SEMITIC-HAMITIC. - The name of Semites and Hamites goes back to the list of peoples in the Bible (Gen. 10), where a certain number of peoples are presented as descendants of Shem and Ham. From the 17th century the term "Semites" has been used to designate the peoples of one linguistic group; from the 19th century the name "Hamites" has been used to designate the peoples of another linguistic group, related to the Semitic one. The linguistic relationships also correspond to the cultural relationships between the two groups of peoples.
I. RACE
Among the Semites are found representatives of different races, especially of the Oriental and of the Western Asian (Armenid) race. Among the Hamites there exist at least three races: among the Eastern Hamites (Cushites) the Ethiopian race; among the Western Hamites (Berbers) the Mediterranean race, as well as the descendants of the prehistoric Cro-Magnon race. It is therefore unjustified and erroneous to speak of a Semitic and Hamitic race. Both these groups of peoples belong to the cycle of the Europoid races, and although there are Hamites who have a dark pigmentation, nevertheless according to the other anthropological characteristics they do not belong to the cycle of the Negrid races.
II. DIFFUSION
Leaving aside the recent and very recent migrations of Semitic groups and the remote progressive spread of the Jews (v.) across all continents, the geographical range of the Semites is confined to southwestern Asia and to northern and eastern Africa. In ancient times the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Arameans, the Phoenicians, the Canaanites, the Jews, the northern Arabs and the southern Arabs (the Sabaeans, the Minaeans, etc.) lived in western Asia. The commercial colonies of the Phoenicians spread as far as the western Mediterranean basin. A Semitic group, which certainly came from southern Arabia, had already emigrated to Abyssinia in very remote times. Semitic influences in Egypt are even older, where the language and culture of the emigrants mingled with indigenous elements. With the Islamic conquest of the 7th century there was a strong Arab migration, whereby Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and northern Africa were largely Arabized (at least linguistically, while in culture many pre-Arab elements have remained). The total number of Arabs considered in the broadest sense, that is, of all those who speak Arabic, may today reach 60 million; that of the Jews 13 million; that of the groups speaking Aramaic in Syria and Mesopotamia only a few tens of thousands. Regarding the Hamites, there is no agreement on determining the extent of their linguistic group. A distinction is generally made between the Eastern Hamites (Cushites), to which belong the Beja peoples, then the Danakil, the Somalis, the Galla, the Kaffa, the Kunama and the Barya, and the Western Hamites, to which belong the Berbers, who in ancient times were called Libyans. The ancient Egyptians hold an intermediate position, but are closer to the Libyans. To the Eastern Hamites must be linked the so-called Hamitoids, called by some Nilo-Hamites, who are culturally related but linguistically do not belong to the Hamites, e.g., the Masai, the Nandi, the Sue, the Didinga, the Lotuko, the Bari, the Turkana; furthermore the groups of the Great Lakes region of eastern Africa, which have adopted a Bantu language, e.g.: the Wa-Hima, the Wa-Tussi. Influences of Hamitic culture are also found among the cattle-breeding peoples of southern and southwestern Africa, e.g., among the Kaffirs, the Herero, the Hottentots. These do not belong linguistically to the Hamites, while perhaps the Khoi-San linguistic group could be related to the Hamitic languages. The Nilotic languages and some of those of western Sudan, such as Hausa and Fulbe, have likewise been grouped by some authors with the Hamitic languages, evidently through undue extension. On the contrary, the Guanches of the Canary Islands must culturally be linked back to the Berbers.
III. ORIGIN
It is indisputable that a certain linguistic and also cultural dependence exists between the Semites and the Hamites; but from the different ways in which these linguistic and cultural relations have in particular been conceived, contrasting answers to the question of origins have also arisen. In general it is held that the place where the Semitic and Hamitic languages and cultures first formed in their characteristic qualities is to be found in the interior of the territory they currently inhabit, and this is the only point unanimously accepted. Some scholars, especially the earlier ones, consider the Semites as a branch that broke off from the Hamites, which migrated from North Africa into western Asia. The majority of scholars, however, seek the place of origin of the Semites somewhere in western Asia: in Arabia, in Mesopotamia, in northern Syria, or in places situated further to the north. For a long time the theory of Arabia as the "chamber of peoples" enjoyed wide resonance, from which four great migrations would have come forth one after another: Amorite-Babylonian, Canaanite, Aramean and Arab. But the following fact tells against this theory: a settlement of inner Arabia was possible only with the introduction of camel herding, which occurred rather late, as will be seen. A denser settlement of Arabia without camel herding would have been possible only if those places had once been rich in water and later had become arid. This theory is upheld by some orientalists, but strongly contested by others. It may be that the desiccation of Arabia really did occur, but it certainly happened in a prehistoric time so ancient as to be unable to have any influence on the formation of the Semites. In any case the place of origin of the Semites certainly enjoyed cultural relations with the pastoral peoples of central Asia (Indo-Europeans, Turco-Mongols) and, therefore, must not be sought too far to the west.
For the Hamites it is doubtful whether one can generally speak of a common place of origin. The Berbers are linked by some scholars to the ancient European Mediterranean culture and detached from any relation with the eastern Hamites. According to new investigations it appears impossible to reconstruct an original Hamitic language, from which the individual Hamitic languages would then have derived; the unity would rather be only secondary and attributable to the influence of the Semitic languages on a linguistic foundation not in itself unitary, and this, presumably, must have occurred in Africa. It is not excluded, however, that a part of the Hamitic peoples, as such, formed in Asia and then migrated to Africa under Semitic pressure.
IV. CULTURE
1. Economy and ergology
The S.-C. are considered nomadic shepherds; but this can be said only of the Arab Bedouins, of a part of the Cushites and of the Hamitoids and the Berbers (especially the Tuareg), because a large part of the S.-C. has passed to a sedentary life.
Among the Semites, pastoral nomadism was originally the sole or principal way of life. Given that horse breeding appears relatively insignificant, and that camel breeding is attested among the Semites only in the 2nd millennium B.C., in the most ancient times only the sheep, the goat and the donkey were bred as domestic animals; the ox only in marginal areas. The dwelling is the tent, while the present-day "black tent" became of general use with camel breeding. Clothing today consists of an undershirt in the form of a shirt and an outer garment in the form of a cloak, as well as a head covering (the turban among sedentary peoples); before the introduction of woven fabrics, use was made mostly of hides and of leather for clothing, as is still done today for vessels. The main weapons were the spear, the bow and the arrow. Their nourishment is already indicated by the symbiosis with sedentary peoples: cereals and dates as a complement to meat, as well as milk and its products.
Among the Hamites material culture is, in some respects, similar. Here, however, cattle-raising occupies first place alongside that of sheep and goats, while that of horses never attained great economic importance; similarly that of camels, except among certain tribes, especially the Tuareg. Cattle-raising leads to sedentary life (as a dwelling of the Cushites one often finds the house with a conical roof) and facilitates the transition to agriculture, which today is practiced by almost all Cushites (mainly that of millet). In the oases of the Sahara and in the mountainous countries of northern Africa the cultivation of fruit trees is of great importance. As a consequence of sedentary life, terracotta vessels (together with wooden ones) have also assumed greater importance.
2. Sociology
The family, both among the Semites and among the Hamites, is essentially patriarchal. Matriarchal traces appear in marginal places, as in southern Arabia, among the Baria and the Kunama and among the Berbers. Among the latter, matriarchy could have derived from a completely matriarchal culture of an earlier time; in the other cases, however, it is only a matter of external influences. Consanguinity to a certain degree (e.g., among the Arabs to the fifth degree in the case of vendetta) obliges one to solidarity. But a solid extended family does not exist everywhere, nor does the right of primogeniture subsist everywhere. Among the Semites a tighter centralization predominates among the sedentary, a greater individual independence among the nomads. Among the Hamites such differences appear less significant. A true totemism does not exist; what has been explained as a survival of totemism either does not have this character, or is traceable only to peripheral influences. Circumcision is today in use where Islam predominates, and, although it was already very widespread even earlier, it was not universal (it existed among the ancient Egyptians, the Arabs, the Hebrews, but not among the Assyrians and Babylonians). It still appears today in some places as a rite of puberty (as among certain tribes in southern Arabia), a character that originally seems to have been universal.
The organization of the larger groupings (tribe for the nomads and village community for the sedentary) is ordinarily democratic; the chief is markedly subject to the assembly of counselors, which moreover may also have an aristocratic character. Among the Cushites social organization has become more complex with the transition to agriculture (cf., e.g., the age-class system among the southern Galla).
3. Religion
The Arabs, the Berbers and a part of the Cushites are today Islamized, except for the remnants of Christianity, once very widespread, remnants that survive in Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia. The majority of the Cushites, however, still preserve today a very lively sense of their own religion, with deep faith and notable worship of a sky God (abundantly demonstrated especially among the Galla). It is difficult to form an idea of the most ancient forms of religion among the Semites. The pre-Islamic religion of the nomads is little known. The high-culture religions of the Semitic area, known from antiquity, reveal a strong non-Semitic imprint, as, e.g., in Babylonia on the part of the Sumerians. In historical times polytheism is mostly noted, above all in the form of astral worship. The theory according to which all Semites would originally have venerated the divine triad Sun, Moon and the star Venus is untenable; even the cult of the pair Heaven and Earth, with strong emphasis on fertility, is difficult to trace back to the time of Semitic nomadism. Likewise the importance of animism with regard to the most ancient Semitic religion has been exaggerated. The kinship with the Cushites and other reasons indicate how also among the Semites belief in the sky God was quite ancient; among other things the very common name of God El indicates a supreme God anciently venerated by all Semites.
The forms of worship appear in part influenced from outside. Among the Semites, contrary to what seems to be the case among the Hamites, there was originally no priestly caste. Both these groups of peoples knew only inhumation, not cremation of corpses.
4. Other spiritual manifestations of culture
Both the Semites and the Hamites, with the exception of the Berbers, present themselves as warrior and ruling peoples, with a great organizing force for states. Their artistic capacity is scant; only in the field of religious and profane poetry have they left important examples. Figurative art had to develop considerably, but through contact with other peoples.
Bibliography17 works
Giuseppe Henninger