JOSEPH W. TKACH
PASTOR GENERAL

June 1988

Dear Friend:

Thank you for requesting information about the origin of the black race.

The black race, which no doubt originated within several generations of Adam and Eve, can be definitely traced back only as far as Ham and his wife (whom he married before the Flood). One of their sons was named Cush (Gen. 10:6) which means "black" in Hebrew and is often translated into English as "Ethiopia" because the Greeks first called the children of Cush "Ethiopians." But not all Cushites live in the modern nation of Ethiopia.

Cush first settled around ancient Babylon (Gen. 10:8-10). From Babylon, Cush spread far and wide. Most of the black children of Cush migrated across central Arabia and around its southern coast to East Africa. The Egyptians called East Africa south of Syene, "Kosh." The Chaldeans and the Assyrians called it "Kushu" ("Cush" and "Ethiopia," "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia").

Cush also had sons who went east into Asia rather than into Africa. Herodotus wrote:

The Ethiopians from the sun-rise ... were marshalled with the Indians, and did not at all differ from [them] in appearance but only in their language, and their hair. For the eastern Ethiopians are straight-haired; but those of (Africa) have hair more curly than that of any other people. These Ethiopians from Asia were accounted (almost the same as the Indians [of India]) ("Polymnia," Section 20).

The brown people of southern India and Ceylon are also descendants of Cush. Historians call them Dravidians; the ancients called them Sibae ("Smith's Classical Dictionary"). Their Bible name was Seba (Gen. 10:7). Josephus recognized an eastern and a western Cush -- one in Asia, the other in Africa ("Antiquities," Book 1, VI, 2). Herodotus calls them "Asiatic Ethiopians" ("Thalia," Section 94). "Ethiopia" in Ezekiel 38:5 should be translated "Cush." It refers primarily to the ASIATIC Cush, which is India today.

Ham had another son, Phut or Put. Josephus wrote this: "Phut also was the founder of Libya [meaning Africa], and called the inhabitants Phutites, from himself: there is also a river in the country of the Moors which bears that name; whence it is that ... the Grecian historiographers mention [Africa] ... by the appellation of Phut" ("Antiquities," Book 1, VI, 2).

Put, or Phut, then, is the father of the central Africans. The Egyptians called the region of the Sudan "Pet." The Babylonians and Persians called a similar region "Putu" ("Smith's Bible Dictionary" and "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia").

The author who provides the most information on the development of black peoples in Africa is Herbert Richmond Palmer. He wrote the rare volume "The Bornu Sahara and Sudan" and the more readily available "Sudanese Memoirs." His works provide translation from Arabic into English.

In India the highest castes were not only called Brahmins, but also Rajputs. "Rajput" means "king or chief of Put" ("Raja," "Encyclopaedia Britannica," llth ed.). "Phut" or "Put" means a "warrior" in Hebrew. The Rajputs are the most noted warriors of India. The word "Phut" is not properly translated "Libya" in Ezekiel 38:5, because the people of Phut referred to here are those of India.

Of the four sons of Ham, only Cush bears a name that means "black." Yet, just as some of the sons of Cush are brown, so some of the children of Phut are black. The Indians of central and northern India vary from light to dark brown.

What is the origin of the black people of the islands of Southeast Asia and Australia and the Negroid pygmies in Asia and Africa? According to historians, in ancient times "dark-skinned people" lived in Colchis, an area which bordered on the Black Sea. When the Assyrians carried Egyptians and Ethiopians captive (Isa 20), many were undoubtedly planted in this very region. (See "Colchis," The "Encyclopaedia Britannica," 11th ed.). These people practiced circumcision -- just as the aborigines of Australia do today. From this region northwest of Babylon comes the black race of Southeast Asia.

The Aeetas also lived in ancient Colchis ("Aea," "Smith's Classical Dictionary"). The Aeetas today are in the Philippines, where the sons of Japheth are also ("Negritoes," "Encyclopaedia Britannica," 11th ed.). Also, some of the aboriginal tribes of Australia and New Guinea and some West African tribes are descended from Canaan, another son of Ham. There are also brown and black Egyptians living along the Nile in Egypt and the Sudan. These peoples are descended from Ham's son Mizraim.

So, blacks descend from each of the four sons of Ham and his wife.

PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE DEPARTMENT