African Art

establish continuous relations by sea with the Negroes. But it was
certainly not the same by the way of land.

Carthage took from the Phoenicians, her founders, exceptional
aptitudes for what one might call “long distance commerce”. Her
citizens were not slow to perceive the advantages which they
could procure by trading with the Negroes who, beyond the
unproductive desert, inhabited fertile regions, rich in men and
gold. They organised caravans which must have very closely
resembled those which still circulate today across the Sahara and
which travelled to Sudan in search of slaves, gold dust, ostrich
feathers, and ivory, in exchange for textiles, clothing, copper and
beads. These Carthaginian merchants undoubtedly did the same
as their Tripolitanian and Moroccan successors do in our day: they
were not content to escort their convoys of camels, they sojourned
some little time in the country of the Negroes, settling in temporary
colonies in the principal centres along the edge of the desert and,
from there, just as the Moroccans do today, went out into the
neighbouring provinces.

During hundreds and hundreds of years, there must have been
other affairs than the exchange of products between Carthage
and Sudan: there was contact between the still very rude
Negroes and the representatives of one of the most refined civil-
isations known to antiquity. This contact could not but be fruitful.
As I have just suggested, these Carthaginian merchants intro-
duced among the Negroes, together with the new words desig-
nating or expressing them, new objects and new ideas.
Undoubtedly, the horse, coming from Libya, was already known
in Sudan but, also without doubt, was hardly utilised there: the
Carthaginians taught the Negroes the art of equitation and the
use of the bit, stirrups and saddle. At the same time that they sold
them textiles and a sort of chemise, and they probably brought
them the seeds of the cotton plant and taught them to weave
cotton fibres and to sew goods. They also showed them how to
work the gold which the Negroes had been content until then to

extract from alluviums and, by imitation, the copper and bronze

industries developed, while those of iron and clay became

perfected and the glass industry was born and still existed in the

last century in some localities of the Nupe on the lower Niger.

Of course, all this is only supposition^5 , but it is probable suppo-

sition nonetheless.

AAbbyyssssiinniiaann SSeemmiitteess aanndd tthhee BBeennii--IIssrraaeell

In East Africa, another civilisation of equally Semitic origin accom-

plished an analogous work among the Negroes and Negroid

populations of its neighbourhood. I speak of the Abyssinian civili-

sation which, born in the south of the Arabian peninsula, passed

into Africa with Yemenite immigrants at a very remote epoch and

developed in contact with Egyptian civilisation, on which, in turn,

it did not fail to react more than once. It introduced among the,

more or less, mixed Negroes on the coast of the Red Sea, as well

as among the Negroes scattered in eastern Sudan and between

the mountains of Ethiopia and the Great Lakes, a transformation

comparable to that which the Phoenician colonies of the

Mediterranean produced from afar among the Negroes of central

and western Sudan.

Local traditions have conserved the memory of other Semites,

whom they call by the name of Israelites (Beni-Israel), without our

being able to decide whether this name is of Muslim importation

and therefore relatively recent, or if it really answers to the origin

of this mysterious element. It is very possible, indeed, that the

Semites in question came from the land of Abraham and were a

branch of that population, in part Hebraic, whose astonishing

destinies have not troubled Bossuet alone. Should we relate them

to the Hebrews whom Joseph, son of Israel, brought to Egypt

and who did not all return to the Holy Land with Moses, a

certain number, on the contrary, making their way towards the

west? Should we see in them the remains of those Hyksos

mentioned in the Egyptian annals who, after all, were perhaps

not distinct from the Hebrews of Joseph? Should they be

identified with the Jews who, as a consequence of religious

quarrels, emigrated from Tripolitania towards the end of the 1st

century CE in the direction of the Aïr Mountains and towards the

beginning of the following century in that of Tuat and who after-

wards did not leave any real historical traces of their passage?

Should we admit several successive migrations, the first of which

goes back to the epoch of Moses and the dispersion of the

Hyksos, that is, to about the 16thcentury BC, and the last of

which are as recent as the 1stcentury CE?

However it be, and whatever name be given to the so-called

“Beni-Israel”, it appears very certain that they were Semites who

were at once shepherds, farmers, and artisans of a very

Go gémask (Dan).
Wood, metal, and hair, height: 26 cm.
Private collection.

Talismans have been placed atop this beautiful go gémask. It is a perfect
example of the refined beauty of Dan art that was only used for ceremonies
which were linked to the funerals of important chiefs.