File:Ridpath's Universal history - an account of the origin, primitive condition and ethnic development of the great races of mankind, and of the principal events in the evolution and progress of the (14583854880).jpg

Identifier: ridpathsuniversa08ridp (find matches)
Title: Ridpath's Universal history : an account of the origin, primitive condition and ethnic development of the great races of mankind, and of the principal events in the evolution and progress of the civilized life among men and nations, from recent and authentic sources with a preliminary inquiry on the time, place and manner of the beginning
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Ridpath, John Clark, 1840-1900
Subjects: World history
Publisher: Cincinnati : Jones
Contributing Library: University of Pittsburgh Library System
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation

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NIGRITIA NS. —ZUL U-KA FFIRS. 669 identical with those of ancient Israel!More properly, they are identical withinstitutions which the Semitic races haveplanted and fostered with greater or lesssimilarity of persistency. The first ofthese is the circumcisionof male infants, the sec-ond is the establishment of cities ofrefuge for criminals escaping from dan-gers, and the third is the feast of thefirst fruits. All three of these insti-tutions prevail in Kaff raria with approx- Kaffir usages tothose of ancientIsrael. race itself. None the less, those in-quirers who are ever anxious to developthe impossible by discovering the de-scendants of the lost Ten Tribes ofIsrael might well seek no further thanthe people of Kaffirland. As further illustration of the dangerarising from unwarranted deductions ofthe kind referred to, we Kaffir notion of may cite the existence theft not trace- ,-, -i^ £r. r .1 able to Spartans. among the Kafhrs of other facts which would seem by the same ^j^5?ses>
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KAFFIRS IN CAMP. imately as much regularity as they didin the ancient Jewish theocracy. The recurrence of such facts mightlead the inquirer to believe that theKaffirs are, in very truth, an off-shootfrom some division of the Semitic fam-ily of mankind. It is possible, indeed,that the customs referred to may havebeen deduced from the Sabaeans orother southern Semitic people; but theinference that the Kaffirs themselvesare of Semitic blood is contradicted byunmistakable facts deep-planted in the law of reason to identify the race withremote peoples with whom they couldhave no possible connections. Thus,for example, the Kaffirs hold theft tobe no crime, but only the discovery oftheft. Their theory of stealing is iden-tical with that of the ancient Spartans,and the belief in the innocence of theftis sufficiently odd to attract attention tothe two peoples holding such opinion. It were absurd, however, to supposethat the Kaffirs drew their theory oftheft from any division of the Aryan 670 G

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