The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1873-02-08
NOAH WAS THE ANCESTOR OF THE
WHITE RACE ONLY.

we usually term the beginning of history
issonly the period when the later gener-
ations aw0ke to self-consciousness." 1t
requires an enlightened We've of the past
and considerable mental freedom to see
and accept what this signifies, for hith-
erto our studies of ancient history have
been embarrassed, more than by any
thing else, by q false chronology, that
has exercised q very strong, though not
very wise, influence on the mind of his
torians. 1t is but lately that it has been
seen clearly and acknowledged openly
by students of history that the Bible
gives no chronology and that the human
races are ages older on this earth than
was formerly believed. The chronology
ical system commonly received in Eng
disappearing countries, that of Arch
bishop Usher, informs us that human
kind was created precisely 1904 years
before Christ and, the family Of Noah
excepted, destroyed blythe deluge exactly
2349 years before Christ. When these
great events occurred no man can tell,
but it is now an undOubted fact that
they must have taken place thousands
of years before the time assignedto them
by Usher and other chronologists of his
school. I do not pretend to give even
an representative calculation Of the time
of the deluge but there may have passed
10000 or more years since the different
white races, persOnifiedin the 10th chap
ter of Genesis as the descendants Of
Noah, settled in the countries around
the Mediterranean Sea.
l write this, not with the purpose of
making chronological guesses, but my
intention is, not to prove, for it needs
no proof, but to point out the fact, that
the author of this remarkable chapter,
the oldest geographical and chronological
document in existence, wheneveritma
have been written, only spoke of one
race of men, the white.
Everybody knows that by the name Of
Japheth is represented the Indo-Euro-
pean, and by the name of Shem the
South Western Asiatic, the sO-called
Scientific, race and all agree that the des-
cendants of these two sons of Noah were
white men.
AS to the descendants Of the third son
Cham, in our Bibles less correctly called
Ham, it is a very popular error that the
black race in Africa, the Negroes, are
descended from him and that his race
from white turned black as a conse-
quence of his father Noah's curse. But
Noah did notcurse Cham, norKush, nor
Mizraim, nor Phut, but only Canaan,
CHAINS youngest son, who, however,
was not physically changed 10 conse-
quence of the curse, neither were his
descendants Negroes, but white men, a
fact lido not believe everhas been doubt
ed. But, somebody might say: The fact
that the descendants Of Canaan we're
white men does not prevent thedescend-
ants of CHAINS three older sons from
having been the ancestors of the Negroes.
Let us look at the nations descended
from these three persons. Kush's sons
were Seba, and Chavila, andSabtha, and
Raema, and Sabtecha, and Raema's sons
were Sheba and Dedandel. All these
names represent tribes in South and
Middle Arabia, represent in fact the first
civilized race ofthe earth, now commonly
called the Kushite race, which name,
however, includes not only the Kushites
proper, but all the Chamites. It is the
same race that the oldest Greek authors
called the Aithiopians, a word that has
been misinterpreted by a false etymol-
ogy from the words attic Il burn) and
OPS. "a face) to mean dark-faced people.
What it really meant we do not know,
but when we meet with Aithiops as a
surname of Zeus and read that Prone
theus was an Aithiops, we perceive clear
ly that this word does not mean a dark
skinned man Or Negro. The1Oth chap
ter of Genesis informs us furthermore
oversees $40 that Nimrod "the. mighty
hunter before the Lordn was a son of
Kush. But by the name Nimrod is re-
presented the origin of the mighty old
Chaldean empire, which hardly anybody
will contend was a Negro state.
By the name Mizraim, a dual form,
signifying the two rocks (Hebr. Matzur,
a roek), the country of Egyptis persona
fed, which in hieroglyphies always is
designated the tworegions." The es-
cendants of Mizraim, the Ludim, and
Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim,
and Pathrusim, and Kasluehim, andPhil-
istim, and Kaphtorim, were undoubtedly
all, with the exception of the Philistines,
tribes in Egypt or its immediate neigh
borhood and did all belong to the white
race or, at all events, were very far from
being Negroes. We are now too well
acquainted with ancient Egypt even fol
a moment to think Of such an a~bsurdity,
and that the Philistines were a white
race nobody ever has doubted.
BY Phut, the third son of Cham, are
undoubtedly personifed the Northern
Africantribes in the hieroglyphicsealled
Niplaiat, to-day represented by the
Berbers, Kabyles, Touaricks and othel
nations in Africa North of soudan, none
of which are Negroes.
The author of this remarkable 10tl
chapter evidently gave the ethnology
only of his own, the white, race and lef1
out entirely the two other great human
races in the old world, the Eastern Asi
attic and the African.
It seems even evident that Adam an6