page_title: White Aethiopians
section_title: Modern interpretations
hierarchical_section_title: White Aethiopians / Modern interpretations
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: De vrouwendansgroep op de foto voert een guedra-dans uit. De vrouwen behoren tot de Reguibat, een bevolkingsgroep uit de huidige westelijke Sahara die zich als Arabisch identificeert. Ze spreken het Arabische dialect Hassania, een mengeling van Berbers en bedoeïenen Arabisch. Deze bevolkingsgroep stamt deels af van de Mâaquil, een oorspronkelijk uit Jemen afkomstige bevolkingsgroep die in de 11/12e eeuw vanuit het Arabisch schiereiland naar Noord-Afrika is geëmigreerd. Daarnaast stammen de Reguibat af van gearabiseerde Berberstammen (Sanhaja). In de cultuur van de Reguibat zijn vele Berberinvloeden te vinden, zoals de dans- en zangstijlen die verwant zijn aan die van de Touaregs in de Sahara.
context_page_description: White Aethiopians is a term found in ancient Roman literature, which may have referred to various non-"Negro" and light-complexioned populations inhabiting the Aethiopia region of antiquity. The exonym is used by Pliny the Elder, and is also mentioned by Pomponius Mela, Ptolemy and Orosius. These authorities do not, however, agree on the geographical location of the White Aethiopians.
  Medieval geographers, including Ibn Hawqal and Leo Africanus, similarly noted the existence of various "white" or "olive" groups and individuals in territories and kingdoms south of the Sahara. However, the fate of these inhabitants is uncertain.
context_section_description: Speaking of the difference between modern thought and ancient times, Richard Smith warns that even apparently well-defined categories "like 'race' can be confusing". According to him, Ptolemy placed two peoples, the Leukaethiopes and Melanogaetulians ('Black Gaetulians'), in the far west of North Africa; namely, in southern Morocco. Smith suggests that the Leukaethiopes, "literally, 'white Ethiopians'", could also be described as "white black men" since in ancient times "the term 'Ethiopian' referred to skin color". He further asserts that Pliny the Elder places the Leukaethiopes south of the (Sahara) desert, between the white Gaetulians and the black Nigritae; the closest neighbours would then have been the Libyaegyptians, "literally the 'Egyptian Libyans', another oxymoron". However, Smith indicates that Pliny does not mention any black Gaetulians.
  Louis Vivien de Saint-Martin posits that the Leucaethiopes were early Berbers, who had penetrated southward into the desert.
  Edmund Dene Morel, writing in 1902, confirms that both Ptolemy and Pliny speak of the Leucaethiopes, but believes that Ptolemy places them "in the neighbourhood of the Gambia", whereas Pliny places them "a couple of degrees farther north". Morel then speculates on who those "light-complexioned 'Africans'" could have been. He believes they could not have been Arabs or Bantus, but argues that the Berbers were well-known to Pliny's source people, the Carthaginians, so they would have recognized Berbers if they had met them. Morel concludes that the Leucaethiopes may have been early Fulani since the first record on West Africa (ca. 300 AD) describes an Empire governed by "white" rulers, which was established by a king whose name contains a Fulfulde affix. According to Morel, this Fulani connection was first made in 1799 by Major Rennel in his Travels in the Interior of Africa, a notebook on Mungo Park's travels.
  Richard Smith, writing in 2003, reports that "historians often assume" that both Leukaethiopes and Melanogaetulians "were of mixed race", or perhaps of some combination of race and culture. On this supposition, he suggests that the Leukaethiopes "were whites who lived in an Ethiopian-style culture", where the "Ethiopians" in question would have been the ancestors of the modern Haratin. Smith concludes that the only safe conclusion is that "the ethnic map was very complex and thus very confusing", even to Ptolemy. According to Smith, the next assumption, is that there was "some kind of awful ancient race war" in which white tribes like the Leukaethiopes "expelled or exterminated" the black tribes, but he argues that there is no evidence for this.
  Haegap Jeoung, writing in 2003 of the attitude of Homer and the ancient Greeks, suggests that "the Ethiopians take their place as the other of the [ancient] Greeks, regardless of their skin color. Remarkably, there are white Ethiopians. Not because the Ethiopians are black, but because they are the other, they become a matter of a discourse."
caption: Louis Vivien de Saint-Martin suggested that the ancient Leucaethiopes were Berbers who had penetrated southward into the desert.[17]
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