Cushites, Colchians, and Khazars Author(s): Patrick T. English ...

Cushites, Colchians, and KhazarsAuthor(s): Patrick T. EnglishSource: Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Jan., 1959), pp. 49-53Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/543940Accessed: 02/04/2010 07:41Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available athttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ucpress.Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journalof Near Eastern Studies.http://www.jstor.org

CUSHITES, COLCHIANS, AND KHAZARSPATRICK T. ENGLISHWT HEN Herodotus visited Colchis(Mingrelia) in the fifth centuryB.C.,1 he found its people to be,as he described them, black-skinned andwoolly-haired-that is, seemingly, ofNegro type. They were, he says, circumcised."The Colchians, the Egyptians, andthe Ethiopians," he remarks, "are theonly races which from ancient times havepractised circumcision. The Phoeniciansand the Syrians of Palestine" (i.e., theJews) "themselves admit that theyadopted the practice from Egypt ...."He noted that the Colchians wove linen(a main export of their country) in thesame way as the Egyptians and differentlyfrom all other peoples. After making inquiriesboth in Colchis and Egypt aboutColchian origins, he came to the conclusionthat the legendary Egyptian worldconquerorSesostris must have left part ofhis army on the river Phasis as he wasreturning from what is now South Russia.How and Wells2 try to discreditHerodotus' statement by suggesting thathe only called the Colchians "black" becausehe thought of them as Egyptiansand that his ideas of Egyptian appearancewere confused by the many Negro slavesseen by him in Memphis. Herodotus,however, records nothing as to his havingseen a single Negro slave in Egypt,whereas he was constantly in conversationwith priests who presumably were typicalEgyptians of Mediterranean race. SinceHerodotus (noted as a meticulously carefulobserver) says that the Colchians wereblack and woolly-haired, there seems to beno reason for supposing that they were1 Histories ii. 104.2 A Commentary on Herodotus, I, 218.49otherwise. How and Wells quote Herodotus'account3 of the origin of theDodona shrine as evidence that he thoughtof Egyptians as black; what he says,though, is not that Egyptians are blackbut that the oral tradition of the priestessesmight have changed "Egyptianwomen" into "black doves."Near Sukhumi in Abkhazia, in almostthe same district where Herodotus talkedto the black-skinned and woolly-hairedColchians some twenty-two centuriesago, John Gunther4 noted the existence ofa small Negro community; he was toldthat its members were descended fromslaves imported from Africa many centuriesago by Georgian princes. The samecommunity was noted by Corliss Lamont5;he was told that its members weredescended from slaves imported fromAfrica more than a century ago by Turkishlandowners-and, in this connection,he mentions Sukhumi's active slave-tradein former times. J. Malte-Brun, however,mentions Sukhum's slave-trade as an exportone, in local inhabitants-especiallyCircassian girls for shipment to Constantinople;he describes Abkhazia as alawless land of continual slave-raiding bylocal chiefs.6 Even if Georgian princes orTurkish landowners were ever settled inAbkhazia, it seems unlikely that theywould go to the trouble and expense ofbringing "coals to Newcastle" by importingslaves from Africa in sufficient numbersto form an enduring community.The "explanations" given for the origin3 Histories ii. 57.4"Russia's Riviera," Harper's Magazine, October1957.5 Peoples of the Soviet Union (1946), p. 73.6System of Geography (American ed., 1834), p. 227.

50JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIESof this community might well be on a parwith the "explanation" formerly given forthe Andaman Islands Negritos-that theywere descended from the cargo of anAfrican slave-ship that had once beenwiecked there.This in Abkhazia is (so far as I know)the only Negro community in the OldWorld outside of Africa and the coastlandsof the Indian Ocean. It would certainlybe a great coincidence that itshould be located within a few miles ofthe Negro community that Herodotusvisited, if there is no connection betweenthem. That the Abkhazian Negroes are asurviving remnant of the ancient Colchiansseems to be a valid hypothesis.The dolichocephaly of the Abkhaziansin general is noted both by Malte-Brun7and by W. E. D. Allen and Paul Muratoff8;the latter authors remark that"negrito types have been seen." Longskulls seem as anomalous in these lands ofbroad-skulled "Alpine" peoples as broadskulls would be in Africa.If the Colchians were ultimately ofAfrican origin, then how, when, and whydid their ancestors reach the southernslopes of the western Caucasus? The distanceis great but is less than the distancebetween the Tokhari in Sinkiang and theirlinguistic cousins the Celts of westernEurope.With the name "Abkhaz" we may putthe "Bzyb" dialect of the Abkhazian language,9the "Basians,"10 and also the"Basilians" (or "Barsilians"), "B-n-j-r"and "Balanjar"ll north of the Caucasus;there seem to be many ethnic names inthis region beginning with Ba- (Ab- or B-).p. 93.Op. cit.8 Caucasian Battlefields, p. 14.9 W . K. Matthew, Languages of the Soviet Union,'0 Malte-Brun, op. cit., p. 230.1i D. M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars(Princeton University Press, 1954).If there is a tropical African element in thepopulation, there might be a possibleconnection with the Bantu ethnic prefixAba- (Ba-), the plural prefix for the grammaticalclass of human beings. We donot know that the people whom theGreeks called Colchoi called themselvesby that name; it is conceivable that theycalled themselves Aba-Khaz-and thatthe modern country of Abkhaz (in thatcase) took its name from them. If so, thesyllable "Khaz" is the root or real nameof the Abkhazian people and country, aswith (e.g.) Ba-Ganda and Bu-Ganda inAfrica. The use of quasi-Bantu grammaticalclasses is a feature of some EastCaucasus languages.'2The warlike and powerful "barbarians"of Kash (Kashka), northeast of theHittite empire, were dangerous neighborsto the rulers of Hattusas in the secondmillennium B.C. Genesis 10:8-12 connects"Cush" with the origin of the Assyrians;this is more likely to have been Kash inAsia Minor, across the mountains fromAssyria, than the far-off Kash (Cush) onthe Upper Nile. The identity of name,though, suggests a connection betweenthe two countries, while on the other side"Kash" has a resemblance to "Khaz" thatsuggests a connection between the Hittitekings' enemies, the modern Abkhaz and(hypothetically) Herodotus' Colchians.Between Ethiopia (Kash) northeastof Khatti and Ethiopia (Kash) south ofEgypt the Greeks located the legend ofAndromeda at Joppa. She was describedas the daughter of Cepheus and Cassiopeia,king and queen of the Ethiopiansin Palestine. Among the pre-Israelite inhabitantsof Palestine were giants (Anakim)--andthe Nilotic Negroes and blackHamites of northeast Africa are amongthe world's tallest peoples. Possibly itmight not be too far-fetched to connect12 Matthew, op. cit.

CUSHITES, COLCHIANS, AND KHAZARSthe (tribal) name of "Anak" with the"Anuak" tribe of Nilotes in the Sudan.At the end of the Old Kingdom, Egyptwas invaded by barbarians from the south.It has been believed13 that these wereNegroes and that there was Negro bloodin the great Pharaohs of the Middle Kingdom(Dynasty XII). Later authoritiesstate that the "C People" who came intoNubia about this time were of Mediterraneanrace, as were their predecessorsthe "A People."'4 However, there mustcertainly have been Negro peoples southof Nubia; in Nubia itself there may havebeen remnants of its original Negro inhabitants.The arrival of non-Negro settlersabout the twenty-second centuryB.C. in the northernmost district of theMiddle Nile region hardly disproves thepossibility that Negro tribesmen mayhave moved northward down the NileValley in the same period of folk-wandering.If so, some of these warlike invadersmay have passed on northward beyondEgypt and (after leaving some of theirnumber to become a ruling people inPalestine) reached the highlands of Cappadociabefore the arrival of the Indo-European Hittites. Such a march couldhave been the origin of the legend ofSesostris-whose name was borne byPharaohs of the Middle Kingdom. InCappadocia the proto-Hittite or Hattianlanguage'5 made great grammatical useof prefixes; this might possibly show influencefrom Bantu Africa. The name, too-Pamba-of the king of Khatti whofought Naram-Sin of Akkad, while itcannot be claimed as evidence, has anAfrican sound (cf. pombe, the bananabeerof Uganda, and the island of Pemba).13 H. R. Hall, Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. I,chap. VII, iii.14 A. J. Arkell, A History of the Sudan to A.D. 1821,p. 46.15 0. R. Gurney, The Hittites (1952), p. 122.Another Ethiopian in Greek legendthejet-black prince Memnon-is describedas "handsomest of the men whofought at Troy"; the modern Nilotes, suchas the Shilluk and Dinka, have beenclassed among the handsomest of theworld's peoples. He came to the aid of theTrojans, with his Ethiopian army, notfrom the south-the direction of far-offEthiopia on the Nile-but from the east,where Pontic Kash lay less than sixhundred miles away, only a fraction of histraditional route from Nubia via Elam,Babylon, and Armenia. His mother waseither the dawn-goddess (emphasizing hiseastern origin) or Cissia (Kissia), whichcould well be a form of the name "Kash."His father was Tithonos, whose name, ithas been suggested,l6 is probably a formof the name Dedun of the great god ofCush on the Nile; he could have been thegod of Cush on the Halys also. "Dedun"is almost identical with "Dodona," andthe "Egyptian women" or "black doves"who founded the Dodona oracle mayhave come not from Egypt but fromMemnon's Kash, and so may have beenactually black.Nonnosl7 locates the first battle betweenthe followers of Dionysos (who arespecified as Lydians) and the "Indians"(who are repeatedly specified as being ofNegro type, black-skinned and woollyhaired)at a definite spot in western AsiaMinor-the mouth of the Astacid Lakein Ascania, not far from Troy-a placehaving no conceivable connection withIndia. Nonnos, notorious as a plagiarist,may well have taken this from Xanthos'now-lost History of Lydia. Xanthos mayhave written of a real battle betweenLydians (possibly under their prophetleaderMopsos, shortly before the TrojanWar) and Negro warriors such as those5116 J. Forsdyke, Greece before Homer, p. 101.17 Dionysiaca xiv. 247-410.

52who fought soon after, in the sameregion, under Memnon.Across the Caucasus from Colchis andAbkhazia the Khazar people ruled a wideempire between the sixth and eleventhcenturies A D. The Arab geographer Istakhri,describing them, remarks that asection of the Khazars were brown or evenblack of skin "as if they were a kind ofIndians."'8 The nearest regions of India,however, are as far from Khazaria as fromLydia, and are inhabited by comparativelyfair-skinned peoples, whereas Herodotus'black Colchians were, and theAbkhazian Negroes are, just across themountains that were the southern defenseof Khazaria's border. It is much easier toimagine that these black Khazars hadmoved over the Caucasus passes ratherthan from India on a two-thousand-milesroute over mountains and deserts andthrough organized kingdoms. The veryname of the Khazars might well be derivedfrom "Khaz" (if that was the rootname of the Colcho-Abkhazians) and ultimatelyfrom "Kash."The Khazars had a double kingship-asecluded sacred ruler under the Turkishtitle of Khaqan and a secular ruler andwar-leader under the Turkish title of Beg.The Abasgoi (as the Greeks called theAbkhazians) had two kings19; one wassaid to rule the east and one the west, butthey are mentioned as a pair rather thanas two independent sovereigns. The institutionof a secluded sacred king seemsmore African than Asian; besides earlyEgypt, where "the God" was contrastedwith "the Man,"20 there are instances inWest Africa at Shark Point, Fernando Po,Benin, Loango, Onitsha, and elsewhere.21Strabo22 mentions it in Ethiopia. Among18 Dunlop, op. cit., p. 96.19 Procopius Wars VIII. iii. 10-21.20 H. R. Hall, op. cit., p. 268.21 James Frazer, The Golden Bough, III, 123-24.JOURNAL OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIESthe Mosynoeci of Pontus, in the ancientAnatolian Kash, the same is recorded byXenophon23 and others.24 Nilote-Negrokings were not allowed to go out tobattle.25The Khazars were believed to beproselytes to Judaism, but accounts arefew and conflicting as to when or howthey were converted. One of these accounts,in the so-called Letter of Hasdaistates that. . . our fathers have told us that in the beginningof their (or your) settlement the placewas called Mount Seir, but my lord knowsthat Mount Seir is far from the place where helives. Our elders say that formerly it was calledMount Seir, but persecutions prevailed, andthey went out from affliction to affliction, tillthey got possession of the land where they nowdwell. Also the old men of the former generationwho can be relied on have told us howon account of their faithlessness a persecutionwas decreed, and an army of Chaldaeans roseup in anger and wrath. They hid the Booksof the Law and the Holy Scriptures in a cave,and for this reason they prayed in the cave.On account of the books they taught theirsons to pray in the cave morning and evening,till the times were lengthened and they forgotand no longer knew about the cave, why theywere accustomed to pray therein. But theypractised the customs of their fathers withoutknowing why. After a long time there arose aman of Israel who was eager to know why. Heentered the cave, found it full of books andbrought them out from there. From that daythey set themselves to learn the Law. Thushave our fathers told us, as the earlier generationheard, the one from the other. The wholematter is very ancient.26The "Man of Israel," distinguished assuch, seems to stand apart from theKhazar people; he may well have been aJew from outside the Caucasus region,22 VII. ii. 2.23 Anabasis V. iv. 26. 24 Frazer, op. cit.25 Encyclopaedia Britannica, art. "Nilotes."26 Dunlop, op. cit., pp. 166-67.

CUSHITES, COLCHIANS, AND KHAZARSperhaps a refugee. If he found, in Abkhaziaor Khazaria, a circumcised people whosaid that their ancestors had come out ofEgypt, he might well have assumed thatthey were Jews who had forgotten all buta few items of their heritage He mayhave told them so and, challenged forproof, "discovered" the cave and thebooks forthwith-a pious fraud to bringthe wanderers back to the fold.The only reference to outside events inthis account is the mention of the "armyof Chaldaeans." The Hurrians of Urartuhave been called Khaldians; Khaldis wastheir great god. It may be they who aremeant, and the rising of an army ofKhaldians "in anger and wrath" may be areference to the rise of the kingdom ofUrartu (Van) in the ninth century B.C.,which may have forced the Kashkansout of their Anatolian land and northward(before the Cimmerian and Scythianinvasions) to the flanks of Caucasus,where Herodotus met their "Colchian"descendants some four hundred yearslater.Long after Herodotus' time, the inhabitantsof Colchis seem to have beenstill of the same physical type as he foundthere. P. H. Larcher27 states that "St.Jerome and Sophronius, cited by Bochart,28call Colchis the second Ethiopia;27 Notes on Herodotus, Vol. I of the second editionof Cooley's translation (London, 1844), at p. 332.and Sophronius, in his Life of St. Andrew,informs us that towards the mouth of theApsarus,29 and on the banks of the Phasis,there were Ethiopians." Since St. Jeromewrote circa the end of the fourth centuryA.D., and Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem,over two centuries later, it seemsthat this Negro nation in the Caucasusregion remained in being for at least athousand years after Herodotus-and,some three centuries after Sophronius,Istakhri was writing of Black Khazarsnorth of the Caucasus and on the Volga.It may have been in Sophronius' lifetimethat the black Abkhazo-Colchians wereoverwhelmed, for it was about then thatthe Khazar nation and empire (founded,it may be surmised, by Colchian refugees)began its career.The Arabic work Tdj-al-Aris says that,according to some, the Khazars aredescendants of Kash-h, son of Japhet.30This sounds very much like a reference tothe "Kashka" of the Hittites.531729 BOLTON STREETBALTIMORE 17, MARYLAND28 "Geogr. Sacr., iv, xxxi, p. 286."29 Apparently an error or corruption, Apsarusbeing a town at the mouth of the Acampsis river(lower Boas). This, the Coruh Su, the "Phasis" ofProcopius, rising near the sources of the Euphratesand Tigris and of the Jihun (?or Thermodon) which"compasseth the whole land of Kash," may perhapsbe the Pison of Gen. 2:10-14; gold-rich Havilah mightwell be gold-rich Colchis.30 Dunlop, op. cit., p. 13.