Excerpt from The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1872
In offering the present paper to the Anthropological Institute, I must apologise for its incompleteness. I have attempted to throw some light on the tribal history and relations of the people who live in the Nile Valley north of Khartum. The subject is one of great difficulty and obscurity from the almost entire absence of written records, and from the extraordinary way in which the races have in many cases been mixed up. It is curious, for instance, to see how completely the indigenous population has, in certain cases, lost its nationality whilst absorbing its Arab conquerors; and how Hamitic, Semitic, and Nuba tribes alike claim descent from the Koreish of Mecca. My own observation was limited; I only came into personal contact with a few of the tribes; but I had to make enquiries about the others for the purposes of the Nile Expedition. These enquiries were naturally as to the political relations of the tribes, and this must account for the absence of scientific details in my paper. Active service
is not favourable to scientific observation as regards ethnological questions; the disturbance of the population is too great, and the people are too excited, too frightened, and too interested to be natural. The only way to gain the confidence of natives is to live amongst them until they become accustomed to your ways, and cease to be frightened or shy. If natives once see that you know their habits, and understand and like them, you can get almost anything you like out of them. This is, perhaps, especially the case with Arabs, who are naturally great gossips, but who are at the same time extremely suspicious and believe that some ulterior motive must underlie any leading or abrupt question. As far as my observation went there is little to add to the account which Burckhardt gave of the Nuba, though the country, owing to Egyptian misgovernment, has greatly changed for the worse since his visit.
The tribes of the Nile Valley north of Khartum may conveniently be divided into three groups; the Hamitic, the Semitic, and the Nuba. I propose, however, in the first place to say a few words on the Arab tribes north of Assuan, for they form as it were a group apart.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. Это и многое другое вы найдете в книге The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1872 (Classic Reprint)