ANTIQUITY OF THE RACES OF MEN.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 1, 1 October 1883, Page 15

ANTIQUITY OF THE RACES OF MEN.

(By S. M. Curl, M.D., F.L.S., &c.)

The question of how man first appeared on this earth has engaged the attention of all thinking persons in all ages, and it has been answered by various authorities in different times and places, in several ways. Moses, the liberator of the Hebrews from Egyptian bondage, being himself the adopted son of a daughter of the Egyptian monarch, had access to the archives and traditions of Egypt, and the cities of Babylon, Nineveh, and other countries with which the Egyptians held intercourse. He (Moses) therefore related to his cotemporaries and countrymen what he had learned on this subject, and he placed his first man and woman (Adam and Eve) in a part of Asia near Mesopotamia, from whence the Shemitic races extended themselves by colonization and conquest, and he gave the tradition of Father Ad and the Adamites very much as we now find it upon the Babylonian and Accadian tablets, where it had been written in the arrow-headed characters several hundred years before Moses was born.

We thus learn much of these old Shemites of four thousand years ago, and of how, anterior to this, the cities of Accadia were established, and where, afterwards, Nimrod and Nines built Babylon and Nineveh. In Babylonia and Nineveh these Adamic or Shemitic races came in contact with a Turanian race, and mingled with it, as their languages and personal peculiarities attest, while in the Arabian peninsula we find much purer specimens of the Shemitic people ] and their writings, language, and peculiarities show this in a marked manner, while there are now in existence inscriptions on the rocks of Hadramaut that were engraved 3.400 years ago ; that when they are changed from the ancient Hamyaritic character, can still be read as old Arabic words ; and while recently studying copies of these inscriptions any unfamiliar words could be found in an Arabic Lexicon, and it was curious to discover in some of these inscriptions poems of battles between hostile tribes, the allusions to manufactures, and processes of silk and other cultures, that were then understood and in common use.

The Jews, or Israelites, another of the Shemite tribes, weie a nioie mixed people than Arabs. Their long sojourn in Egypt of 430 years, first as friends and afterwards as slaves, brought about a considerable crossing. And even when they were sent out of Egypt under Moses, they were attended by a mixed multitude as the Sinaitic inscriptions on the rocks of these parts, with even Moses’s signature, attest. And, although the Jewish writers try to deny this, there are too many proofs for any who can read the Eastern tongues; for we know that at first, when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they spoke and wrote a dialect of the Arabic that was used by the Hykshos Kings and people who had established themselves in Lower Egypt, At the time Joseph went to Egypt and lived there, and until they (the Hykshos) were conquered and driven out, a little anterior to the time of Ramoses IT., these Hykshos people spoke this Arabian dialect, and so did their friends and neighbours, the Israelites, for the 430 years they were in Egypt. And so they continued to write and speak in the Sinaitic Peninsula, and on to Palestine, ■where their language gradually changed as they mixed with the Syrian nation j and at last, when they were carried away into captivity into Babylon, and were kept in slavery there for seventy years, then they learned to speak and use the Chaldean tongue, which was afterwards changed into the Hebrew. The Syrian nations were of the Shemitic races, as were several of the other old peoples along these shores of the Mediterranean in Asia. The Phoenicians had a larger proportion of Shemites in their people, but they were not pure Shemites, as we find out from Sanchoniatho and the Greek historians. These trace their history to times before the date of the Noachian deluge, but although they write of events anterior to these dates, they make no mention of this deluge, and thus their historians show that it was of no injury to them. They were the most enterprising of all the early navigatoxs, and their ships not only made long voyages to many distant parts at as early a period as the Trojan war, but they sent a contingent to fight at that war under Kin" 1 hahs, on the side of the Greeks. 8.C., 1056, there was a king reigning in their city of Tyre, named Abihal. He nad a son and successor named Hiram, to whom Solomon applied to help him build his temple. This Hiram agreed to, and sent him both materials and artificers. Hiram was succeeded by his sou Baleazar, thus showing that at that

early date there was a regular succession of monarchs in this country. They invented and used an alphabet, afterwards adopted by other nations ; but as we have taken up so much space with these Shemites we now pass on to an older people of another r ace, the Mongolian ; and thus we next turn our attention to another part of Asia, and find that in the year B.C, 2,205, or 4,088 years ago, the Emperor Yu founded a new dynasty, called Hea, which ruled after this for 438 years. But previous to the coming to the throne of Yu, other dynasties had ruled in China, putting aside as untrustworthy the doubtful or mythological dynasties which date back for thousands of years before the historical evidence is certain and precise. We have the dynasties of Pwankoo, and his six immediate successors, who were consolidating their nation against the neighbouring Tartar people, inventing machines, weaving cloths, building edifices, and making other discoveries and improvements. This continues through subsequent monarchs, until the dynasty of Pwankoo is superseded by that of Fold, during which dynasty the hieroglyphical writings changed into similar characters to those now used by the Chinese. One of this dynasty, Shin-nung, established fairs for the better exchange of goods and merchandise. He also organised the practice of the healing art, but his reign was much disturbed by wars with foreign nations, preventing him thus from accomplishing for his people all that he wished to effect. Civil wars also occupied him, and he was driven from the throne by Hwangte, who succeeded him. This monarch exhibited much ability, encouraging writings, literature, introducing fresh arts, improving arms, chariots, boats, carts, building cities and villages, etc. He was followed by Tekuh, who established schools throughout the Chinese Empire, and did other good works. He was followed by Yaou, and by Shun, who were distinguished by the wise laws and institutions they gave their country j and the jnoral and religious doctrines they promulgated were, 1,656 years afterwards, by Confucius (or Kung Futsse, who died B.C. 552) again reproduced, or brought forward, and enforced —so good did he think them. Without going further into Chinese history, seeing that we have got back to the date b.c. 2,646, we learn by this brief glance that the Chinese nation was well organised, and large in numbers 4,529 years ago, and that on the borders of their country, and stretching away for vast distances, were the Tartar tribes and hordes, known as Kalmucks, Huns, Moguls, Scythiams, Usbegs, Manchaos, Sunganans, Gelaes, Tungaostes, Massagetaes, Turkomanns, and others. All these people, even at that remote date, were so numerous that they were at war with each other, and sending out vast hordes of men to conquer the other nations. Having learned that the Shemite and Mongolian races were numerous nations over four thousand years ago, we now direct our attention to an entirely different race of men, the ancestors of the IndoGermanic races, as they appear to us by their histories written in the Sanscrit, Hind, and other languages, over four thousand years before our times.

From the researches in the ancient literature of India, (which fortunately has been preserved to us in such a large quantity that in the library of the Maharajah in Nepaul, there were to be seen 18,000 distinct works in Sancrit &c.), various Hindoo writers in India, and some European Orientalists, like Max Miiller, Wilford, and others have extracted the Dynasties of the Ancient Kings, their wars, conquests and achievements, and have thus exhibited to us how numerous were the peoples in Hindostan four thousand years ago ; and, further, that the Tartar hordes were even then invading India, for in the reign of Rajah Bahu, who lived 2000 B.C. this King was being defeated in one of his battles with a Scythic invading host, until his son Sagara came to his aid with his agui-astram or firearms, and repelled these barbarians. (To be concluded in our next issue.)