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Sheep and Central Sudanic Peoples in Southern Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Christopher Ehret
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Extract

This paper, building on the evidence of Bantu words for sheep, develops the hypothesis that livestock-keeping was introduced to southern Africa by people speaking Central Sudanic languages. It is suggested in particular that livestock may have been spread south from western Tanzania, one branch dispersing directly to southern Africa and another eastward to the Indian Ocean seaboard. It should be possible to test this hypothesis further as our knowledge of the languages involved, especially the Central Sudanic languages, grows.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 1968 , pp. 213 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

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References

1 ‘Cattle-keeping and milking in eastern and southern African history: the linguistic evidence’, J. Afr. Hist. VIII (1967).Google Scholar A number of subsequent references to the evidence of cattle words are made in the present paper. The reader in each case should refer back to the earlier article.

2 It should be pointed out that the word reconstruction in this paper draws for the most part on Meinhof's proto-Bantu scheme (and not on the recent work by Professor Guthrie).

3 This form is not reconstructed in terms of the proto-Bantu sound system. Such a reconstruction is neither necessary nor proper since the form obviously, in view of its extremely limited distribution, cannot go back to any very ancient period of Bantu history. All that is proper here is to write it in a form sufficient to explain its shapes in the modern languages in which it occurs. There is nothing in these shapes to allow any assumption that the form ever had at an earlier time in a Bantu language a shape significantly different from the one reconstructed. The *-(k)osi and *-kosa forms were reconstructed on a similar basis.

4 This form is included tentatively. A possible related form, recorded as be?eleleyako, has been noted for Hatsa. If the Hatsa form is indeed related, it might require a slightly different reconstruction of the -*belele form, which would make the equation of *-bil- and *-belele doubtful. But the discarding of *-belele would not in any way affect the arguments as they pertain to the other four suggested forms of *-bil-.

5 Perhaps the -ta could be related to the -to ending occurring with some of the Central Sudanic forms of the *-bil- root.

6 This seems probable because all the Malagasy words—osi for goat, ondri for sheep, and ombi for cattle—lack the initial k−. The k− is so common on the mainland that one would expect one of the forms at least to occur with the initial k− if the words were borrowed at different times from different sources.

7 See especially Murdock, G. P., Africa, Its Peoples and Their Culture History (1959), ch. 28.Google Scholar