267. Egyptian Radiations
Ancient Egyptian influences have penetrated Africa more significantly than has generally been thought. It is only recently that a beginning has been made in tracing them out in detail in the Nile Sudan. For so intensive a civilization as that of Egypt to exist in juxtaposition to the southeastern Hamitic tribes and the Negroes for five or six thousand years without radiating innumerable elements of culture into their life would be unparalleled. In fact the dynastic Egyptians used materials like ostrich feathers that were imported from far south, and depicted Negroid physical types. The trade and association involved must have flowed both ways. The elements most typical of Egyptian civilization, and its fabric and organization, need by no means have been imparted along with the elements that were transmitted. The fact that they were not seems to be what has delayed wide recognition of Egyptian influence in Negro Africa. The general character of the culture of a modern central African tribe and of the ancient Egyptians being so profoundly different, diffused culture ingredients would therefore often appear among the Negroes in a different form, and always in a different setting, thus tending to disguise their historic connection. The failure of certain Egyptian traits to seep through Africa is also readily accounted for. A backward population broken up into small communities without much stability would have difficulty fitting such an art as writing into their scheme of life, in fact would find it useless. It is therefore not surprising that none of the un-Mohammedanized tribes of the continent write. Similarly, masonry would be needless, perhaps economically unfeasible, under the prevailing social conditions of central Africa. On the other hand, so obviously utilitarian an art as iron working might be quickly taken up, once it had been brought into a simple technique. In the same way, an adaptable domestic animal or plant would tend to be accepted and diffused, while a concomitant scheme of political organization or elaborated religious system might fail to make even a beginning of penetration. It is in this way that several animals of Asiatic origin came to be kept through considerable parts or almost the whole of Africa; the horse, camel, sheep, fowl, for instance, of which at least the first two entered through the gateway of Egypt.
This does not mean that all constituents of African culture have their origin in Egypt; still less that the colors or patterns of African cultures can be derived from that country. However great a bulk of culture may be absorbed by one people from another, the organization which is given this, the stamp put upon it, is necessarily more or less distinctive, because the introduced constituents meet others already established; and especially because the recipient culture, even if low, already possesses a form of its own into which it unconsciously attempts to fit the new content, and into which, unless the influx is sudden and great, it usually succeeds in fitting the imports for a time. However, any specific culture trait common to ancient Egypt and the modern Negroes is suspect of a common origin, which ordinarily—though not universally—would mean an Egyptian or more remote origin. Yet the resolution of such a suspicion is not always easy. Much depends on the extent and continuity of the geographical distribution of the trait, and on the actuality and specificity of the resemblance. On these points the necessary information is often still incomplete.
The general relation of Africa as a whole to Egypt is paralleled by the relation of western Europe of four thousand years ago to the Orient. The bronze, cereals, tamed animals, and many other culture elements of Europe, including religious traits like the ax cult, can be derived from the Near East. But the cities, monarchies, temples, inscriptions, astronomy, and art of the Orient had not penetrated to farther Europe. Moreover, European Bronze Age culture was not merely Oriental civilization with half or three-fourths its content omitted. It enjoyed an organization of its own, followed local and at least partly original trends, possessed what might metaphorically be called an organic unity as great as that of any Oriental culture.