The Qagan of Rus and Viking Muslims in Volga Bulgaria

 Folkways, Unlikely Peregrines  No Responses »
Dec 092012
 

Shepard (2008: 496, 497, 503) on a storied title:

The Khazars’ power could hardly have failed to make an impression on those from the Nordic world who joined with indigenous populations of the eastern lands in a common quest for silver, and in fact the head of their first recorded polity to the east of the Baltic sported the same title as that of the Khazar ruler, chaganus or kagan. The Khazars probably supplied the inspiration for authority-symbols and customs, including that of setting a more or less sacral figurehead at the polity’s head. As with the Khazars, this totem-like overlord (reportedly residing on an immense bed-cum-throne) acted in tandem with a military commander who handled earthly affairs in the later ninth and early tenth centuries (Lewicki 1985: 75-6; Montgomery 2000: 21-2; Golden 1982: 45-50, 52-3; Golden 2006).

[...] Later in the [ninth] century, the well-informed Abbasid director of posts and intelligence Ibn Khurradadhbeh noted that northern traders brought furs and swords down to the Black Sea coast and paid customs duties to the Byzantines, probably at Cherson in the Crimea (Lewicki 1956: 76-7). He terms them ‘Rūs’, and in fact persons ‘stating that they, that is their people (gens), were called Rhōs’ were already at the Byzantine emperor’s court by 838. Reportedly, their ‘king called chaganus’ had sent them ‘for the sake of friendship’.

[...] [Sviatoslav] also sought conspicuously to align himself with the peoples of the steppes. A Byzantine eyewitness account and the Rus Primary Chronicle agree that Sviatoslav took on the hair- and lifestyle of a Eurasian steppe chieftain: his scalp was shaven save for one long strand of hair, denoting nobility of birth, and a ring was in one ear; life in the saddle was his delight, ‘making many wars’ and sleeping beneath the open sky.

Mikkelsen (2008: 543-544) on Norse Muslims in Volga Bulgaria and the challenges of Islamic orthopraxis in the far north:

The most famous Arabic source concerning the descriptions of the Vikings is Ibn Fadlan who wrote an account of a journey from Baghdad to the Volga Bulgars in 921-2. His main task was to spread the Muslim faith to this people (Wikander 1978). He tells that he saw among these people 5,000 men and women, who had all converted to Islam. They were called al-baringâr, which is interpreted as an Arabic rendering of the Old Norse name vœringar, another name for Vikings (Lewicki 1972: 12; Wikander 1978: 21). Ibn Fadlan built a mosque of wood for them to perform Islamic service and he taught them to pray. There are some difficulties in interpreting this part of the Arabic source (ibid.). It is, however, interesting if Vikings really were converted to Islam in Volga Bulgar, although the number of converted is probably highly overstated.

[...] Amin Râzi, describing Rûs among the Volga Bulgars, says that they highly valued pork. Even those who had converted to Islam aspired to it and were very fond of pork (Wikander 1978: 73). [...] The Spanish Arab Abu Hamid who visited Bulgar in the twelfth century complained that it was very cold and there were only four-hour days during winter and twenty-hour days in summer. When he visited Bulgar, Ramadan — the Muslim’s month of fasting — came in summer. As the fasting is set to last all day when the sun is shining, Abu Hamid admitted he had to abstain from fasting (Wikander 1978: 78-9).

Works Cited:

Mikkelsen, E. (2008). The Vikings and Islam. In Brink, S., & Price, N. (Eds.). The Viking World, 543-549. Routledge: Abingdon and New York.

Shepard, J. (2008). The Viking Rus and Byzantium. In Brink, S., & Price, N. (Eds.). The Viking World, 496-516. Routledge: Abingdon and New York.

‘Grape’: from Elamite to Chinese

 Linguistics, Unlikely Peregrines  No Responses »
Nov 082012
 

From Wiebusch and Tadmor’s Mandarin Chinese chapter in Loanwords in the World’s Languages: A Comparative Handbook (Haspelmath and Tadmor, Eds., 2009: 585-586):

Introduced fauna and flora are an area where loanwords are typically found. Borrowed animal names in Mandarin include shīzi 獅子 ‘lion’ (< Old Persian šer/šē/šī ‘lion’) and 駱駝 luòtuo ‘camel’ (originally tuotuo, borrowed during the Han Dynasty from Xiongnu dada ‘camel’). In addition, xiàng 象 ‘elephant’ is of possible Kra-Dai origin (cf. Thai chááŋ ‘elephant’; elephants were indigenous to the Kra-Dai homeland but not to the Sinitic homeland). Borrowed names for introduced plants include níngméng 柠檬, 檸檬 ‘the citrus fruit’ (of Austronesian origin, cf. Malay limau), pútao 葡萄 ‘the grape’ (ultimately from Elamite *būdawa ‘wine’), mógu 檳榔 ‘mushroom’ from Mongolian moku/mo::k and bīnglang 檳榔 ‘areca palm’ (of Austronesian origin, cf. Malay pinang ‘areca palm’).


Wonder how many lost intermediates that one passed through.

A snapshop of 7th-century Kashgar

 Inner Asia, Linguistics, Lost Tribes, Unlikely Peregrines  No Responses »
Jul 022012
 

From an itinerary of Xuanzang’s famous 7th-century pilgrimage from Tang China to India, a report quite easily interpretable as describing a Tocharian or Tocharian-derived population (Watters & Smith, 1904: 290):

This country [Ortu Kan: "Kie(Ka)-sha" (Kashgar, a place still very much around today)] he describes as being above 5000 li in circuit with many sand-heaps and little fertile soil; it yielded good crops and had a luxuriance of fruits and flowers. It produced fine woollen stuffs and fine woven woollen rugs; the people had the custom of flattening their babies’ heads by compression; they were ill-favoured, tattooed their bodies and they had green eyes; their writing had been copied from that of India, and although changes had been made the substance was still preserved [Ortu Kan: apparently referring to one of the Brahmi-derived Tocharian abugidas]; their spoken language was different from the languages of other countries [Ortu Kan: presumably meaning the Indo-Iranian branches of IE, Turkic, Mongolic, and Chinese, if not others]. The inhabitants were sincere believers in Buddhism; there were some hundreds of Buddhist monasteries with more than 1000 Brethren all adherents of the Sarvāstivādin School; these men read their scriptures much, without penetrating the meaning, and so there were many who had in this way read through all the canon and the vibhāshās (or Commentaries).


The commentary elaborates: “instead of the “green eyes” which the pilgrim ascribes to the people other authorities represent them as having “turquoise pupils”. We are told also that all the inhabitants of this country were born with six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot.3” (ibid.: 292).

Watters, T., & Smith, V.A. (1904). On Yuan Chwang’s travels in India, 629-645 A.D. (Davids, T.W.R. & Bushell, S.W., Eds.). London: Royal Asiatic Society.

Oirats on the Nile

 Unlikely Peregrines  1 Response »
Jun 212012
 

Robert Irwin on a relatively little-known episode of Inner Asian movement into Egypt:

As has already been noted, Mongol immigrants were settled in al-Husayniyya as early as the 1260s. In the years 1294 to 1296 a new wave of immigrants, the Oirats (that is, the western tribe of Mongols, also known as Kalmucks), deserted to the Mamluks, and Sultan Kitbugha settled them in al-Husayniyya. The Arab chroniclers remarked on a number of things concerning the Oirats: First, that they were not Muslims and therefore did not observe Ramadan and also un-Islamically clubbed horses about the head before eating them. Second, that they were astonishingly beautiful, and therefore Oirat women were much sought-after as brides by the Mamluk elite. Also, according to al-Maqrizi’s Khiṭaṭ, the Oirats “became known for their zu’ara (gangsterism) and shujā’a (boldness), and they were called al-Badūra. So an individual Oirat might be called al-Badr such-and-such. They adopted the dress of futuwwa and they carried weapons. Stories about these people proliferated.” Later on their fortunes declined, and many ended up working as menial servants in the Citadel. These Mongol immigrants may be seen as the medieval Cairene precursors of the Sicilian mafiosi of New York. It also seems likely that they organized their activities on the basis of futuwwa lodges. (Indeed it is possible that there was no such thing as popular futuwwa in Egypt prior to the arrival of the Oirats and that they brought its rituals with them from Ilkhanid Iraq. While al-Maqrizi clearly did not think that the Oirats were Muslims, they may still have thought of themselves as such.)


Irwin, R. (2004). Futuwwa: Chivalry and Gangsterism in Medieval Cairo. In Necipoğlu, G., Behrens-Abouseif, D., & Contadini, A. (Eds.), Muqarnas: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World, XXI, 161-170.

Tocharians in 7th-century Japan

 Unlikely Peregrines  1 Response »
May 022012
 

Waterhouse (1991: 75):

In 654, according to the Nihon shoki, two men and two women of Tukhāra (Japanese, Tokara), together with one woman from Śrāvasti (Japanese, Sha-e), were driven by a storm to Hyūga Province, in southern Kyūshū (Iida 1940: V, 3311; Aston 1896: II, 246). They appear to have stayed several years, and we learn from an entry for 659 that the Indian lady was in fact the wife of one of the Tocharians (Iida 1940: V, 3348; Aston 1896: II, 259). In the autumn of the following year this Tocharian, whose name is given as Katsuhashitatsua, wished to return to his native country, and requested an escort, saying: ‘At a later date I desire to pay respects to the court of your great country, and therefore in token of this I shall leave my wife with you.’ He then took a course through the Western Sea, with several tens of men (Iida 1940: V, 3360; Aston 1896: 266).

[EDIT: It's become clear since I wrote this that there's a good amount of uncertainty about the actual identity of "Tukhāra"/"Tokara" that Waterhouse failed to convey. Follow-up to this post possible.]

Waterhouse, D. (1991). Where did Toragaku come from? In Marett, A. (Ed.). Musica Asiatica (Vol. 6) (pp. 73-94). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Overselling the story? “Parallel genetic histories” of mtDNA C4c and X2 as ostensible refutation of the Solutrean hypothesis

 Amerindian Origins, Unlikely Peregrines  5 Responses »
Jan 072012
 

A paper by Kashani et al. in the latest issue of American Journal of Physical Anthropology brings 2012 to a bold start with its claim (excerpt from abstract below) of having decisively rejected Paleolithic European involvement in Amerindian origins, as argued by Stanford and Bradley (2004) and other advocates of the Solutrean hypothesis:

The similarities in ages and geographical distributions for C4c and the previously analyzed X2a lineage provide support to the scenario of a dual origin for Paleo-Indians. Taking into account that C4c is deeply rooted in the Asian portion of the mtDNA phylogeny and is indubitably of Asian origin, the finding that C4c and X2a are characterized by parallel genetic histories definitively dismisses the controversial hypothesis of an Atlantic glacial entry route into North America.


The apparent confidence of this assertion belies some fairly fundamental objections. First, it hinges on a problematic synecdoche, treating a single pillar of argumentation (prehistoric European provenance of mtDNA haplogroup X2 in the Americas) as a stand-in for the entire Solutrean edifice. Granted, this is a line of support whose rejection wouldn’t do any good for Stanford and Bradley’s case, but it’s worth realizing that these latter authors formulated their original argument in non-genetic terms; nowhere do Kashani et al. directly engage with their comparative-technological claims about the origins and diffusion of the Clovis toolkit, for instance. Second, while concordance of entry time and geographic distribution between X2a and a second rare and restricted haplogroup is certainly consistent with simultaneous or near-simultaneous entry along the same migratory pathway (namely, direct entry from Beringia to North America east of the Rockies via “the ice-free corridor between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets”), compelling reasons to reject alternative scenarios able to generate the same patterns ought to be tightly in hand before one speaks of definitive dismissal.

I’m a skeptic of trans-Atlantic Ice Age dispersal (or at least how it’s commonly imagined) myself, but it’s apparent to me that more cautious wording would have been prudent — particularly since the geographic correspondences are far from perfect, and the temporal alignment is more plausible overlap than bullseye hit.

C4c and X2a: Geographic patterns

C4c was isolated and confirmed as a founding Amerindian haplogroup quite recently (Tamm et al., 2007; Malhi et al., 2010), and would seem to be even rarer than X2a. Kashani et al. (2012) provide an overview of the localities in Table 1:

These are mirrored in the inset map of Fig. 1 (accompanying a maximum parsimony tree based on complete mtDNA sequences):

X was recognized by Forster et al. as an Amerindian mtDNA haplogroup in 1996, and has since then been identified in the Ojibwa [aka Chippewa] (25.7% in Manitoulin Island and 25% in northern Ontario: Scozzari et al., 1997), Sioux (14.6%), Nuu-Chah-Nulth [aka Nootka] (11.1 and 13.3%), Navajo (6.5%), and Yakima (4.8%) (Brown et al., 1998). Smith et al. (1999) detected X in the Chippewa (amongst whom it once again saw its highest frequency), Cheyenne/Arapaho, Micmac, Blackfoot, Kiowa, Jemez Pueblo, Pomo, and Sioux. With one notable exception — discussed later in this post — all samples of Amerindian X so far documented in the literature appear to be branches of X2a, which has two primary sub-divisions, X2a1 and X2a2 in the Great Lakes and Great Plains, and a possible third further west, among the Nuu-Chah-Nulth and Yakima (Perego et al., 2009).

Contrast these X2a maps against C4c’s earlier on. The first, at left (Smith et al., 1999), summarizes presence data without regard for frequency (the Navajo records were taken as indicative of “extensive and recent admixture with Pueblo tribes living in the Southwest” and, presumably for the same reason, are omitted):


The second, right beside it, is a spatial frequency distribution adapted from Fig. 3 of Perego et al. (2009): The left half represents data from “general mixed populations of national states” (taken from this database), and the right half exclusively Native American groups; sample locations show up as dots. I think the difference between the two has something to do with the lack of Métis inclusion in the Native American dataset, in contrast to their probable presence in the “general mixed” one.

The most notable discrepancy between the C4c and X2 distributions is, of course, the existence of a highly divergent sequence of the former in Columbia; X2a has to date never been recovered outside of North America. However, if we accept indications that it was found amongst aDNA from 7-8 ka at the Windover site in Florida (Hauswirth et al., 1994), it seems clear that both haplogroups had formerly much more expansive distributions. If the Great Lakes/Great Plains zone of overlap between the two was a refugium rather than the locus of initial expansion (“the terminal part of the glacial corridor”, Kashani et al. suggest), the strength of suppositions about entry route diminishes in consequence. And really, it’s anyone’s guess as to how much agreement X2a and C4c distributions exhibited with each other and with their present-day counterparts in prehistory.

Setting all that aside, I won’t dispute that C4c’s geographic pattern, from what we see here, differs significantly from those of other minor lineages like D4h3, which is limited to the Pacific coast of the Americas (Perego et al., 2009).

C4c and X2a: Divergence time estimates

Using the molecular clock model of Soares et al. (2009), Kashani et al. determined the maximum likelihood divergence for C4c as a whole to correspond to a divergence time of 13.8 ± 3.8 ky; the ML divergence for C4c1 (the primary subclade, containing all but the lone Columbian and two Canadian branches) translated into a divergence time of 9.7 ± 2.6 ky. The corresponding ρ divergence time estimates (based on the average distances of the haplotypes from the root) were 12.3 ± 2.9 ky for C4c and 8.5 ± 1.9 ky for C4c1.

Applied to all available full mitochondrial genomes of X2a, the same analyses yielded ML and ρ divergence time estimates of 18.6 ± 5.5 ky and 18.4 ± 5.1 ky, respectively — dates the authors judged to “overlap with those observed for C4c when taking into account standard errors”.

Tidy though this picture might be, it doesn’t account for one major potential complication: In 2009, as the present paper indeed notes, Perego et al. discovered X2g, a novel member of X2 that was neither X2a nor any of the Old World branches (X2b-X2f), in a single Ojibwa individual, and concluded that this probably indicated “an additional and very rare Native American founder”. I haven’t yet estimated TMRCA for the combined clade of X2a/X2g as per Soares et al. (2009), but you’re free to wager how much overlap their coalescence times would have with those C4c intervals from the following phylogeny (modified from Fig. S1 of Perego et al., 2009):

The node labels are divergence time estimates based on the ρ-statistic. (Again, do realize that the simple clock model employed here assumed a linear relationship between coding-region substitutions or synonymous transitions on the one hand and years on the other; Soares et al. took a more sophisticated tack that aimed to correct for purifying selection.)

A lot of stories could be spun about X2g’s implications for the age and history of Amerindian X2 (multiple chronologically distinct arrivals, unprecedentedly ancient differentiation within America, etc.), but it’ll be hard to be place much confidence in any of them so long as this sequence remains a singleton.

Closing remarks

You’ll notice that I so far haven’t devoted any space to the paleoceanographic and technological rebuttals to Stanford and Bradley and co. advanced by Straus et al. (2005) and Westley and Dix (2008), among others. Nor have I brought up the SNP-based STRUCTURE and ADMIXTURE analyses of Amerindians and north Eurasians by Dioegenes and the Eurogenes Genetic Ancestry Project whose intriguing implications are summed up here.

No need to read too much into this; I didn’t intend for this post to be a comprehensive position paper on the Solutrean hypothesis. I merely aimed to examine Kashani et al.’s work on its own merits, and to thereby decide whether their “scenario in which C4c and X2a are characterized by parallel genetic histories” was compelling enough to “definitively [dismiss] the controversial Solutrean hypothesis of an Atlantic glacial entry route into North America for X2a”. In lieu of any new X2a sequence data, and in lieu of any truly eye-popping geographic agreements (which even then could very well have more to do with post-arrival processes than unity of migration route into America), I hesitate to say that it lived up to the abstract’s promise.

In all fairness, Kashani et al. provide a nuanced and appropriately cautious framework for the interpretation of their findings — which is especially well-taken in light of the sample sizes — in their Discussion section:

Native American groups have undergone expansions and extinctions both prior and after the arrival of Europeans. Moreover, mtDNA is particularly prone to genetic drift, especially in tribal populations, thus one or even more mtDNA haplogroups can be easily lost in Native American groups (Torroni et al., 1994). […] Obviously a fundamental contribution to the resolution of this issue can be provided only by extensive ancient DNA studies performed all over the Americas.

[…] Therefore, although a temporally distinct arrival for C4c cannot be completely dismissed, the similarities in both ages and geographical distributions between C4c and X2a suggest that these two lineages possibly arrived together from Beringia, with the same Paleo-Indian group(s)…

It’s a little puzzling, then, to consider the forcefulness of their wording elsewhere.

Postscript

I expect we’ll be hearing a good deal more about the “Atlantic route” in coming months. The University of California Press will be coming out with Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America’s Clovis Culture, coauthored by Stanford and Bradley, in late February 2012. (Sample chapter and synopsis to be found here.) I’m looking forward to seeing the “original archaeological analysis, paleoclimatic research, and genetic studies” they’ll bring to the table.

As for Kashani et al.’s aDNA comment, they ought to have said “all over the Americas — and Eurasia”. While X2a and X2g might still be exclusively American, neither extant nor ancient coverage of Siberia is superb, and ancient European X2 discoveries (e.g., the 2011 papers of Lacan et al. and Deguilloux et al) admonish us not to overlook the western half of the continent either.

Works cited

Brown, M., Hosseini, S., Torroni, A., Bandelt, H., Allen, J., Schurr, T., Scozzari, R., Cruciani, F., & Wallace, D. (1998). mtDNA haplogroup X: An ancient link between Europe/Western Asia and North America? American Journal of Human Genetics, 63(6), 1852-1913.

Deguilloux, M.-F., Soler, L., Pemonge, M.-H., Scarre, C., Joussaume, R., & Laporte, L. (2011). News from the west: Ancient DNA from a French megalithic burial chamber. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 144(1), 108-118.

Forster, P., Harding, R., Torroni, A., & Bandelt, H. (1996). Origin and evolution of Native American mtDNA variation: a reappraisal. American Journal of Human Genetics, 59(4), 935-980.

Hauswirth, W., Dickel, C., Rowold, D., & Hauswirth, M. (1994). Inter- and intrapopulation studies of ancient humans. Experientia, 50(6), 585-676.

Kashani, B., Perego, U., Olivieri, A., Angerhofer, N., Gandini, F., Carossa, V., Lancioni, H., Semino, O., Woodward, S., Achilli, A., & Torroni, A. (2012). Mitochondrial haplogroup C4c: A rare lineage entering America through the ice-free corridor? American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 147(1), 35-44.

Lacan, M., Keyser, C., Ricaut, F.-X., Brucato, N., Duranthon, F., Guilaine, J., Crubézy, E., & Ludes, B. (2011). Ancient DNA reveals male diffusion through the Neolithic Mediterranean route. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(24), 9788-9879.

Malhi, R. S., Cybulski, J. S., Tito, R. Y., Johnson, J., Harry, H., & Dan, C. (2010). Brief communication: Mitochondrial haplotype C4c confirmed as a founding genome in the Americas. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 141(3), 494-497.

Perego, U., Achilli, A., Angerhofer, N., Accetturo, M., Pala, M., Olivieri, A., Kashani, B., Ritchie, K., Scozzari, R., Kong, Q.-P., Myres, N., Salas, A., Semino, O., Bandelt, H.-J., Woodward, S., & Torroni, A. (2009). Distinctive Paleo-Indian migration routes from Beringia marked by two rare mtDNA haplogroups. Current Biology, 19(1), 1-9.

Scozzari, R., Cruciani, F., Santolamazza, P., Sellitto, D., Cole, D., Rubin, L., Labuda, D., Marini, E., Succa, V., Vona, G., & Torroni, A. (1997). mtDNA and Y chromosome-specific polymorphisms in modern Ojibwa: implications about the origin of their gene pool. American Journal of Human Genetics, 60(1), 241-245.

Smith, D., Malhi, R., Eshleman, J., Lorenz, J., & Kaestle, F. (1999). Distribution of mtDNA haplogroup X among Native North Americans. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 110(3), 271-355.

Soares, P., Ermini, L., Thomson, N., Mormina, M., Rito, T., Röhl, A., Salas, A., Oppenheimer, S., Macaulay, V., & Richards, M. (2009). Correcting for purifying selection: an improved human mitochondrial molecular clock. American Journal of Human Genetics, 84(6), 740-799.

Stanford, D. J., & Bradley, B. A. (2004). The North Atlantic ice-edge corridor: a possible Palaeolithic route to the New World. World Archaeology, 36(4), 459-937.

Stanford, D. J., & Bradley, B. A. (2012). Across Atlantic Ice: The Origin of America’s Clovis Culture. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.

Straus, L. G., Meltzer, D. J., & Goebel, T. (2005). Ice Age Atlantis? Exploring the Solutrean-Clovis ‘connection’. World Archaeology, 37(4), 507-1039.

Tamm, E., Kivisild, T., Reidla, M., Metspalu, M., Smith, D., Mulligan, C., Bravi, C., Rickards, O., Martinez-Labarga, C., Khusnutdinova, E., Fedorova, S., Golubenko, M., Stepanov, V., Gubina, M., Zhadanov, S., Ossipova, L., Damba, L., Voevoda, M., Dipierri, J., Villems, R., & Malhi, R. (2007). Beringian standstill and spread of Native American founders. PLoS ONE, 2(9), e829.

Westley, K., & Dix, J. (2008). The Solutrean Atlantic Hypothesis: A view from the ocean. Journal of the North Atlantic, 1(1), 85-183.

A Melanesian Y-haplogroup in the Seaconke Wampanoags

 Unlikely Peregrines  No Responses »
Sep 212011
 

An interesting finding from “Genetic heritage and native identity of the Seaconke Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts” (Zhadanov et al., 2010):

Surprisingly, one of the NRY Seaconke haplotypes (no. 8) that represented a primary male ancestor of the tribe possessed the M230 marker, which indicated that it belonged to haplogroup S [formerly K-M230] (Karafet et al., 2008) (Tables 3 and 4). Haplotypes from this paternal lineage are commonly observed in different populations from Papua New Guinea and Melanesia (Kayser et al., 2003; Karafet et al., 2005; Friedlaender et al., 2006; Scheinfeldt et al., 2006; Hudjashov et al., 2007), but have not previously been reported for Native American populations. According to the Seaconke Wampanoag genealogical records, this male ancestor was an 18th century sailor from Australia who settled in the New England area, and married a Wampanoag woman. Based on this information, it had been assumed that this individual was of European descent. However, in light of the new information about his Y-chromosome haplotype, this man clearly appears to have had Melanesian paternal ancestry.


As Ishmael less delicately put it: It was now quite plain that he must be some abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whaleman in the South Seas, and so landed in this Christian country. I quaked to think of it.

Zhadanov, S. I., Dulik, M. C., Markley, M., Jennings, G. W., Gaieski, J. B., Elias, G., & Schurr, T. G. (2010). Genetic heritage and native identity of the Seaconke Wampanoag tribe of Massachusetts. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 142(4), 579-589.

Qitayliq blacksmiths of Turkic Siberia

 Unlikely Peregrines  No Responses »
Jul 012011
 

V.J. Butanaev writes:

Also interesting here is the shared phrase for ‘skilled master blacksmith’ — Xakas/Shor xɨdat us, Kyrgyz kɨldat usta, as well as Yakut kɨtat basxɨ ‘protector spirit of blacksmiths’, in which the first word literally denotes ‘Chinese’. The presence of this metaphor in Xakas, Kyrgyz and Yakut for signifying blacksmith skills suggests that the ancestors of these peoples either received their blacksmiths or their blacksmith training from China. The migration of the Yenisei Kirghiz southward and the Yakut northward out of South Siberia took place, probably, already during the Mongol period, since xɨdat (<'Khitan') derives from the Mongol word for China (cf. contemporary Khalkha Mongolian xjatad ‘China’).


This is especially interesting when you consider how the metallurgical prowess of the Türks had, by the sixth century, already famously situated them as the “blacksmith slaves” of the Jou-jan/Juan-juan/Rou-ran Kaghanate (against whom, under the leadership of Bumin, they successfully revolted with the assistance of the Wei Dynasty), and how the Yenisei Kirghiz appear to be described as working meteoric iron by the time of their appearance in Tang records. More on this later.

Butanaev, V.J. (2004). Linguistic Reflections of Xakas Ethnohistory, in E.J. Vajda (Ed.), Languages and Prehistory of Central Siberia (pp. 215-34). Amsterdam – Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

An Andamanese negrito in London

 Unlikely Peregrines  No Responses »
Mar 202011
 

From George Weber’s Lonely Islands:

In 18th century Europe it was fashionable at courts and aristocratic houses to have “Negro” pages. Even Hollywood directors knew it and few are the period costume dramas without a decorative black page or two in the background. The historical pages seem to have stayed small and youthful for a very long time, so much so that the suspicion arises that they may not have been African blacks at all but, in fact, Negritos. The grandees who owned such living prestige objects did not care much about their origins. Africans and Negritos were not differentiated even in 19th century London as was made clear by the first Officer in Charge of the Andamanese, the Reverend Henry Corbyn, who mentioned in a letter of 1863 that an Andamanese man had for many years been carrying on trade as a tobacconist in London, passing for a “stunted African”.
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