Africa, Canaan, and South America

[kbs2244]

I will start a new one here since the boat one is getting kind of long.

Ish:
I came across something while cleaning up my system that may be of interest to you.
While Phil[p Ochieng is infamous for his black centralist views, he does have some foundation for them.
At the least, he brings a view from a different cultural background.
(Check out his views on our own Barack Obama.)

This column was published in a number of places.
I copied it from the Nairobi East African newspaper.
But it is free on this site.


Maasais, Canaanites And the Inca Connection
East African (Nairobi)
COLUMN
5 June 2007
Posted to the web 5 June 2007
By Philip Ochieng
Nairobi

http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=1152


For John:
Remember the Inca were on the Pacific coast of SA.
But they certainly were not the flatlanders that the Egyptians were.

[Ishtar]

Thank you, KB. This is such an interesting article, I’d like to copy and paste it in full here, and add a few comments as we go. I think it could be lead to an interesting discussion.

Why is Enkai, the Creator god of the Maasai, almost the same as Enki, who created the Sumerians, as well as Enoch, the Canaanite hero who stormed heaven, and Inca, the divine chief of the ancient Andeans?

Is it accidental that if you reverse the syllables of those names - a word-game which ancient societies played all the time - you get Ka'in of the Sumerians, Kainan of the Canaanites, Cain of Genesis and Chanes of Mesoamerica?

Thus, although Genesis informs us that Cain was Enoch's father, a scruple crosses the mind. For the book cannot make up its mind which one of them was the first city-builder. It says that Cain gave his city the name Enoch. But both words mean exactly the same thing - "founder," "settler," "city builder." It is thus certain that Cain is Enoch.

What the Maasai share with the Canaanites, Sumerians and the autochthons of Central America is their Nilotic root.

And, as is now well known, Genesis is drawn entirely from Israel-Judah's bondage in Egypt and Sumeria (Babylon) and, between them, the religious subservience in Canaan called "idolatry."

All the ancient Nilotes worshipped the creator goddess Maat (known also as Isis and a thousand other names). As the goddess of love and justice, her counterpart in Orphic mysticism was the mysterious Eros, known to the Vedic Indians as Kama and to the Romans as Cupid.

What we often forget is Israel's proximity to Africa. This is a map I did for another thread showing life-death-rebirth deities around the Mediterranean within Constantine's reach, but it also shows Israel’s closeness to Africa.



So it would be amazing if these ideas didn’t travel into Africa, or even came out of Africa.

I think also that the earliest evidence for Neanderthals comes from the Lebanon.

On top of that, we are now seeing ritualistic activity in South Africa as much as 200,000 years ago.

The received wisdom has the Canaanites coming from Sumeria.

By the time we meet this deity in literature, however, she is entirely male because, by that time, the whole matriarchal world of the Hamites has been overrun by Semito-Aryan patriarchy and all institutions of the goddess have been handed over to a new male supremo - for instance, Zeus on Olympus.

Ptah-hotep, the Coptic guru, defined Maat as the truth, justice and righteousness. For she it was who could transform a human individual into a geru-maa, self-disciplined and virtuous. A geru-maa was likened to a tree growing in fertile ground, offering pleasant shade and yieding succulent fruit.

This is extraordinary information. In ancient Hamitic languages - as we saw in an earlier piece - you removed "at" from a noun to masculinise it. If you masculinised Maat, you got Maa.

This ‘ma’ root for the Great Mother is in every language. It is also in MAry and MAry Magdelene and MAgna MAter. The sea, the great womb of the earth, is referred to a ‘mar’ or ‘mer’. In French, the sea is ‘la mer’ and mother is ‘la mere’. It is also in MAgnetic, and MAGnify, as we discussed in the Boat Thread, and the female part of ELectro-MAGnetism.

Maat had been the supreme goddess ever since she created herself and the universe. Now, under patriarchy, the need arose for the supreme divine office to go to a male god. It was thus that Maat became Maa.

If, for its part, the geru in geru-maa is cognate with the Hindu-Sikh guru (the supreme teacher), then geru-maa can be translated as "Teacher of Righteousness." This is engrossing. For Genesis identifies the "Teacher of Righteousness" with the Canaanite priest-king Melchizedek of pre-Israelite Jerusalem.

I have to disagree here. In Sanskrit, ‘gu’ means darkness and ‘ru’ means light. Thus guru means one who takes the human being from darkness to light. It has only lately come to mean teacher and even then, not a teacher of righteousness, as the guru takes us beyond the duality of good and bad, right and wrong. This is called 'advaita'.

However, it needn’t take away from the rest of his thesis.

The Maasai are likely to have come from around Napata and Meroe, the seat of a celebrated Nilotic state where, at Nag Hammadi, ancient gospels have recently been discovered which connects the authors with the Melchizedekian order to which Jesus belonged.

All this may indicate why the worshippers of Enkai called themselves Maasai. Cynthia Salvadori translates the word Maasai as "people of Maa speech." But that begs the question: What exactly is "Maa speech?" An answer that suggests itself is that Maa is another name for Enkai.

Moreover, if Enkai is cognate with the Sumerian Enki, the Canaanite Enoch, Genesis's Cain, the Andean Inca, the Mexican Chanes, to this list we can add the ancient Western African kingdom of Ghana and, in modern Ghana, the Akan.

Robert Graves in The Greek Myths and Robert Temple in The Sirius Mystery report that Canaan is only a Hebrew corruption of Aganor - the Ugandan who became the eponymous father of the Canaanites - a name which closely resembles Ghana.

They and Cheik Anta Diop - the great Senegalese archaeo-historian - demonstrate a direct cultural, mythological, linguistic and blood link between Cush, Egypt, Crete, Arcadia, Thessaly, Armenia, Lemnos, Canaan, Garamantia (ancient Libya), Dogon, Bambara, Wolof and Akan.

Did the Maasai carry over the Maa legend with them to Kenya - just as the Sumerians and Syria's Mandaeans took it from Maagan or Maadai (their respective words for Egypt) and just as the Phoenicians took Cain's legend to Central America?

Do maagan, maadai and Maasai mean the same thing, the land of origin along the sacred Nile? What we can stress is the moral nature of Maat and Maa, whose essence was Charity.

We find that kharis (plural: kharites), the Greek word which has given us both charity and charisma and even cher or cheri (the French words for "dear" and "darling") all have the significance of grace, favour and generosity. Today, charisma means oral ability to sway people.

But, originally, charisma was the Charis of Maat, the ability to sway people, not merely by mouth, but, much more genuinely, through good deeds. Our politicians, who are "charismatic" only by mouth, lack the charisma of the Mother Goddess.

For we learn that the "ma" in charisma is the same "ma" in Maat, which is clearly related to the element ma in mama, which means "mother" in practically all languages in the world.

The "Ma" in Maat is the bountiful one, the liberal giver, the Charis-maat, the Charitable mama, the one who ceaselessly strives against falsehood, corruption and chaos. Omowale reports that Maat "...created the kind of enabling climate that the Dinka of Sudan mean when they say the land is in cieng' ... [and] ... Abunta..."

Abunta is related to the Kenya Luo bunda. But don't ask me why they are almost identical to the English noun bundle and adjective abundant (from the Latin verb abundare, to abound), which mean exactly the same thing and imply cornucopia.

But I know that cieng is the way many Luo-speaking Sudanese tribes spell what the Kenya Luo call chieng' (the "sun.") My name Ochieng' (feminine: Achieng') means "born under the sun," that is, in the region of noon, and implies good weather and Maat's providential abundance.

To reiterate, Enoch is just Cain in reverse - a man of solidly civilised foundations, a man identified with all the knowledge (art, skill and wisdom) that goes with techno-scientific advancement. Enoch, then, is a Hebrew corruption either of Anki, the universe, or of Enki, Lord of the Earth - the latter more probably because the Earth was the base or foundation or settlement or city of the god Enki. As anybody can see, Enki is exactly the same name as Enoch and, in reverse, Cain.

Enki, Enoch and Cain also mean "foundation." Nobody that I know seems to notice how etymologically close the two names (En-och and En-ki) are.

If, as Graves affirms, the Canaanites came from East Africa via the Nile, it is not surprising to find even a third cognate by Lake Victoria, the Maasai god En-kai.

I've just bolded that last bit because it is not the current received wisdom, which is that they came from Sumeria/Akkad. But it would be possible to make a case for the Sumerians coming out of Africa.

En-kai, En-ki, An-ki, En-och, Inca and their reverse forms Ka'in, Cain, Chanes, Ghana and Akan mean exactly the same thing because they refer to one and the same Nilotic African pioneer in the remote past called Canaan.

Non-Nilotic Kenyans will also be interested in this story because it is almost certain that Enkai was the archetype of the god Ngai worshipped by many Bantu neighbours of the Maasai before he was banished from the land by the Euro-Hebraic Jehovah.

Some fascinating ideas to play with there! Thanks KB.

[kbs2244]

“Ethiopians” and the “Land of Put” are mentioned more that once in the OT.
Almost always as a place of warriors.
(I think “Ethiopia” translates as “Land of burnt faces.”)
They were the areas south of Egypt and west of the Nile.
I guess that counts as Africa.

[Minimalist]

"Ethiopia" as I recall is derived from a Greek word (and yes, it does mean burnt faces or such).

Of course, that would mean that its use in the OT for the Bronze Age is yet another anachronism as Greek did not begin spreading into the Levant until much later.

[kbs2244]

Just a case of the translator using a more modern word that his audience would recognize, rather than an accurate but not commonly recognizable word.
You would expect the Septuagint to use a Greek word

[Minimalist]

If the name already existed why would anyone re-write it into Greek?

Of course, we have no indication that there was ever a written version of the OT before it was produced in Greek.

[kbs2244]

I guess I am not all that concerned about it.

My point in starting this thread is how this guy tied together not just Africa and the Mid East, but South America on a cultural and religious level.

If he is right, it wasn't just some nomadic goat herders following the greenest grass.

[santyago61]

The Erich von Daniken Anti-science Award for Completely Specious Connections goes to Philip Ochieng!

The Maasai and the Inca??? Really???

In Chinese, the syllable ma means different things depending on tone. it can mean:

question marker
mother
horse
agate
hemp
curse
numeral

But the syllable exists in most languages. That doesn't mean they come from the same linguistic root. The fact that I sometimes call my mother Ma and so do some Chinese is meaningless!

This is the same kind of thinking that says that Ancient Egyptians had paddles of a certain shape for propelling their reed boats down the Nile. And Amazonian Indians use similar shaped paddles for rowing their canoes down the Amazon. So they must be connected!

Or maybe, just maybe, people all over the world were able to figure out the efficient shape for a paddle independently...

Canaanites, Meroe, Nilotic tribes -- those are fun connections to explore. But Incas? Give me a break.

[Ishtar]

I don't quite follow your line of reasoning, Santyago.

I don't think the linguistic root as such is important. Linguistics is a very fuzzy science anyway, and the different branches of language types were categorised long before we knew what we know today about population spreads and genetics.

We still haven't figured out if we are really all Out of Africa, or whether there was a Multi Regional spread. Theories about the development of an Indo European language involved an invasion of "Aryans" into India, which few now believe in.

So we're not really in a position too much, imo, to get worried over one word not fitting where we think it should in our mental pigeon holes.

What is interesting, though, is how often the syllable 'ma' is used for 'mother' in so many cultures and, as you point out, even Chinese, albeit that the 'ma' syllable can also mean other things in that language.

The ancient Inca creation myth about Virachocha features four sisters: Mama Ocllo, Mama Huaco, Mama Ruau and Mama Cura. If it follows other ancient mythologies, it could be a metaphor for a triple-aspected (as in the Rig-veda or Celtic mythology) or even four-aspected Mother Goddess. Otherwise, why have four sisters with the same first name? Repetition in mythology is usually pointing to a hidden meaning.

We would expect hunter gatherer populations who roamed around Africa, Egypt and Sumeria to share some cross-cultural influences. We also know that the Mother Goddess was predominant long before God became a man.

We still don't know where the Inca came from, originally. And the Maya Codex shows a key mythological creation story that is identical to a Vedic and an Egyptian one.

But finding commonalities in the words and the myths does not automatically mean that these people must have all come from the same place. There are other reasons why they would have words and stories in common ...

However, I find the 'ma' syllable to be too widespread to be ignored, especially given that it was key to the ancient cosmogonic mindset in that it originally represented the Great Mother.

[santyago61]

The ma syllable is just one of the first syllables a human baby can form -- frequently while looking at his/her mother. So "mama" (mother in Swahili) and "mum" or "mom" or "momma" or mummy" in English mean mother because they are one of the first words babies can form. "Baba" (father in Swahili) or "dada" or "daddy" are also among a baby's first words. My point is that happens all over the place and the ma syllable means mother in different cultures because it's a baby's first syllable not because there's some linguistic connection. It's the physics of a baby's mouth not the fact that the English and the Chinese came out of Africa a million years ago.

[santyago61]

What do you mean we don't know where the Inca came from? Current science is in general agreement that the Inca civilization arose from populations that migrated to the New World from Northeastern Asia between 40,000 and 14,000 years ago. Of course, von Daniken would say they came out of a spaceship...

[Ishtar]

The ma syllable is just one of the first syllables a human baby can form -- frequently while looking at his/her mother. So "mama" (mother in Swahili) and "mum" or "mom" or "momma" or mummy" in English mean mother because they are one of the first words babies can form. "Baba" (father in Swahili) or "dada" or "daddy" are also among a baby's first words. My point is that happens all over the place and the ma syllable means mother in different cultures because it's a baby's first syllable not because there's some linguistic connection. It's the physics of a baby's mouth not the fact that the English and the Chinese came out of Africa a million years ago.

That's an interesting theory. But has it been proved?

Could it not be that a baby is taught that that big, soft, warm milk machine is called 'ma', and as it also senses that it is totally dependent on it for its survival and ... more milk, it learns that name really fast.

Just a thought ...

[Ishtar]

What do you mean we don't know where the Inca came from? Current science is in general agreement that the Inca civilization arose from populations that migrated to the New World from Northeastern Asia between 40,000 and 14,000 years ago. Of course, von Daniken would say they came out of a spaceship...

I think - and I may be wrong - that there's been some disagreement about that ... and I don't just mean Daniken.

But in any case, if they did come from Northeast Asia, then their language would likely be Proto Indo European (PIE), from which we derived the word 'mother'.

This is from the Online Etymological Dictionary:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?sea ... hmode=none

Mother

O.E. modor, from P.Gmc. *mothær (cf. O.S. modar, Dan. moder, Du. moeder, Ger. Mutter), from PIE *mater- (cf. L. mater, O.Ir. mathir, Lith. mote, Skt. matar-, Gk. meter, O.C.S. mati). Spelling with -th- dates from early 16c., though that pronunciation is probably older.

[santyago61]

Wouldn't the first Americans be more likely to speak Proto-Sinitic and not PIE?

[Ishtar]

I'm not the best person here to speak to about this ... Cogs would be a better bet for you.

But I thought the first Americans are thought to have come from Siberia - but that it's not certain?