dry land of the ancient sea
which extended where now the Isle of France is found. We

should not forget that the limits assigned by Herodotus to the

arable portion of Libya about five centuries BCE were sensibly

the same as those which we observe today in Morocco,

Algeria, Tunisia, Tripolitania, and in Cyrenaica. In the same

way, the little that the Egyptian monuments reveal to us of the

Negro populations of Africa tends to establish that these were

nearly in the same condition and that they occupied nearly the

same territories six thousand years ago as today. In reality, the

formation of the Negro and Negroid peoples must have been

accomplished in its broad lines at the time of Sesostris and

perhaps even still earlier.

Changes have assuredly intervened since then. Groups have been

built up, others have become dissociated. Portions of them have

moved from one point to another, and conquests and migrations

have taken place, which have caused the disappearance of

ancient tribes and the birth of new ones. States have appeared

and crumbled away. In a word, Negro Africa has lived like all

other parts of the human world. But without any doubt, it had

already arrived at adulthood long before the epoch of the first

historic document that has come down to us.

On the whole, the civilisation of the Negroes themselves does

not appear to have undergone very profound modifications

during thousands of years. Even in our day, there exist more or

less numerous Negro peoples whose material development

seems to have remained at the same stage where we find it at

the time of the Pharaohs; their garments, arms, and utensils

being identical with the garments, arms and utensils carried by

the Negroes represented on the paintings and bas-reliefs of

ancient Egypt.

However, in this matter evolution has been inevitably more

marked than in the domain of physical anthropology. It has also

been very much aided by contact with superior civilisations

which developed in North Africa at the historical epoch and, if

certain Negro elements have not been able or have not known

how to profit from this contact, others, indeed, have certainly

benefited from it.

TThhee NNeeggrrooeess ooff AAffrriiccaa aatt tthhee TTiimmee ooff HHeerrooddoottuuss

I have said above that it would perhaps be proper to attribute the

local invention of working in iron to the Negroes of the second

wave of immigration. It does not necessarily follow that they

already knew this metal when they reached Africa or that they

had not borrowed the secret of its manufacture from a foreign

influence. In this regard, a passage from the History of Herodotus

is very instructive. In Book II (§§ XXIX and XXX), the Greek author

has given us approximately the northern limits attained at his time

Detail of a funerary statue (Dakakari).
Terracotta, height: 73 cm.
Private collection.

The marks on the face of this terracotta are characteristic of the Afo people
from Nigera. This statue was honoured once a year with ritual libations from its
placement on the grave of an important person.