Berber people

“ Yet in one great point, like the Arabs, the Riffi, in common with the Berber race, lacks the power of cohesion and the spirit of patriotism, which should have welded all Berbers into one powerful people. ”

“ The governor of Berber, which consists of four villages, is called the mek, and is nominated by the king of Sennaar. He, however, exercises a feeble authority over the Arabs. The people of Berber are a handsome race. The men are taller, larger-limbed, and stronger than the Egyptians, and red-brown in colour. The features are not those of the negro, the face being oval, and the nose perfectly Grecian. They say, "We are Arabs, not negroes." The practice of drunkenness and debauchery is universal, and everything discreditable to humanity is found in their character. ”

“ Berber (8) , a town in Nubia, on the Nile, occupied by the English; starting-point of caravans for the Red Sea; railway was begun to Suakim, but abandoned.
Ber`berah, the seaport of Somaliland, under Britain, with an annual fair that brings together at times as many as 30,000 people.
Berbers (3,000) , a race aboriginal to Barbary and N. Africa, of a proud and unruly temper; though different from the Arab race, are of the same religion.
Berbice, the eastern division of British Guiana; produces sugar, cocoa, and timber.
Berbrugger, a French archæologist and philologist ”

“ Immediately a ksor is besieged the women and children are allowed to pass out untouched, and are even helped on their way to safe quarters by the enemy. In many cases of this sort strange incongruities are found amongst the Berber people. ”

“ Almost all the people of Berber, who are cultivators, employ the time not required by their fields, in commercial transactions; the place has thus become a principal mart for the southern trade, and the more so, as all the caravans from Sennaar and Shendy to Egypt necessarily pass here. Berber itself carries on trade with Egypt, and many small caravans load and depart from hence, without waiting for supplies from the southern markets. Almost every article of the Negro trade, including slaves, may be purchased at Berber, from fifteen to twenty per cent. ”

“ The poorest Berber has as great a voice in affairs as the richest. The undue power of the Jemáa is checked by vendetta and a sort of lynch law, and by the formation of parties (sofs) , within or without the assembly, for trade, political and other purposes. The Berbers are a warlike people who have never been completely subjugated. Every boy as soon as he reaches sixteen is brought into the Jemáa and given weapons which he carries till he is sixty. ”

“ Roughly speaking, therefore, it can be said that the groups of pure Berbers are located in the high mountains, in the Mzab and in the Hoggar; that the Berber influence is predominant among the people who inhabit the country immediately south of Algiers, as far as the southern slopes of the Atlas, the department of Constantine, and an arm of the southern territories running from Biskra down to Ouargla and the great belt of desert running right across the Sahara from the Atlantic to Tripoli on a latitude just south of El Golea. ”

“ The aborigines of the Canary Islands, the Guanches, would seem almost certainly, from the remains of their language, to have been Berbers. But the problem of the actual origin of the Berber race has not yet been solved. Perhaps the most satisfactory theory is that of Sergi, who includes the Berbers in the “Mediterranean Race.” General L. L. C. Faidherbe regards them as indigenous Libyans mingled with a fair-skinned people of European origin. ”

“ They started to walk up the Avenue, stopping at the hotel to find in the telephone book the number of the Berber establishment. It was entered, “Berber, Felicity, Creator of Raiment.”
“How affected!” laughed Mary.
“Yes,” said Stefan, “amusing people usually are.” ”

“ These Berber peoples seem to be allied to the ancient Egyptians. The whole of North Africa and Southern Europe may have even been peopled from one ethnical source in prehistoric times, the populations, like the animal and vegetable species, thus radiating from a common centre. The oases and upland valleys in the Sahara have also been occupied by the Berbers, some of whose tribes, designated by the name of "Moors," dwell even south of the desert along the right bank of the Senegal. ”

“ As it is an axiom of modern etymology to ignore any statements which cannot be squared with historical documents it is hardly a matter of surprise that Col. MacPherson’s statements have hitherto received no consideration. But apart from the fact that certain Berber tribes still speak Gaelic, the Berbers are a highly interesting people: they extend all over the North of Africa, and the country between Upper Egypt and Abyssinia is known as Barbara or Barba. ”

“ It was evident that the pasha meditated a formidable irruption into the Ansáry mountains; and the command was given to Mustafa Aga Berber, as governor of their district, and as, moreover, a brave officer, fit to cope with these mountaineers. The Ansárys are that people who, during the crusades, furnished those assassins who devoted themselves to certain death for the sake of destroying the enemies of their faith. The reader will recollect the old man of the mountain and all the traditions connected with that mysterious person, and he will then know those whom Berber was to attack. ”

“ Old men among our people have received and guarded the most proven magic recipes to cure the sick, and here poets come to write their tomes of verse."
For a long time the young Berber held our attention with innumerable stories of the place, as he guided us about through the town, where we noticed a Koran school with some of the Roman columns from Volubilis incorporated in its walls, were shown a fountain with miraculous healing powers and were led through the market and through dark, mysterious passageways under the houses. ”

“ They never cut the hair, I believe; it consequently forms an immense bunch behind the head, similar to that observable in some of the ancient statues of Egypt.34 The barbarous practice of excision is universally performed upon all their females, whether free or slaves; as is the case also among all the tribes inhabiting the banks of the Nile above Assuan.
The people of Berber are, in their exterior deportment, mild and polite. ”

“ The people were of a darker color than those they had seen farther down the river. Three-fourths of them were Nubians and Ethiopians of various tribes and kinds, and the remainder included Arabs from the desert, soldiers from Cairo and Alexandria, a few Copts and native Egyptians, and a small number of individuals whom it was very difficult to classify. Berber is the centre of a considerable trade with the Lower Nile and the coast of the Red Sea on one hand, and the Upper Nile and Central Africa on the other ”

“ It was not until men such as the archæologist Tissot and the well-known Duveyrier had broken the ground, and in later years the famous anthropologists, Doctors Collignon and Bertholon, had succeeded in throwing light on the native languages, that a way was opened which led to a correct solution of the origin of the Berber peoples, and their division into groups. ”

“ Their rise has been termed, not inaptly, a renaissance of the Berber race power, as, indeed, the entire history of the Berbers was a series of explosions of national force, succeeding each other in one or another place at long intervals, but impotent to found a permanent political state. ”

“ The Berber element, while abhorred by the Arabs, had yet so permeated the society of the Peninsula that every department of government, every rank and profession of men, had been infected with its poison. ”

“ At present the proportion of Berbers is estimated at about two-thirds of the whole population, and especially in the highland districts, remote from the town and seaboard, they form the almost exclusive element At the same time this general expression, Berber, applied collectively to all the inhabitants not of distinctly Semitic or Negro descent, by no means implies a community of origin. ”

“ On the other hand, those who clearly recog- nise the great contrast between the two races, might easily fall into the opposite error of regarding all the non-Arab elements as forming a single ethnical group usuall}' known by the name of Berbers. But these also present different types, and a closer inspection soon shows that many peoples of diverse origin have con- tributed to form the so-called Berber population. ”

“ The Berbers are the aborigines of Morocco, and live more [13] or less in the hills and mountains, into which they were driven by the Arabs in the seventh century, when they overran Morocco. The Arabs, on the other hand, live in the plains; and Arabs and Berbers practically halve the country between them. Both peoples divide into numerous tribes, of which the men from the Riff are a Berber tribe. The negroes in Morocco are merely slaves imported from the south. One and all the Arab and Berber tribes are called indiscriminately by Europeans "Moors." ”

“ The invaders who have most affected the Berber race are the Arabs, but the two races, with a common religion, often a common government, with the same tribal groupings, have failed to amalgamate to any great extent. This fact has been emphasized by Dr R. G. Latham, who writes: “All that is not Arabic in the kingdom of Morocco, all that is not Arabic in the French provinces of Algeria, and all that is not Arabic in Tunis, Tripoli and Fezzan, is Berber.” The explanation lies in a profound distinction of character. The Arab is a herdsman and a nomad; the Berber is an agriculturist and a townsman. ”

“ The Berbers, short, squat figures, high cheekbones, small eyes, square frames, great walkers, only becoming horsemen by necessity, as when the Arabs have forced them to the desert; as fond of mountains as the Arabs are of plains; in general agriculturists, whereas the Arab in his true sphere prefers a pastoral life; the Berbers, little known outside their mountains, look rather Scottish in appearance, that is, Scotch as ordinary mortals see that race, and not as seen through “kailyard” spectacles. ”

“ All these peoples are thought to belong to one great human type, which we may call Berber, and of which numerous representatives still exist. Anterior to all Asiatic migration, and from the time of the stone age, this race seems to have occupied the south of Gaul and Spain, the Canary Isles, and Northern Africa. At the present day the most important epigonic groups of the Berber race are the Kabyles and the Touaregs of the Sahara. ”

“ The caravan route to the Red Sea was superseded in 1906 by a railway, which leaves the Wadi Halfa-Khartum line at the mouth of the Atbara. Berber thus lost the Red Sea trade. It remains the centre and market-place for the produce of the Nile valley for a considerable distance. East of the town is an immense plain, which, if irrigated, would yield abundant crops.
Berber, or El Mekerif, is a town of considerable antiquity. Before its conquest by the Egyptians in 1820 its ruler owed allegiance to the kings of Sennar. ”

“ Still waiting for the messenger, I fall to observing the difference between the Arabs and the Berber race. It is the fashion amongst travellers in Morocco and Algeria to exalt the Berbers, and run down the Arabs. “The noble Shillah race” has become quite a catch-word with every one who sees a Berber and writes down his impressions. Curious that no one talks of the noble “Tuareg race,” yet the Tuareg’s are Berber of the Berbers, and their language, known as Tamashek, merely a dialect of the Berber p. ”

“ Under the name of Berbers are included populations varying very much in type and manners and customs, speaking either Arabic (Semitic language) or Berberese (Hamitic language) . Three-fourths of the “Arabs” of Northern Africa are only Berbers speaking Arabic, and are the more “Arabised” in regard to manners and customs as they are nearer to Asia. The nomads of the Libyan desert and Tripoli have preserved fairly well the Berber type, but they have become Arabs in language and usages. In Tunis and Algeria the Arab influence is still very much felt in the south; in Morocco it is very trifling. ”

“ In its collective industry the Berber race is far superior to the Arab. The Berbers are keen traders too, and, after the harvest, hawk small goods, travelling great distances.
A Berber woman has in many ways a better position than her Arab sister. True, her birth is regarded as an event of no moment, while that of a boy is celebrated by great rejoicings, and his mother acquires the right to wear on her forehead the tafzint, a mark which only the women who Women.have borne an heir can assume. Her husband buys and can dismiss her at will. ”

“ In 1885 the Arabs and Berbers appear to have been six times more numerous than the European immigrants, the Berbers alone representing probably one-half of the total population. They also receive some increase through immigration, the labourers from Marocco being for the most part of Kabyle or Shellala race. By crossing with the natives, the Negroes also contribute to strengthen the Berber element, for they are settled chiefly amongst the Ruaghas of the Saharian districts. ”

“ All sorts of material obstacles have hitherto hampered the study of Berber origins, but it seems clear that from the earliest historic times they were a mixed race, and the ethnologist who attempts to define them is faced by the same problem as the historian of modern America who should try to find the racial definition of an "American." ”

“ Young Berber, however, seemed hardly to have heard her; he stood there, the "Gargoyle" look still in his eyes, gazing past his mistress into some surrounding mystery of air element. It was to her, watching him, as if those brooding, dilated pupils might behold, besides infinitesimal mystery of chemical atoms, other mysteries—colorless pools of air where swam, like sea anemones, radiant forms of released spirit; invisible life-trees trembling with luminous fruit of occult being!
When Berber turned this look, naked as a sword, back to Evelyn Strang, she involuntarily shivered. ”