THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE ON IGBO THEOLOGY THEME:
“THE INTERFACE OF IGBO THEOLOGY AND CHRISTIANITY.
AFRICAN ORIGINS OF JUDAISM
by Sidney Davis
“THE INTERFACE OF IGBO THEOLOGY AND CHRISTIANITY.
AFRICAN ORIGINS OF JUDAISM
by Sidney Davis
INTRODUCTION
His Eminence Francis Cardinal Arinze, his Grace Archbishop Obinna, Monsignor T. I. Okere , members of the panel, distinguished guests, ladies and gentleman:
“To understand this, you have to go back to what [the] young brother here referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro -- back during slavery. There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes - they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good ‘cause they ate his food -- what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master’s house quicker than the master would. The house Negro, if the master said, ‘We got a good house here,’ the house Negro would say, ‘Yeah, we got a good house here.’ Whenever the master said ‘we,’ he said ‘we.’ That’s how you can tell a house Negro.
If the master’s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, ‘What’s the matter, boss, we sick?’ ‘We’ sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, ‘Let’s run away, let’s escape, let’s separate,’ the house Negro would look at you and say, ‘Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?’ That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a ‘house nigger.’ And that’s what we call him today, because we’ve still got some house niggers running around here. This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He’ll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then brag about ‘I’m the only Negro out here.’ ‘I’m the only one on my job.’ ‘I’m the only one in this school.’
You’re nothing but a house Negro. And if someone comes to you right now and says, ‘Let’s separate,’ you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. ‘What you mean, separate? From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?’ I mean, this is what you say. ‘I ain’t left nothing in Africa,’ that’s what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.”
Malcom X – Message to the Grass Roots (Audio was played to introduce this paper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN_-AO36Afw up until 3:20)
People have often asked me. “Why have you come to Africa?” I reply, “To get my mind back, the mind my ancestors had before they got on ‘the ship.’” Then I remind them:
“The English trade began with Sir John Hawkins’ voyages in 1562 and later, in which ‘the Jesus, our chiefe shippe,’ played a leading part. Desultory trade was kept up by the English until the middle of the seventeenth century, when English chartered slave-trading companies began to appear. In 1662 the “Royal Adventurers,” including the king, the queen dowager, and the Duke of York, invested in the trade, and finally the Royal African Company, which became the world’s chief slave trader, was formed in 1672 and carried on a growing trade for a quarter of a century. Jamaica had finally been captured and held by Oliver Cromwell in 1655 and formed the West Indian base for the trade in men.” W.E. Burghardt Du Bois, Black Folk Then and Now, p. 136,137
“To understand this, you have to go back to what [the] young brother here referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro -- back during slavery. There was two kinds of slaves. There was the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes - they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good ‘cause they ate his food -- what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved their master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master’s house quicker than the master would. The house Negro, if the master said, ‘We got a good house here,’ the house Negro would say, ‘Yeah, we got a good house here.’ Whenever the master said ‘we,’ he said ‘we.’ That’s how you can tell a house Negro.
If the master’s house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, ‘What’s the matter, boss, we sick?’ ‘We’ sick! He identified himself with his master more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, ‘Let’s run away, let’s escape, let’s separate,’ the house Negro would look at you and say, ‘Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?’ That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a ‘house nigger.’ And that’s what we call him today, because we’ve still got some house niggers running around here. This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He’ll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then brag about ‘I’m the only Negro out here.’ ‘I’m the only one on my job.’ ‘I’m the only one in this school.’
You’re nothing but a house Negro. And if someone comes to you right now and says, ‘Let’s separate,’ you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. ‘What you mean, separate? From America? This good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?’ I mean, this is what you say. ‘I ain’t left nothing in Africa,’ that’s what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.”
Malcom X – Message to the Grass Roots (Audio was played to introduce this paper: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN_-AO36Afw up until 3:20)
People have often asked me. “Why have you come to Africa?” I reply, “To get my mind back, the mind my ancestors had before they got on ‘the ship.’” Then I remind them:
“The English trade began with Sir John Hawkins’ voyages in 1562 and later, in which ‘the Jesus, our chiefe shippe,’ played a leading part. Desultory trade was kept up by the English until the middle of the seventeenth century, when English chartered slave-trading companies began to appear. In 1662 the “Royal Adventurers,” including the king, the queen dowager, and the Duke of York, invested in the trade, and finally the Royal African Company, which became the world’s chief slave trader, was formed in 1672 and carried on a growing trade for a quarter of a century. Jamaica had finally been captured and held by Oliver Cromwell in 1655 and formed the West Indian base for the trade in men.” W.E. Burghardt Du Bois, Black Folk Then and Now, p. 136,137
THE RECLAIMING OF THE AFRICAN MIND
In the last century since the arrival of the Christian missionizing movements and the advent of the bible into African religious culture, many African people groups have arisen claiming Jewish origins and identity. This paper will focus on this phenomenon by examining some of the claims of African people groups, the evidences used to sustain such claims and the origins of such claims. What are the claims of these people groups to Jewish identity? What are the evidences and origins of such claims, and why do such claims seem to resonate so strongly with such groups? Are such claims legitimate, viable or valid? This paper will attempt to approach the examination of such claims using the academic disciplines of history, science and western and African literature accounts of “oral” and religious traditions. This paper will also introduce the “Africa-Israel Hypothesis.”
The Africa Israel Hypothesis (AIH) is a proposal that attempts to address the question of the Jewish, Hebrew or Israelite identity or origins of indigenous African people groups such as the Kayla/Agau of East Africa, the Luba of Central Africa, the Igbo of West Africa, the Lemba of South Africa, the Tusti and other people groups from Africa or the African Diaspora.
Since the introduction of the Bible of European and American missionaries to African colonization and education that dawned with the slave trade, speculation about the “lost tribes of Israel” loomed large in the imagination of these colonizing agents due in a large part to the millennium doctrines of Jewish redemption and to what the colonizer’s witnessed of the similarity of traditions, cultural practices, moral and ethical precepts of Africans to “Jewish” precepts and practices as found in the Hebrew Scriptures. The internalizations of these observations by Africans in response to such colonizing interests, observations and their bible education has in turn resulted in the phenomenon of Hebrew or Israelite identity being claimed by various African people groups. The AIH turns this current trend in African Israelite identity on its head by proposing that what we find as evidence of Hebrew identity in Africa is instead evidence of the African origins of these so-called “Hebrewisms” and other “Jewish” cultural identifiers that find themselves in the Hebrew Bible narratives. In short the AIH is the anti-thesis to the current Hamitic-Oriental diffusion thesis that seeks to establish and validate such claims. It is this thesis that is the major Biblical paradigm that has laid claim to the African mind.
The Africa Israel Hypothesis (AIH) is a proposal that attempts to address the question of the Jewish, Hebrew or Israelite identity or origins of indigenous African people groups such as the Kayla/Agau of East Africa, the Luba of Central Africa, the Igbo of West Africa, the Lemba of South Africa, the Tusti and other people groups from Africa or the African Diaspora.
Since the introduction of the Bible of European and American missionaries to African colonization and education that dawned with the slave trade, speculation about the “lost tribes of Israel” loomed large in the imagination of these colonizing agents due in a large part to the millennium doctrines of Jewish redemption and to what the colonizer’s witnessed of the similarity of traditions, cultural practices, moral and ethical precepts of Africans to “Jewish” precepts and practices as found in the Hebrew Scriptures. The internalizations of these observations by Africans in response to such colonizing interests, observations and their bible education has in turn resulted in the phenomenon of Hebrew or Israelite identity being claimed by various African people groups. The AIH turns this current trend in African Israelite identity on its head by proposing that what we find as evidence of Hebrew identity in Africa is instead evidence of the African origins of these so-called “Hebrewisms” and other “Jewish” cultural identifiers that find themselves in the Hebrew Bible narratives. In short the AIH is the anti-thesis to the current Hamitic-Oriental diffusion thesis that seeks to establish and validate such claims. It is this thesis that is the major Biblical paradigm that has laid claim to the African mind.
AN EPISTOMOLOGICAL PROLUGE – THE HAMITIC HYPOTHESIS
When researching the origins of the African Jewish identity phenomenon, it is to be noted that such claims did not originate from within the tradition of African indigenes themselves. We must go to the “Hamitic Hypothesis” that was the major hypothesis that formed the perspective of the European colonizer’s encounter with Africa and other indigenous peoples. To do that we must consult western literature and the most dominant if not the most single document from which the Hamitic Hypothesis owes its origin – the Bible. Western literature is widely read in the “Third World,” especially in sub- Sahara Africa and the Bible ranks first in circulation and publication as a result of the work of European missionaries. The effect of western literature generally and the Bible in particular as the most effective weapon upon the colonization of the African mind and psyche cannot be underestimated.1 I call it the “zapping” of the African mind.
THE BIBLE AS WESTERN LITERATURE IN NIGERIA
The history of book development in Nigeria can be traced to the Scottish Presbyterian Mission, led by Rev. Hope Waddell, who arrived at Calabar from Jamaica in 1846 bringing with him a lithographic press and a conventional press for letter press printing. He published the first printed materials in Nigeria in the same year namely “Twelve Bible Lessons” and “Efik Vocabulary.” 2
Gbenga Osinaike editor-in-chief at Church Times Agency Nigeria wrote in an article entitled “The basis of the Christian faith,” “What also gladdens my heart is that Christianity and civilization are compatible. The first book ever printed by the Guttenberg Press, the first press in the world was the Bible. The first book in Nigeria that was ever printed is the book of Romans. The idea of book publishing came about in the course of the evolution of the Bible. Christianity has helped to preserve languages and culture. Can you imagine Nigeria without the Christian faith? When the white people came with the gospel they came with education and they helped indigenes to preserve their customs, tradition and language in written form.” 3
We see from the evidence that it was the early efforts of Christian missionaries in the nineteenth century that laid the foundations for today’s thriving book industry in Nigeria. This foundation was built on by indigenous printers, multinational book publishers, government and university presses. What we see here in effect is a global north, Westocentric epistemological paradigm being established on African soil.
Gbenga Osinaike editor-in-chief at Church Times Agency Nigeria wrote in an article entitled “The basis of the Christian faith,” “What also gladdens my heart is that Christianity and civilization are compatible. The first book ever printed by the Guttenberg Press, the first press in the world was the Bible. The first book in Nigeria that was ever printed is the book of Romans. The idea of book publishing came about in the course of the evolution of the Bible. Christianity has helped to preserve languages and culture. Can you imagine Nigeria without the Christian faith? When the white people came with the gospel they came with education and they helped indigenes to preserve their customs, tradition and language in written form.” 3
We see from the evidence that it was the early efforts of Christian missionaries in the nineteenth century that laid the foundations for today’s thriving book industry in Nigeria. This foundation was built on by indigenous printers, multinational book publishers, government and university presses. What we see here in effect is a global north, Westocentric epistemological paradigm being established on African soil.
THE EUROPEAN WORLD VIEW OF AFRICA
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) wrote in l828:
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) wrote in l828:
“The peculiarly African character is difficult to comprehend, for the very reason that in reference to it, we must quite give up the principle which naturally accompanies all our ideas — the category of Universality. In Negro life the characteristic point is the fact that consciousness has not yet attained to the realization of any substantial objective existence — as for example, God, or Law — in which the interest of man’s volition is involved and in which he realizes his own being. This distinction between himself as an individual and the universality of his essential being, the African in the uniform, undeveloped oneness of his existence has not yet attained; so that the Knowledge of an absolute Being, an Other and a Higher than his individual self, is entirely wanting. The Negro, as already observed, exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state. We must lay aside all thought of reverence and morality — all that we call feeling — if we would rightly comprehend him; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in this type of character.”4
The great English explorer, Sir Richard Francis Burton wrote: “The study of psychology in Eastern Africa is the study of man’s rudimental mind, when, subject to the agency of material nature, he neither progresses nor retrogrades. He would appear rather degeneracy from the civilized man than a savage rising to the first step, were it not for his apparent incapacity for improvement. He has not the ring of the true metal; there is no rich nature, as in the New Zealander, for education to cultivate. He seems to belong to one of those childish races which, never rising to man’s estate, fall like worn-out links from the great chain of animated nature. “5
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier (August 23, 1769 – May 13, 1832) aka George Cuvier, the Aristotle of his age, the founder of geology, paleontology, and comparative anatomy, wrote in his major l6 volume work, The Animal Kingdom, in l812 that the “African is the most degraded of human races and whose form approaches that of the beast and whose intelligence is nowhere great enough to arrive at regular governance.”
Sir Samuel White Baker, (8 June 1821 – 30 December 1893) in reference to African achievements wrote in 1866: “Human nature viewed in its crudest state as seen amongst African savages is quite on the level with that of a brute and not to be compared with the noble character of the dog. There is neither gratitude, pity, love nor self-denial, no idea of duty, no religion, nothing but covetousness, ingratitude, selfishness, and cruelty.”
The purpose of this brief foray in the epistemology of the European colonizer with respect to his views on African peoples is to illustrate the original paradigm of the Hamitic Hypothesis as advanced in the intelligentsia of Western thought and literature.
The great English explorer, Sir Richard Francis Burton wrote: “The study of psychology in Eastern Africa is the study of man’s rudimental mind, when, subject to the agency of material nature, he neither progresses nor retrogrades. He would appear rather degeneracy from the civilized man than a savage rising to the first step, were it not for his apparent incapacity for improvement. He has not the ring of the true metal; there is no rich nature, as in the New Zealander, for education to cultivate. He seems to belong to one of those childish races which, never rising to man’s estate, fall like worn-out links from the great chain of animated nature. “5
Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier (August 23, 1769 – May 13, 1832) aka George Cuvier, the Aristotle of his age, the founder of geology, paleontology, and comparative anatomy, wrote in his major l6 volume work, The Animal Kingdom, in l812 that the “African is the most degraded of human races and whose form approaches that of the beast and whose intelligence is nowhere great enough to arrive at regular governance.”
Sir Samuel White Baker, (8 June 1821 – 30 December 1893) in reference to African achievements wrote in 1866: “Human nature viewed in its crudest state as seen amongst African savages is quite on the level with that of a brute and not to be compared with the noble character of the dog. There is neither gratitude, pity, love nor self-denial, no idea of duty, no religion, nothing but covetousness, ingratitude, selfishness, and cruelty.”
The purpose of this brief foray in the epistemology of the European colonizer with respect to his views on African peoples is to illustrate the original paradigm of the Hamitic Hypothesis as advanced in the intelligentsia of Western thought and literature.
INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF THE HAMITIC HYPOTHESIS – A BRIEF EPISTEMOLOGICAL REVIEW
The Hamitic hypothesis owes its origin to the words of the Bible used by Jews and Christians to justify the colonization and enslavement of black Africans. The Biblical origins of the Hamitic hypothesis gave legitimacy to the idea that black inferiority as espoused by Hegal, Burton and others was divinely sanctioned by God. The term “Hamitic” comes from the biblical figure Ham. In the Book of Genesis, when Noah exited the ark with his three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Noah became drunk and fell asleep naked inside his tent. Ham mistakenly discovered his father’s nakedness, and tells his brothers about it. Shem and Japheth then go inside the tent and covered Noah making sure not to look at his unclothed body. Upon awakening, Noah supposedly became furious at Ham, who was the father of Canaan, for gazing upon his nakedness. Noah swore:
Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem!
Let Canaan be his slave.
May God expand Japheth, so that he dwells among the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave.6
This seemingly innocuous conflict effectively sentenced Ham’s descendants to perpetual servitude and the rest is history as they say. Nowhere in the Bible do we see evidence that Ham was black. The traditional belief that Ham was a black man developed much later. The Babylonian Talmud was the first source to read a Negrophobic content into the episode by stressing Canaan’s fraternal connections with Cush.7 Europeans readily accepted the curse on Canaan as a denunciation of the black race despite the absence of racial identification in the original biblical account. This acquiescent approval was related to suggestions of inherent black inferiority popularly portrayed in the classical Western literature.
African culture was seen and is still seen as “barbaric,” “brutish,” “bestial,” “black magic,” “cannibalistic,” “devilish,” “demonic,” “dispensable,” “despicable,” “heathen,” “illiterate,” “immoral,” “inferior,” “primitive,” “pagan,” “promiscuous,” “satanic,” “savage,” “sensual,” “sexual,” “superstitious,” “uncivilized,” “witchcraft” and so on.
Cursed be Canaan!
The lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem!
Let Canaan be his slave.
May God expand Japheth, so that he dwells among the tents of Shem; and let Canaan be his slave.6
This seemingly innocuous conflict effectively sentenced Ham’s descendants to perpetual servitude and the rest is history as they say. Nowhere in the Bible do we see evidence that Ham was black. The traditional belief that Ham was a black man developed much later. The Babylonian Talmud was the first source to read a Negrophobic content into the episode by stressing Canaan’s fraternal connections with Cush.7 Europeans readily accepted the curse on Canaan as a denunciation of the black race despite the absence of racial identification in the original biblical account. This acquiescent approval was related to suggestions of inherent black inferiority popularly portrayed in the classical Western literature.
African culture was seen and is still seen as “barbaric,” “brutish,” “bestial,” “black magic,” “cannibalistic,” “devilish,” “demonic,” “dispensable,” “despicable,” “heathen,” “illiterate,” “immoral,” “inferior,” “primitive,” “pagan,” “promiscuous,” “satanic,” “savage,” “sensual,” “sexual,” “superstitious,” “uncivilized,” “witchcraft” and so on.
THE METAMORPHASIS OF THE HAMITIC HYPOTHESIS IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD
The Hamitic paradigm shifted drastically after Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt in the early 19th century. French archaeologists uncovered the forgotten grandeur of an black African civilization that had flourished more than a thousand years before Greece and Rome. The conclusion that Egypt was black or Negroid was totally unacceptable to the European intellectual community. To combat this theory of black intellectual equality, European theologians and ethnographers reformulated the premises of the Hamitic hypothesis. They postulated that in the Bible, Noah had only explicitly cursed Canaan; thus, Ham and his other sons were technically not condemned to a life of servitude. Ham’s son Mizraim was subsequently identified as the patriarch of Egypt, leaving Canaan and his progeny alone to assume the malediction of perpetual slavery. Having now freed Ham from the curse of Noah, it was agreed that Ham must have been white. Edith R. Sanders, who published a pioneering critique of the Hamitic hypothesis in 1969, concludes that “The Egyptians emerged as Hamites, Caucasoid, uncursed and capable of high civilization.” 8
W.E.B Du Bois critically observed that as a result of this reformulation of the Hamitic Hypothesis, “All history, all science was changed to fit this new condition. Africa had no history. Wherever there was history in Africa or civilization, it was of white origin; and the fact that it was civilization proved that it was white.”9
The Hamitic Hypothesis most probably reached its apex as the overriding paradigm for categorizing African people and culture with the publication of Races of Africa, by Charles G. Seligman, in 1930. Seligman argues that Africa can be divided into two separate racial regions: the people of the northern division are essentially white or light-skinned Hamites of “European” type, while the southern division is populated by dark-skinned Negroes with “spiraled hair.” The Hamites, “who belong to the same great branch of mankind as the whites,” entered Africa from Mesopotamia and gradually intermixed with indigenous black Negroes. In so doing, the Hamites unknowingly spread their own advanced civilization to their less fortunate Negro counterparts. Thus according to this reformulated Hamitic hypothesis any ‘civilized achievement’ to be found among ‘primitive people’ could be explained only by outside influences.10
W.E.B Du Bois critically observed that as a result of this reformulation of the Hamitic Hypothesis, “All history, all science was changed to fit this new condition. Africa had no history. Wherever there was history in Africa or civilization, it was of white origin; and the fact that it was civilization proved that it was white.”9
The Hamitic Hypothesis most probably reached its apex as the overriding paradigm for categorizing African people and culture with the publication of Races of Africa, by Charles G. Seligman, in 1930. Seligman argues that Africa can be divided into two separate racial regions: the people of the northern division are essentially white or light-skinned Hamites of “European” type, while the southern division is populated by dark-skinned Negroes with “spiraled hair.” The Hamites, “who belong to the same great branch of mankind as the whites,” entered Africa from Mesopotamia and gradually intermixed with indigenous black Negroes. In so doing, the Hamites unknowingly spread their own advanced civilization to their less fortunate Negro counterparts. Thus according to this reformulated Hamitic hypothesis any ‘civilized achievement’ to be found among ‘primitive people’ could be explained only by outside influences.10
JEWISH IDENTITY IN THE COLONIAL DISCOURSE THEN AND NOW
With the introduction of the Bible into Africa the Hamitic thesis became a part and parcel of the Hebrew colonial discourse. The Christian doctrine of millennialism advanced the idea that before the parousia or what is most popularly referred to as the second coming of Jesus Christ, the nation of Israel would be restored and the Jews converted to Christianity. Thus a search for the lost tribes of Israel was a part of the religious imagination of European colonial missionaries, the colonial vestiges of which remain alive to this day. Tudor Parfitt of the School of Oriental and African Studies University of London noted that:
“Israelite identities were constructed almost everywhere in the colonial situation and were subsequently internalised by a surprising variety of peoples. From the beginning of colonial intervention in West Africa an Israelite discourse penetrated everywhere. I shall give just a few examples:
“G.T.Basden’s Among the Ibos of Nigeria noted with an uncontroversial casualness which shows the extent to which an Israelite-Africa connection was the conventional wisdom that the Ibo language had ‘interesting parallels with the Hebrew idiom’. To this day the Ibos themselves cherish the notion that they are somehow descended from the people of Israel: the idea that Ibo and Hebrew or ivri are one and the same word and that the two languages are closely related is quite widespread.”11
Joseph J.Williams, a Jesuit member of the Royal Geographical Society as well as of the American Geographical Society, claimed to have found traces of Hebrew language and of Jewish culture among the Ashanti in Ghana.12
D. Campbell, In the Heart of Bantuland says, “Northward [of Katanga] lives one of the greatest tribes of Central Africa, the Baluba, who are of undoubted Semitic origin. The name Baluba means ‘the lost tribe,’ and their language and customs have many Hebrew affinities. Their name for, and idea of, God, with their word for water, and people, and many other words and ideas, show their Semitic strain.”13
W. T. Brownlee, past Chief Magistrate of the Transkeian Territories, speculates on the origins of the Xhosa witchcraft beliefs and those of ancient Israel as they are recorded in the Old Testament. Supporting his theory with reference to the history of gold-mining in the region of Zimbabwe, which was supposedly undertaken by the ancient Hebrews and Phoenicians, and assuming that the ancient Jews acquired their gold in South Africa, Brownlee asserts that the Xhosa people have, in the past, had direct connections with Jews. In conclusion, Brownlee draws out a comparison that links Xhosa practices not only to Jewish customs but also to those of the ancient Hebrews and Phoenicians.14
Louis C. Thompson, in “The Balemba of Southern Rhodesia”15 gives a brief description of the geographical location, historical origins, and allegedly “degenerate” religious beliefs and rituals of the Lemba of the northern Transvaal and southern Rhodesia. Thompson highlights features presumed to be distinctive of Semitic or Arabic origin. Notably, the writer recalls that the Lemba, like the “Slaamzyn (Muslim)” Africans or Falashas, the “Black Jews of Abyssinia,” believed the year to have started only after a new moon had been observed. Similarly, the Lemba “priesthood” was an hereditary class of persons, signaling, the writer asserts, the superior intellect of these Bantu peoples and their obvious etiology in the ancient Near East. Brief notes on the “sacred groves” of the Lemba and their rituals and taboos associated with birth, marriage, and death are included. The paper ends with an account of Lemba industries, most notably their involvement in the mining and smelting of gold and copper. The paper is annotated and cites the only references made to the Lemba in the early nineteenth century.16
John Henderson Soga’s dated work on the Xhosa-speaking societies of South Africa includes an extensive discussion of cultural and religious life. In Chapter Eight, for example, Soga draws comparisons between Jewish and Xhosa sacrificial rites, appropriating a diffusionist theory that accords the “Bantu race” Jewish origins rooted in the Asiatic influences of the Hamites and early Arab colonization of the east coast of Africa. Noting references to sacrificial peace offerings in Leviticus, the author details Xhosa ritual procedures in sacrificing an ox for healing individual affliction. He then argues that Xhosa religion is monotheistic rather than animistic, claiming that worship of the Supreme Being is conducted through the medium of the ancestral spirits. Other Xhosa rites such as circumcision, purification, lamentations for the dead, and first-fruit ceremonies are also documented, pointing to similarities in Jewish practice. The functions of the diviner as “high priest” in Xhosa religion are discussed in some detail, emphasizing the interpretation of dreams and other important healing techniques. Soga rejects the use of the term “witchdoctor” as a misnomer, arguing that the diviner’s sole aim in relation to witchcraft is to expose the evil-doer. Spirit possession and the training of neophyte diviners are addressed in depth, as well as several divination techniques. Chapter Nine turns to other Xhosa beliefs, which Soga defines as “superstitious,” such as those relating to various kinds of “water-spirits” and animal spirits. In Chapters Ten to Twelve,
the cultural customs and rites associated with marriage, circumcision, and lobola (dowry) are further outlined. Soga’s work includes sensitive analysis of diverse aspects of Xhosa religion, but his perceptions are underpinned by colonial missionary attitudes that characterize this religion as “imperfect” when compared with a “higher civilization” and with Christian belief and practice. 17
Originally appearing in 1929, Frobenius’ paper on the “judische” (Jewish) Lemba of the northern Transvaal region of Messina provides the reader of comparative religion in southern Africa with a wealth of information regarding the beliefs and practices of these Venda-speaking peoples. The paper is divided into seven sections. In the first two sections, the writer provides information relating to the early history of the Lemba in the region north of the Limpopo River. Notes on migration patterns are also included. In section three, “Korper und Geist,” aspects indicative of a presumed “Semitic” psychological make-up are enumerated. The logic of the writer’s assertions in this regard is extended in the following section, which outlines several dietary prohibitions distinctive of the Lemba and thought to be indicative of their “Jewish” origins. Notes on ritual prescriptions for the slaughter of animals are included. Sections five and six describe Lemba beliefs and rituals pertaining to marriage and sexuality. Taboos reflecting prohibitions on premarital pregnancy, adultery, and marriage between aliens are described. Detailed notes on male initiation and circumcision are also included. The last section contains notes on burial practices and beliefs related to a form of “phallic” worship associated with a sacred object known as the muschuku. This illustrated paper, in German, contains no bibliography. 18
These observations of colonial miss ionizers, ethnographers and anthropologists in the literature show the effect of the Hamitic hypothesis upon their conclusions which subsequently became internalized by their colonial subjects and whose effect can be seen today.
“Israelite identities were constructed almost everywhere in the colonial situation and were subsequently internalised by a surprising variety of peoples. From the beginning of colonial intervention in West Africa an Israelite discourse penetrated everywhere. I shall give just a few examples:
“G.T.Basden’s Among the Ibos of Nigeria noted with an uncontroversial casualness which shows the extent to which an Israelite-Africa connection was the conventional wisdom that the Ibo language had ‘interesting parallels with the Hebrew idiom’. To this day the Ibos themselves cherish the notion that they are somehow descended from the people of Israel: the idea that Ibo and Hebrew or ivri are one and the same word and that the two languages are closely related is quite widespread.”11
Joseph J.Williams, a Jesuit member of the Royal Geographical Society as well as of the American Geographical Society, claimed to have found traces of Hebrew language and of Jewish culture among the Ashanti in Ghana.12
D. Campbell, In the Heart of Bantuland says, “Northward [of Katanga] lives one of the greatest tribes of Central Africa, the Baluba, who are of undoubted Semitic origin. The name Baluba means ‘the lost tribe,’ and their language and customs have many Hebrew affinities. Their name for, and idea of, God, with their word for water, and people, and many other words and ideas, show their Semitic strain.”13
W. T. Brownlee, past Chief Magistrate of the Transkeian Territories, speculates on the origins of the Xhosa witchcraft beliefs and those of ancient Israel as they are recorded in the Old Testament. Supporting his theory with reference to the history of gold-mining in the region of Zimbabwe, which was supposedly undertaken by the ancient Hebrews and Phoenicians, and assuming that the ancient Jews acquired their gold in South Africa, Brownlee asserts that the Xhosa people have, in the past, had direct connections with Jews. In conclusion, Brownlee draws out a comparison that links Xhosa practices not only to Jewish customs but also to those of the ancient Hebrews and Phoenicians.14
Louis C. Thompson, in “The Balemba of Southern Rhodesia”15 gives a brief description of the geographical location, historical origins, and allegedly “degenerate” religious beliefs and rituals of the Lemba of the northern Transvaal and southern Rhodesia. Thompson highlights features presumed to be distinctive of Semitic or Arabic origin. Notably, the writer recalls that the Lemba, like the “Slaamzyn (Muslim)” Africans or Falashas, the “Black Jews of Abyssinia,” believed the year to have started only after a new moon had been observed. Similarly, the Lemba “priesthood” was an hereditary class of persons, signaling, the writer asserts, the superior intellect of these Bantu peoples and their obvious etiology in the ancient Near East. Brief notes on the “sacred groves” of the Lemba and their rituals and taboos associated with birth, marriage, and death are included. The paper ends with an account of Lemba industries, most notably their involvement in the mining and smelting of gold and copper. The paper is annotated and cites the only references made to the Lemba in the early nineteenth century.16
John Henderson Soga’s dated work on the Xhosa-speaking societies of South Africa includes an extensive discussion of cultural and religious life. In Chapter Eight, for example, Soga draws comparisons between Jewish and Xhosa sacrificial rites, appropriating a diffusionist theory that accords the “Bantu race” Jewish origins rooted in the Asiatic influences of the Hamites and early Arab colonization of the east coast of Africa. Noting references to sacrificial peace offerings in Leviticus, the author details Xhosa ritual procedures in sacrificing an ox for healing individual affliction. He then argues that Xhosa religion is monotheistic rather than animistic, claiming that worship of the Supreme Being is conducted through the medium of the ancestral spirits. Other Xhosa rites such as circumcision, purification, lamentations for the dead, and first-fruit ceremonies are also documented, pointing to similarities in Jewish practice. The functions of the diviner as “high priest” in Xhosa religion are discussed in some detail, emphasizing the interpretation of dreams and other important healing techniques. Soga rejects the use of the term “witchdoctor” as a misnomer, arguing that the diviner’s sole aim in relation to witchcraft is to expose the evil-doer. Spirit possession and the training of neophyte diviners are addressed in depth, as well as several divination techniques. Chapter Nine turns to other Xhosa beliefs, which Soga defines as “superstitious,” such as those relating to various kinds of “water-spirits” and animal spirits. In Chapters Ten to Twelve,
the cultural customs and rites associated with marriage, circumcision, and lobola (dowry) are further outlined. Soga’s work includes sensitive analysis of diverse aspects of Xhosa religion, but his perceptions are underpinned by colonial missionary attitudes that characterize this religion as “imperfect” when compared with a “higher civilization” and with Christian belief and practice. 17
Originally appearing in 1929, Frobenius’ paper on the “judische” (Jewish) Lemba of the northern Transvaal region of Messina provides the reader of comparative religion in southern Africa with a wealth of information regarding the beliefs and practices of these Venda-speaking peoples. The paper is divided into seven sections. In the first two sections, the writer provides information relating to the early history of the Lemba in the region north of the Limpopo River. Notes on migration patterns are also included. In section three, “Korper und Geist,” aspects indicative of a presumed “Semitic” psychological make-up are enumerated. The logic of the writer’s assertions in this regard is extended in the following section, which outlines several dietary prohibitions distinctive of the Lemba and thought to be indicative of their “Jewish” origins. Notes on ritual prescriptions for the slaughter of animals are included. Sections five and six describe Lemba beliefs and rituals pertaining to marriage and sexuality. Taboos reflecting prohibitions on premarital pregnancy, adultery, and marriage between aliens are described. Detailed notes on male initiation and circumcision are also included. The last section contains notes on burial practices and beliefs related to a form of “phallic” worship associated with a sacred object known as the muschuku. This illustrated paper, in German, contains no bibliography. 18
These observations of colonial miss ionizers, ethnographers and anthropologists in the literature show the effect of the Hamitic hypothesis upon their conclusions which subsequently became internalized by their colonial subjects and whose effect can be seen today.
THE PECULAIR CASE OF IGBO JEWISH IDENTITY
Since I am presenting this paper in Igbo Land, I would be remiss if I did not devote some particular attention to the Igbo Jewish identity phenomenon. There can be no doubt that this is probably one of the most profound effects that western literature and in particular the Bible has had on Igbo culture.
It has been noted that for many African ethnic groups, there is one main document written by an outsider─usually an anthropologist, a colonial officer or a missionary─in which the characteristics of the ethnic group, its culture and history are laid down. When literate members of the ethnic group undertake to write the history or ethnography of their own group, they often rely heavily on the foreign authority. On this issue, G. I. Jones, a colonial officer who later became a social anthropologist, remarked that ‘[a]ny monograph written by an anthropologist on a particular tribe and accessible to its literate members becomes the tribal Bible, the charter of its traditional history and culture.’ 19 In the colonial period, these foreign authorities were often allied to the colonial administration, and represented the colonizer’s view. As a result of this, even an account of the ethnic group that is written by literate members of the group will be influenced by the colonizer’s ethnic and geographical perspective.
The idea that Igbos were somehow affected by Jewish culture or had indeed descendent from Jews was presented by the colonial missionary Archdeacon G.T. Basden in his influential books Among the Ibos of Nigeria (1921) and Niger Ibos (1938). G. T. Basden was an influential Anglican missionary, who served in the area for more than 35 years. Basden’s book was not written for a local African readership, but had a European audience in mind. Therefore, Basden argues in the introduction to Among the Ibos that ‘the black man himself does not know his own mind. He does the most extraordinary things, and cannot explain why he does them. He is not controlled by logic: he is the victim of circumstance, and his policy is very largely one of drift.’ Although Basden’s findings and observations were written for a European audience, for the Igbo group these books represent the closest thing to what Jones termed the ‘tribal Bible’.20 Yet Among the Ibos of Nigeria is still accepted by many Igbos as one of the main documents telling ‘the truth’ about their ethnic group.
As noted above the Igbo were not unique in conceptually linking their traditional, pre-Christian culture with possible Hebrew origins. It was in fact a very common claim that was applied to many West African groups. Nor was it particularly new for the Igbo. Olaudah Equiano, the former slave who published his autobiography in 1789, had already suggested connections between the lost tribes of Israel and his own ‘Eboe’ people. Likewise, James Africanus Horton in his 1868 volume on West African Countries and Peoples argued that Igbo religion showed clearly that they were one of Israel’s lost tribes. Nevertheless, this perspective was absent from the local Christian discourse on Igbo traditional culture until the early twentieth century.21
There are various hypotheses regarding Igbo origins. The rise of many of these myths and legends when traced historically are found to originate from outside influences and that they were very much a part of the colonial discourse of the British imperialists over their colonized subjects. The most popular of these myths was that of Jewish origins or what is generally called the “Oriental Hypothesis” which was itself based on the “Hamitic Hypothesis.” The Hamitic hypothesis as advanced by Basden proposed that the Igbo were of Middle Eastern origin, either Egyptian or Hebrew.
“Despite the very negative impression of Igbo culture popularized by the British during their administrative reign in Nigeria…both British and Igbo chroniclers also noted much in common between the Igbo cultures and ‘civilized’ European culture. As a result, the myth grew that the Igbo were either descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel or the ancient Egyptians, or had at some point in their history been influenced by one of these societies. This Hamitic myth of Igbo origins was originally supported by limited circumstantial evidences…but is entirely unsubstantiated by either linguistic or archeological evidences…The Hamitic theory came to be a part of apolitical debate on the intrinsic value of Igbo society and culture and has lingered to this day for the same reasons.” 22
Igbo History and Society: The essays of Adiele Afigbo one of the most celebrated Nigerians historians, a few observations regarding Igbo Jewish identity are noted of which I will quote at length:
“Later [colonial] educated Igbo would glom onto the Hamitic theory ‘“to show that they had not always been as ‘despicable’”‘ as the colonialists found them. In the post-independence period, Afigbo argues that the theory of Hebrew origin has continued to be attractive to the Igbo. For instance, he suggests that:
Publicists and others soon started drawing parallels between Igbo business acumen and their sufferings at the hands of other Nigerian ethnic nationalities on the one hand, and Jewish experience throughout history on the other. Between 1967 and 1970 embattled Biafra provided the perfect parallel to the state of Israel surrounded by hostile Arab nations. The Igbo not only made this comparison themselves, but believed in it. They also came to hope that they would weather the Nigerian storm just as the Israelis are weathering the Arab storm. Thus there is no mere history…but an ideology for group survival.
“In this way, the Hamitic theory of Igbo origin has survived among the Igbo.
“For their part, the British colonizers had their own reasons for promoting the idea that certain Igbo peoples had been influenced by ‘civilized’ Middle Eastern societies like the Hebrew or Egyptians but were not necessarily biological descendants of those peoples. To claim the Igbo were one of the lost tribes of Israel Afigbo explains, ‘would, in the intellectual climate of the time be to assign this despised colonial people a higher place on the world tree of culture than the colonial masters would find convenient.’ A much more politically savvy explanation was that ‘these traits showed that the Igbo were once under Egyptian or Jewish cultural dominance.’ The political ramifications of this interpretation were quite advantageous to the British because, ‘implicit in this claim was the idea, not hitherto emphasized by any one, that British colonialism was not a radical departure from the past. Instead it was in some sense a continuation of the cultural education of the Igbo which had been started long ago by the Egyptians.’ Furthermore, this theory helped the British established a typology through which they could administer the notoriously decentralized Igbo areas directly. Thus, Afigbo explains, ‘it came to be argued first that Igboland was once under Egyptian influence, secondly that the spread of Egyptian culture in Igboland was the work of a small elite who after inter-breeding with the people became the Nri and the Aro of today, and thirdly, that if the British really wanted to rule the Igbo ‘indirectly,’ then they had to do so through the Nri and the Aro.’ Politically, the Hamitic theory was the key to the benevolent imperialism of the British in Igboland.
“As politically compelling as the Hamitic theory of Igbo origin was to different people, Afigbo notes, the theory is not based in fact and has long been debunked in academic circles.” 23
“G.T. Basden in Niger Ibos regaled popular Igbo imagination in 1937 with Hebraic origins and proved it through cultural norms that resonate, ranging from the symbolism of blood, through rites of passage to specific forms of economic and political organization. Communities in the north-western Igbo culture theater adulated him with honorific titles; one of these imaged him as the ‘mouth that speaks for the people’.” 24
“One of the other principle contribution of Afigbo to the rehabilitation of African history is found in the decolonization of Igbo origins from the shackles of the Hamitic hypothesis. The proponents of the
monstrous paradigm had, for no other than mischievous intents, assigned any item of cultural achievements found in Negro Africa to some kind of oriental origin. Its application to the Igbo was first encountered in the work of Equiano, an ex-slave freed in Britain, who claimed that the Igbo are a lost tribe of Israel. Equiano based his claim on such common cultural practices as circumcision, conferment, purification of women, naming children after specific events and experience as also found in Hebrew culture. Along this perspective, the colonial scholars who started research on Igboland from about 1900 quickly spread the Hamitic hypothesis is eastern Nigeria. Such aspects of Igbo life as its traditions of origins, democratic political culture, Aro trading and oracular oligarchy, Nri priestly tradition and cult ceremonials, Nkwerre and Abiriba skilled iron works and lot more – were all misunderstood to be of oriental origin. In what Afigbo has described as their search for ‘noble ancestry’ these flattered Igbo communities (the Aro, the Nri and Abiriba), began to concoct histories of origins that linked their remote ancestors with either Israel or Egypt.” 25
“Early in the century the Rev. G.T. Basden saw a very close resemblance between Igbo culture and Jewish culture without quite saying the Igbo were of Jewish descent. But such was his form of words that the hasty would draw that conclusion.” 26
In the book, A Survey of The Igbo Nation, Ed. G.E.K. Ofomata, Professor of Geography, University of Nigeria, the following is observed:
“The Oriental Hypothesis
“The theory was put forth [from British colonialists] that the Igbo came from the East. Some commentators had speculated that the Igbo were either one of the lost ‘tribes’ of Israel or Egypt and that for some inexplicable circumstances, they left the East and wandered across until they finally came to their present abode. The exponents of this theory found similarity of culture between that of Igbo and some of the Eastern peoples. Circumcision, system and manner of naming children, sentence structure and similarity in some words, religion and ritual symbols, love of adventure and enterprise were used to explain derivation from the East. Even as late as April 1984, one Dr. Chuks Osuji (1984, p.2) claimed in an article in the Sunday Statesman that:
Some scattered efforts have been made to investigate origin of the Igbo man. Some of these efforts have yielded some positive results. All of them have traced the origins of the Igbos to Hebrew. Many foreign scholars working independently have earlier given clue to this fact. They have associated the overwhelming characteristics of the Igbos to those of the Jews.
“Olaudah Equiano, an Igbo ex-slave and an eighteenth century commentator on Igbo society, links the Igbo with the Jews (Edwards, 1967, p. 12). G.T. Basden (1912) has also opined that:
The investigator cannot help being struck with the similitude between them (the Igbo) and some of the ideas and practices of the Levitical Code.
“The Aro, in particular, were believed to have derived from an alien stock because of the level of socio- political organization the Aro had reached at the time of British invasion. The Nri were also attributed to culture carriers of Eastern provenance (Jeffreys, 1956). These speculations have no historical basis.”27
Emmanuel Edeh, in “Towards an Igbo Metaphysics” observes, “Another striking version of the outside origin hypothesis is the suggestion of a Jewish origin. For example, Basden supports this view with reference to the similarities in marriage customs, in observance of the new moon and certain other common cultural and social functions. However, a closer inspection of these similarities shows that it has little or no claim to validity. I am led to this conclusion by the fact that if the major evidence for a Jewish origin is the cultural similarities between the two peoples, what are we to make of the fact that the same cultural similarities also exist between the Igbos and many other African peoples? On the basis of cultural similarities, can one not easily argue that it was the Jews who originally in a very distant past migrated from Africa? This contention might conceivably be buttressed by the biblical account of the Jewish exodus from Egypt. There is food for thought here, but no compelling evidence.” 28
There can be no question of the effect of western literature generally and its articulation and application of the Hamitic Hypothesis and its twin, the Oriental Hypothesis upon which African self-image and identity have been forged. Jews and Igbo share basic historical experiences and that their traditional cultures bear many striking similarities, as can be seen from Biblical descriptions of purity taboos, circumcision rites and animal sacrifices. Such similarities have been noted in the colonial discourse and Bible readers in many parts of Africa, and this has given rise to the persistent idea that their ancestors were Jews, despite the claims to a common descent have been proven to be archeologically and linguistically fictitious
How then do we account for the linguistic and cultural similarities of Igbo tradition and the Biblical Hebrew tradition?
I do not doubt Jewish influence in West Africa historically from the post Temple (70 CE) and medieval periods due to commerce, trade (including the slave trade) and post 1492 migrations due to the Jewish expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula. There may have even been some assimilation and West African converts to Judaism during these periods, but that West African people groups generally and Nigerian Igbos specifically who claim Jewish identity that they come from or are decedent from the ancient Israelites, Hebrews or Jews is according to Jewish historian Shlomo Sand, a myth. In Shlomo Sand’s “The Invention of the Jewish People,” (published in Hebrew, Tel Aviv University, Israel) he illustrates that Ancient Israel of the Bible is an invention of modern scholars. For if according to Jewish scholars (Sand is not the only one per his bibliography )the origin claims of the Jewish people today is an “invention,” then where does this put the credibility of some Igbos who claim an origin from these same ancient Biblical Hebrews? What you have is an “invented” people claiming descent or origins from another “invented” people!
The Igbo are not directly related to the Israelites. They are not descendants of Jacob who is the founder of the Israelites. Igbo history is traced back to a time before there were a Biblical people called Israelites. Igbo style pottery and tools dated at around 4500 BCE has been found at Nsukka. We can be sure that that the Igbo have been in this region long before that time. Linguistic studies have proven Igbo language to much older than the Hebrew which according to Bible chronology would be no earlier than 2,000 BCE.
Since I am presenting this paper in Igbo Land, I would be remiss if I did not devote some particular attention to the Igbo Jewish identity phenomenon. There can be no doubt that this is probably one of the most profound effects that western literature and in particular the Bible has had on Igbo culture.
It has been noted that for many African ethnic groups, there is one main document written by an outsider─usually an anthropologist, a colonial officer or a missionary─in which the characteristics of the ethnic group, its culture and history are laid down. When literate members of the ethnic group undertake to write the history or ethnography of their own group, they often rely heavily on the foreign authority. On this issue, G. I. Jones, a colonial officer who later became a social anthropologist, remarked that ‘[a]ny monograph written by an anthropologist on a particular tribe and accessible to its literate members becomes the tribal Bible, the charter of its traditional history and culture.’ 19 In the colonial period, these foreign authorities were often allied to the colonial administration, and represented the colonizer’s view. As a result of this, even an account of the ethnic group that is written by literate members of the group will be influenced by the colonizer’s ethnic and geographical perspective.
The idea that Igbos were somehow affected by Jewish culture or had indeed descendent from Jews was presented by the colonial missionary Archdeacon G.T. Basden in his influential books Among the Ibos of Nigeria (1921) and Niger Ibos (1938). G. T. Basden was an influential Anglican missionary, who served in the area for more than 35 years. Basden’s book was not written for a local African readership, but had a European audience in mind. Therefore, Basden argues in the introduction to Among the Ibos that ‘the black man himself does not know his own mind. He does the most extraordinary things, and cannot explain why he does them. He is not controlled by logic: he is the victim of circumstance, and his policy is very largely one of drift.’ Although Basden’s findings and observations were written for a European audience, for the Igbo group these books represent the closest thing to what Jones termed the ‘tribal Bible’.20 Yet Among the Ibos of Nigeria is still accepted by many Igbos as one of the main documents telling ‘the truth’ about their ethnic group.
As noted above the Igbo were not unique in conceptually linking their traditional, pre-Christian culture with possible Hebrew origins. It was in fact a very common claim that was applied to many West African groups. Nor was it particularly new for the Igbo. Olaudah Equiano, the former slave who published his autobiography in 1789, had already suggested connections between the lost tribes of Israel and his own ‘Eboe’ people. Likewise, James Africanus Horton in his 1868 volume on West African Countries and Peoples argued that Igbo religion showed clearly that they were one of Israel’s lost tribes. Nevertheless, this perspective was absent from the local Christian discourse on Igbo traditional culture until the early twentieth century.21
There are various hypotheses regarding Igbo origins. The rise of many of these myths and legends when traced historically are found to originate from outside influences and that they were very much a part of the colonial discourse of the British imperialists over their colonized subjects. The most popular of these myths was that of Jewish origins or what is generally called the “Oriental Hypothesis” which was itself based on the “Hamitic Hypothesis.” The Hamitic hypothesis as advanced by Basden proposed that the Igbo were of Middle Eastern origin, either Egyptian or Hebrew.
“Despite the very negative impression of Igbo culture popularized by the British during their administrative reign in Nigeria…both British and Igbo chroniclers also noted much in common between the Igbo cultures and ‘civilized’ European culture. As a result, the myth grew that the Igbo were either descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel or the ancient Egyptians, or had at some point in their history been influenced by one of these societies. This Hamitic myth of Igbo origins was originally supported by limited circumstantial evidences…but is entirely unsubstantiated by either linguistic or archeological evidences…The Hamitic theory came to be a part of apolitical debate on the intrinsic value of Igbo society and culture and has lingered to this day for the same reasons.” 22
Igbo History and Society: The essays of Adiele Afigbo one of the most celebrated Nigerians historians, a few observations regarding Igbo Jewish identity are noted of which I will quote at length:
“Later [colonial] educated Igbo would glom onto the Hamitic theory ‘“to show that they had not always been as ‘despicable’”‘ as the colonialists found them. In the post-independence period, Afigbo argues that the theory of Hebrew origin has continued to be attractive to the Igbo. For instance, he suggests that:
Publicists and others soon started drawing parallels between Igbo business acumen and their sufferings at the hands of other Nigerian ethnic nationalities on the one hand, and Jewish experience throughout history on the other. Between 1967 and 1970 embattled Biafra provided the perfect parallel to the state of Israel surrounded by hostile Arab nations. The Igbo not only made this comparison themselves, but believed in it. They also came to hope that they would weather the Nigerian storm just as the Israelis are weathering the Arab storm. Thus there is no mere history…but an ideology for group survival.
“In this way, the Hamitic theory of Igbo origin has survived among the Igbo.
“For their part, the British colonizers had their own reasons for promoting the idea that certain Igbo peoples had been influenced by ‘civilized’ Middle Eastern societies like the Hebrew or Egyptians but were not necessarily biological descendants of those peoples. To claim the Igbo were one of the lost tribes of Israel Afigbo explains, ‘would, in the intellectual climate of the time be to assign this despised colonial people a higher place on the world tree of culture than the colonial masters would find convenient.’ A much more politically savvy explanation was that ‘these traits showed that the Igbo were once under Egyptian or Jewish cultural dominance.’ The political ramifications of this interpretation were quite advantageous to the British because, ‘implicit in this claim was the idea, not hitherto emphasized by any one, that British colonialism was not a radical departure from the past. Instead it was in some sense a continuation of the cultural education of the Igbo which had been started long ago by the Egyptians.’ Furthermore, this theory helped the British established a typology through which they could administer the notoriously decentralized Igbo areas directly. Thus, Afigbo explains, ‘it came to be argued first that Igboland was once under Egyptian influence, secondly that the spread of Egyptian culture in Igboland was the work of a small elite who after inter-breeding with the people became the Nri and the Aro of today, and thirdly, that if the British really wanted to rule the Igbo ‘indirectly,’ then they had to do so through the Nri and the Aro.’ Politically, the Hamitic theory was the key to the benevolent imperialism of the British in Igboland.
“As politically compelling as the Hamitic theory of Igbo origin was to different people, Afigbo notes, the theory is not based in fact and has long been debunked in academic circles.” 23
“G.T. Basden in Niger Ibos regaled popular Igbo imagination in 1937 with Hebraic origins and proved it through cultural norms that resonate, ranging from the symbolism of blood, through rites of passage to specific forms of economic and political organization. Communities in the north-western Igbo culture theater adulated him with honorific titles; one of these imaged him as the ‘mouth that speaks for the people’.” 24
“One of the other principle contribution of Afigbo to the rehabilitation of African history is found in the decolonization of Igbo origins from the shackles of the Hamitic hypothesis. The proponents of the
monstrous paradigm had, for no other than mischievous intents, assigned any item of cultural achievements found in Negro Africa to some kind of oriental origin. Its application to the Igbo was first encountered in the work of Equiano, an ex-slave freed in Britain, who claimed that the Igbo are a lost tribe of Israel. Equiano based his claim on such common cultural practices as circumcision, conferment, purification of women, naming children after specific events and experience as also found in Hebrew culture. Along this perspective, the colonial scholars who started research on Igboland from about 1900 quickly spread the Hamitic hypothesis is eastern Nigeria. Such aspects of Igbo life as its traditions of origins, democratic political culture, Aro trading and oracular oligarchy, Nri priestly tradition and cult ceremonials, Nkwerre and Abiriba skilled iron works and lot more – were all misunderstood to be of oriental origin. In what Afigbo has described as their search for ‘noble ancestry’ these flattered Igbo communities (the Aro, the Nri and Abiriba), began to concoct histories of origins that linked their remote ancestors with either Israel or Egypt.” 25
“Early in the century the Rev. G.T. Basden saw a very close resemblance between Igbo culture and Jewish culture without quite saying the Igbo were of Jewish descent. But such was his form of words that the hasty would draw that conclusion.” 26
In the book, A Survey of The Igbo Nation, Ed. G.E.K. Ofomata, Professor of Geography, University of Nigeria, the following is observed:
“The Oriental Hypothesis
“The theory was put forth [from British colonialists] that the Igbo came from the East. Some commentators had speculated that the Igbo were either one of the lost ‘tribes’ of Israel or Egypt and that for some inexplicable circumstances, they left the East and wandered across until they finally came to their present abode. The exponents of this theory found similarity of culture between that of Igbo and some of the Eastern peoples. Circumcision, system and manner of naming children, sentence structure and similarity in some words, religion and ritual symbols, love of adventure and enterprise were used to explain derivation from the East. Even as late as April 1984, one Dr. Chuks Osuji (1984, p.2) claimed in an article in the Sunday Statesman that:
Some scattered efforts have been made to investigate origin of the Igbo man. Some of these efforts have yielded some positive results. All of them have traced the origins of the Igbos to Hebrew. Many foreign scholars working independently have earlier given clue to this fact. They have associated the overwhelming characteristics of the Igbos to those of the Jews.
“Olaudah Equiano, an Igbo ex-slave and an eighteenth century commentator on Igbo society, links the Igbo with the Jews (Edwards, 1967, p. 12). G.T. Basden (1912) has also opined that:
The investigator cannot help being struck with the similitude between them (the Igbo) and some of the ideas and practices of the Levitical Code.
“The Aro, in particular, were believed to have derived from an alien stock because of the level of socio- political organization the Aro had reached at the time of British invasion. The Nri were also attributed to culture carriers of Eastern provenance (Jeffreys, 1956). These speculations have no historical basis.”27
Emmanuel Edeh, in “Towards an Igbo Metaphysics” observes, “Another striking version of the outside origin hypothesis is the suggestion of a Jewish origin. For example, Basden supports this view with reference to the similarities in marriage customs, in observance of the new moon and certain other common cultural and social functions. However, a closer inspection of these similarities shows that it has little or no claim to validity. I am led to this conclusion by the fact that if the major evidence for a Jewish origin is the cultural similarities between the two peoples, what are we to make of the fact that the same cultural similarities also exist between the Igbos and many other African peoples? On the basis of cultural similarities, can one not easily argue that it was the Jews who originally in a very distant past migrated from Africa? This contention might conceivably be buttressed by the biblical account of the Jewish exodus from Egypt. There is food for thought here, but no compelling evidence.” 28
There can be no question of the effect of western literature generally and its articulation and application of the Hamitic Hypothesis and its twin, the Oriental Hypothesis upon which African self-image and identity have been forged. Jews and Igbo share basic historical experiences and that their traditional cultures bear many striking similarities, as can be seen from Biblical descriptions of purity taboos, circumcision rites and animal sacrifices. Such similarities have been noted in the colonial discourse and Bible readers in many parts of Africa, and this has given rise to the persistent idea that their ancestors were Jews, despite the claims to a common descent have been proven to be archeologically and linguistically fictitious
How then do we account for the linguistic and cultural similarities of Igbo tradition and the Biblical Hebrew tradition?
I do not doubt Jewish influence in West Africa historically from the post Temple (70 CE) and medieval periods due to commerce, trade (including the slave trade) and post 1492 migrations due to the Jewish expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula. There may have even been some assimilation and West African converts to Judaism during these periods, but that West African people groups generally and Nigerian Igbos specifically who claim Jewish identity that they come from or are decedent from the ancient Israelites, Hebrews or Jews is according to Jewish historian Shlomo Sand, a myth. In Shlomo Sand’s “The Invention of the Jewish People,” (published in Hebrew, Tel Aviv University, Israel) he illustrates that Ancient Israel of the Bible is an invention of modern scholars. For if according to Jewish scholars (Sand is not the only one per his bibliography )the origin claims of the Jewish people today is an “invention,” then where does this put the credibility of some Igbos who claim an origin from these same ancient Biblical Hebrews? What you have is an “invented” people claiming descent or origins from another “invented” people!
The Igbo are not directly related to the Israelites. They are not descendants of Jacob who is the founder of the Israelites. Igbo history is traced back to a time before there were a Biblical people called Israelites. Igbo style pottery and tools dated at around 4500 BCE has been found at Nsukka. We can be sure that that the Igbo have been in this region long before that time. Linguistic studies have proven Igbo language to much older than the Hebrew which according to Bible chronology would be no earlier than 2,000 BCE.
LINGUISTIC ORIGINS OF THE IGBO LANGUAGE
The April 14, 2011 edition of the New York Times featured a story on the research of Quentin D. Atkinson, a biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who has proposed a West African origin of human languages. The conclusion reached by the Atkinson research team that language originated in the Western part of Sub-Saharan Africa supports Catherine Acholonu’s thesis of an Igbo origin of languages because Igbo language is based in the Western part of Sub-Saharan Africa. She has also demonstrated in her work as a professional linguist of the Igbo roots of the Canaanite linguistic family commonly referred to as “paleo-Hebrew” which is the mother of Hebrew language and culture:
“Kwa is the language family to which Igbo, Benin, Ashanti, Yoruba and a number of other Niger-Congo languages belong. We have argued in The Lost Testament that Igbo has shown itself to be the Proto-Kwa language. Evidence continues to demonstrate that Igbo is not a child of the Niger-Congo, but its mother. Chadian migration of Australopithecus to Igboland may account for Igbo being humanity’s oldest mother- tongue and for its being related to Chadic. See the work of French Professor of Paleontology, Michel Brunet on excavations of fossil remains of Australopithecus (direct ancestor of Homo Erectus) in the Chad-Nigeria Basin.”29
It is a matter of spiritual awareness or spiritual maturity that is at issue here. That the colonizer has convinced us that we need to abandon our spirituality for his is “cultural hijacking”. The only Igbo “mature enough to analyze and make their own decisions” between our indigenous culture and foreign culture are those who have been EDUCATED and debriefed about them instead of INDOCTRINATED into them. When one knows only the education and indoctrination of colonial missionized schools or is a product of that system of education, the freedom to “analyze” has been neutralized at best and “hijacked” at worst. Igbo tradition is not Jewish tradition. Jewish tradition is Igbo tradition. Igbos do not come from Jews. Jews come from Igbos. What scholars find as “Jewish” in Igbo culture is ORIGINAL to Igbo culture. Igbo Afa metaphysics is the source of all text based religious traditions including Judaism, Islam, Christianity and every spiritual system on the planet. Igbo tradition is not written down in a text originating in the 5th century BCE with Ezra and his scribes. Ezra and his scribes are not the ancestors of the Igbo. Neither are their ancestors OUR ancestors. Our tradition is in the ancient indigenous oral tradition of Afa/Ife and Igbo cosmology and spirituality. Our knowledge and tradition is to be found in our own oral traditions as revealed in the scholars of Igbo oral tradition and the initiated society of our Nze elders. It is not to be found in the state of Israel or Ashkenazi Jewish heritage or scholarship. This preoccupation of adopting (copying) Israeli Jewish tradition and wanting to become anything (Christian, Jewish, Moslem) but who we truly are is a denial of our ancestral heritage as revealed in our very DNA. This preoccupation is side tracking if not hijacking the Igbo from their true calling and destiny of their birthright as the initiators, inheritors, and heralders of a new African
The April 14, 2011 edition of the New York Times featured a story on the research of Quentin D. Atkinson, a biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand who has proposed a West African origin of human languages. The conclusion reached by the Atkinson research team that language originated in the Western part of Sub-Saharan Africa supports Catherine Acholonu’s thesis of an Igbo origin of languages because Igbo language is based in the Western part of Sub-Saharan Africa. She has also demonstrated in her work as a professional linguist of the Igbo roots of the Canaanite linguistic family commonly referred to as “paleo-Hebrew” which is the mother of Hebrew language and culture:
“Kwa is the language family to which Igbo, Benin, Ashanti, Yoruba and a number of other Niger-Congo languages belong. We have argued in The Lost Testament that Igbo has shown itself to be the Proto-Kwa language. Evidence continues to demonstrate that Igbo is not a child of the Niger-Congo, but its mother. Chadian migration of Australopithecus to Igboland may account for Igbo being humanity’s oldest mother- tongue and for its being related to Chadic. See the work of French Professor of Paleontology, Michel Brunet on excavations of fossil remains of Australopithecus (direct ancestor of Homo Erectus) in the Chad-Nigeria Basin.”29
It is a matter of spiritual awareness or spiritual maturity that is at issue here. That the colonizer has convinced us that we need to abandon our spirituality for his is “cultural hijacking”. The only Igbo “mature enough to analyze and make their own decisions” between our indigenous culture and foreign culture are those who have been EDUCATED and debriefed about them instead of INDOCTRINATED into them. When one knows only the education and indoctrination of colonial missionized schools or is a product of that system of education, the freedom to “analyze” has been neutralized at best and “hijacked” at worst. Igbo tradition is not Jewish tradition. Jewish tradition is Igbo tradition. Igbos do not come from Jews. Jews come from Igbos. What scholars find as “Jewish” in Igbo culture is ORIGINAL to Igbo culture. Igbo Afa metaphysics is the source of all text based religious traditions including Judaism, Islam, Christianity and every spiritual system on the planet. Igbo tradition is not written down in a text originating in the 5th century BCE with Ezra and his scribes. Ezra and his scribes are not the ancestors of the Igbo. Neither are their ancestors OUR ancestors. Our tradition is in the ancient indigenous oral tradition of Afa/Ife and Igbo cosmology and spirituality. Our knowledge and tradition is to be found in our own oral traditions as revealed in the scholars of Igbo oral tradition and the initiated society of our Nze elders. It is not to be found in the state of Israel or Ashkenazi Jewish heritage or scholarship. This preoccupation of adopting (copying) Israeli Jewish tradition and wanting to become anything (Christian, Jewish, Moslem) but who we truly are is a denial of our ancestral heritage as revealed in our very DNA. This preoccupation is side tracking if not hijacking the Igbo from their true calling and destiny of their birthright as the initiators, inheritors, and heralders of a new African