WHEN it comes to understanding the origins of mankind, black people have been offered several theories to challenge the one that they have upheld since time immemorial.
That is the belief that mankind was created independent of other species by a higher intellect who is called God.
In Zimbabwe, Mwari (God) was known as the Creator of all things including humans, thus the titles ‘Musiki’ and ‘Musikavanhu’.
Africans and Asians have always believed in God, with spirits and mankind viewed as a host of spirits whether good or bad.
From these beliefs sprang spirituality intertwined in culture. Traditionally, kings were chosen by Mwari and guided by mhondoro.
Mankind was charged to keep the code of humaneness to preserve the godly qualities that separate humans from animals.
Africa and Asia therefore became the cradles of culture and when beliefs from these regions were adopted by Westerners, this brought about religiosity as we see it today.
Africans have always been spiritual but it is only in the past few centuries that they have been made religious. There is a difference. Religion is often defined as ‘a particular system of beliefs, faith and worship’. It is coupled with indoctrination and the acceptance of already marked out guidelines which can be, and have been, set up by men.
This leaves room for fabrication.
Spirituality, on the other hand, is not concerned about intellectual beliefs but rather experiencing divine consciousness and seeking growth and purity of the soul.
It does not involve accepting certain dogmas as ultimate truth and denying others.
Because of spirituality, Africans have held many things sacred, including human life and the harmonic existence of mankind with nature. Failure to adhere to the tenets that are humane or godly would lead one to be called inhuman and this was considered a serious charge or insult.
Africans felt blameless and powerful as long as they did nothing to be charged with inhumaneness.
Death was not feared and people were believed to return after death through their kinsmen and descendants (as mediums).
Thus the works of mankind, whether good or bad, were believed to determine the fate of their descendants for generations to come. If one was guilty of bloodshed, Africans believed the forces that govern the earth and heavens would hold a blood debt (ngozi) against the individual and consequently bad omen would follow.
This kept, and continues to keep, order in African societies which still retain spirituality though Western religiosity clashes with many tenets of our culture.
European colonisers quickly recognised African spirituality as a source of strength which, if kept intact, would make them hard to conquer. So, from the very beginning of slavery and colonisation, the alienation of Africans from their spiritual culture was a prerequisite for Westerners to succeed.
This is evident in the quotation from King Leopold II of Belgium while addressing the missionaries being sent to colonise the Congo: “You will take them away from anything or act that procures them with the courage to confront us. I am alluding myself here to their magic or mystical systems and war protection. They do not feel like abandoning their juju, so you will do your best to get rid of these powers speedily.”
Knowing Africans were God-fearing, Westerners took religions founded on African soil, altered their meaning and used them to draw blacks away from their ancestral roots.
Traditional African beliefs, rites and rituals were demonised despite many being identical to those of the Old Testament Hebrews. They too had sacred mountains on which people had to remove their shoes or sandals when authorised to climb.
They had animal and drink offerings and remembered their ancestors and tribes.
The Hebrew people were in fact tribal and like Africans, they only congregated before the rain period and at harvest time. They did not go to church and had no buildings that they deemed holy.
This church culture with pedestals and so forth is European and entered Judea via Greek and later Roman colonisation.
Yet today this is the religiosity which is endorsed by the West while African spirituality is still demonised.
The Europeans have therefore successfully alienated many Africans from their source of power. Africans no longer seek to be godly but believe in a distant God who is painted white in Christian literature.
Many even believe blackness is a curse because of the false interpretations of scripture that have been schemed by the enslavers and colonisers.
Even the long standing and deeply ingrained belief that mankind was made by the Creator has been challenged and blacks now stand confused.
This current state of confusion and disillusionment as pertaining to issues of identity among blacks did not happen accidentally.
Certain individuals in the past, particularly of the white race, have fabricated history and discoveries to push their colonial agenda.
We shall be examining some of these theories in this series.
We will begin with the Hamitic theory which traces back to ancient Babylon.
After 135 CE, the Greeks and Romans who invaded Judea moved to present day Iraq which was under Roman rule. They were called Hellenic Jews and groups such as the Pharisees and Scribes were examples of these settler-groups.
This was similar to how settler-whites in Zimbabwe began identifying themselves as the true Zimbabweans before independence. In Babylon, the Hellenic Jews began to enslave people they identified as gentiles.
They used the Hamitic theory that says Canaan is cursed to be a servant to justify the oppression of the blacks of that region. This is evidenced by writings in the Talmud, which is a book that was compiled by the Hellenic Jews in Babylon in this period.
The original Hebrew people were black and intermarried freely with Egyptians and Ethiopians and were forbidden from marrying non-black groups in the north.
Many of the enslaved blacks in Babylon were actually Hebrew people forcibly moved to Babylon in the time of Assyrian king Shalmennazer.
This same Hamitic theory would be used by the American Jews and the Roman Catholic Pope of the 17th Century to justify the enslavement of blacks from Africa and the Americas.
If one carefully examines the words of Noah, one will find that the curse of Canaan had nothing to do with race.
It is just white groups in history who intentionally misinterpreted the biblical quote to achieve their goal of enslaving and colonising blacks.
Such was encouraged by the likes of king Leopold II of Belgium who said: “Your essential role is to facilitate the task of administrators and industrials, which means you will go to interpret the gospel in a way that would be best to protect your interests in that part of the world.”
Blacks were eventually called su-bhuman and this justified both slavery and colonisation in the eyes of the Europeans.
However, modern science on its own has debunked this myth.
Genetics has placed blacks as the living forefathers of all the races on earth with the Khoi and San Bushmen as the earliest specie of humans.
In the fields of bio-chemistry, the understanding of melanin which is behind the pigment in humans has also debunked the ‘blackness is a curse’ theory.
Blacks of Africa have the most superior form of melanin called eu-melanin while whites and other groups have inferior forms of melanin called pheo-melanin.
The bio-synthesis of melanin is based on the availability of tyrosine in areas beyond the blood brain barrier and within the human cell. The amounts of tyrosine in the cell are determined by genetic inheritance from parents. Absence of this tyrosine in the form of tyrosinace means one will manifest a pale skin colour.
This means blacks were undoubtedly the archetype of mankind because they possess superior melanin.
From blacks came other shades of races and all the ancient people were blacks until some lost their melanin through climatic adaptation, mutations such as albinism or vitiligo and/or intermarriage with groups which underwent such mutations.