The author of this book, George Robert Gayre of Gayre
and Nigg, was a British anthropologist, archeologist and expert on heraldry. He
was also the founder of Mankind Quarterly, a journal often accused of
“scientific” racism. Gayre of Gayre's book “The Origin of the Zimbabwean
Civilisation” was published in Rhodesia under Ian Smith's White minority
regime. It does contain interesting speculations, some of which have been
confirmed by recent DNA studies. However, Gayre's work is also marred by a
rather obvious anti-Black racism.
Ancient Zimbabwe was a mysterious high culture which disappeared shortly before
the first Europeans arrived in southern Africa. Only its magnificent ruins are
left, including those of its presumed capital, Great Zimbabwe. The territory of
ancient Zimbabwe was roughly coterminous with the entity later known as
Southern Rhodesia or Rhodesia. Speculations about ancient Zimbabwe's origins
and downfall abound. They are often politically and racially charged. When Ian
Smith's racist regime ruled Rhodesia, the most popular theory claimed that
Zimbabwe wasn't the work of Black Africans, but of non-Black foreigners. White
colonialists, perhaps? When Smith's regime fell, the new Black government of
Robert Mugabe renamed the country “Zimbabwe” after the ancient high culture.
The favored theory under Mugabe, which is also the favored theory in archeology
at large, is that ancient Zimbabwe was the creation of Blacks, more
specifically “proto-Shona” ancestors of the Shona, the dominant ethnic group in
modern Zimbabwe. The iconic “Zimbabwe Bird” found in the ruins of Great
Zimbabwe was/is used as a national symbol by both Ian Smith's Rhodesia and
Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that R Gayre of Gayre and Nigg supports
a version of the White supremacist theory of ancient Zimbabwean origins. In his
scenario, White Semites – more specifically Judaizing Arabs from Sheba (Yemen)
- journeyed to southern Africa after their kingdom had been overrun by
Christian Ethiopians in the 6th century AD. Eventually, they established the
civilization of Zimbabwe and mined gold for export by enslaving the “Bantu” and
the “Hottentots”. During the period we would call the Late Middle Ages, the
area of Zimbabwe was conquered by the Bantu, which led to the decline and
destruction of the Semitic high culture. The surviving White Zimbabweans were
“Bantuized” by “miscegenation” with Black Africans, and eventually evolved into
the Lemba people, which still inhabit areas in South Africa and modern
Zimbabwe. The Lemba are a “Negroid-Caucasoid cross”. The neighboring Venda
probably also have some Semitic blood, but less than the Lemba, being their
ancient allies but not directly related to the builders of Zimbabwe. The idea
that the Bantu could have created something as magnificent as Great Zimbabwe is
simply unthinkable to Gayre, who claims that the Bantu have always been
primitive, unless forced to civilize by the whips of slave-masters, etc. I
think it's obvious that the founder of Mankind Quarterly is running the errands
of Ian Smith & Co. For “Bantu”, read ZANU and ZAPU. For “ancient Zimbabwe”,
read modern Rhodesia. The point of the pro-slavery references is Über-obvious…
Gayre emphasizes that many non-Bantu African peoples are Hamitic or Semitic.
Note that Hamites and Semites alongside Indo-Europeans are “Caucasoid”
according to classical racial typology. Gayre believes that all advanced
cultures in Africa were the work of Caucasoids! The author strongly suggests
that the original Caucasoids were White “Aryans”. He habitually refers to
Arabs, Jews and ancient Egyptians as “White”. In effect, they were off-shots of
the Aryans. In Gayre's speculative recreation of ancient history, the
primordial White civilization was Aryan and had its center in Europe, where it
was represented by the Neolithic megalith builders. This megalithic culture
also spanned North Africa and the Middle East. It was patriarchal and
worshipped the fallos, symbolized by the megaliths. In ancient Egypt,
Mesopotamia and India, this patriarchal culture was combined with a less
advanced matriarchal stream to a syncretic culture with both fallic worship and
mother-goddesses (most notably Ishtar). Ancient Zimbabwe is a later derivative
of this compromise culture. As for the Bantu, Gayre believes that they were
extremely primitive and matriarchal, and didn't even understand the role of the
father in the reproductive process! Needless to say, most of the author's
speculations are considered fringey or even beyond the pale by today's
standards.
Due to the racialist character of “The Origins of the Zimbabwean Civilisation”,
it's somewhat difficult to give the White Devil his due, but Mr Gayre's work
does contain interesting information and, yes, intriguing speculations.
Ironically, I suspect that his main point – the “foreign” character of ancient
Zimbabwe – might be true! The idea that the Lemba, a Black people with some
“Jewish” traditions, are descended from actual Jews, sounded crazy until recent
DNA research. If anything, it seems that Gayre on *this* point didn't go far
enough. The Lemba, or at least their most important clan, are descended from
the original Jews in “Palestine”, rather than being Yemeni Arab converts to
Judaism. Since this confirms Lemba oral tradition (which also mentions stays in
Yemen and East Africa), one does wonder what other part of their tradition may
be true? The Lemba claim that their ancestors built Great Zimbabwe. Later, they
built a smaller walled city in South Africa. Conversely, the Bantu interviewed
by Portuguese explorers during the colonial period claimed that their ancestors
*didn't* build Great Zimbabwe. Apart from various surviving Jewish customs
(including kosher dietary laws and male circumcision), the Lemba have also been
gold-smiths, suggesting a connection to the gold-mining culture at Zimbabwe. Of
course, even Gayre has to admit that the Lemba look more Black than Semitic,
but explains this by gradual “Bantuization”. Lemba tradition claims that only
the males are descended from Jews, while the females are native to southern
Africa.
Another intriguing point raised by the author is that of possible Egyptian
influence on both ancient Zimbabwe and the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. In the
author's scenario, the Egyptians are (no surprise) White, but a more reasonable
position is to see them as “people of color”, perhaps even as Black Africans.
The similarities between the famous Zimbabwe Bird and the Horus falcon are
obvious, and it's also interesting that the symbols on its pedestals can be
found in the Neolithic megalithic cultures. To me, this suggests that Egypt and
the culture of “Old Europe” was part of the same *matriarchal* complex, and it
also raises interesting questions about what “racial type” these peoples may
have belonged to, since the Indo-Europeans didn't enter Europe until much
later. We know that Egypt influenced both the Biblical Israelites and the
Nubians. Gayre believes that most of sub-Saharan Africa was influenced by
Egyptian culture. If so, the iconic bird sculpture could have reached Zimbabwe
both by a Semitic sea route and an African land route. It's almost as if Gayre
is right, despite being wrong! He seems to have stumbled on the truth, but
interpreted it completely backwards, according to his patriarchalist-racist
presuppositions…
I'm not claiming that Zimbabwe was “matriarchal” or “Egyptian”, nor that it was
“Jewish” in the narrow sense (Jews, of course, being patriarchal). However,
both the symbols used by this culture and the oral traditions of its putative
descendants raise a lot of questions (not to mention eye-brows). My guess,
without being a scholarly expert on African archaeology, is that Zimbabwe was a
product of a Jewish-Arab culture whose members intermarried with the local
Blacks and used some ancient Egyptian symbols. There is nothing inherently
strange with such a proposition. There have been Phoenician, Arab, Persian and
Indian merchants or settlers in East Africa since time immemorial. Gayre's book
contains a whole chapter on such contacts. The island of Madagascar was settled
by sea-farers from far-away Indonesia. The more permanent settlers along the
African coast would have intermarried with locals. Thus, the migration of the
Lemba from Yemen to Zimbabwe fits a broader context. It's not as strange as it
may seem at first glance. Rather, it's something we almost should expect! That
Zimbabwe was a more “advanced” culture than most was probably due to its gold
mines. The Egyptian survivals need not surprise us either, for reasons already
mentioned.
In the end, I give “The Origin of the Zimbabwean Civilisation” by R Gayre of
Gayre three stars. One
star off for the Rhodesian thing!
