"Like all other Berbers, the Riffians include standard Mediterraneans in their tribal populations. Among these Mediterraneans the incidence of elements of blond hair and blue eyes is a bit higher than the usual twenty-five percent. I attribute the slight excess to several factors : isolation in a cloudy and cool mountain habitat and mixture with an older strain. Concentrated in the more isolated tribes in the central Rif, the older strain is characterized by individuals of stocky build, with large heads, broad faces, low orbits, large teeth, and broad noses. While variable in pigmentation, these individuals, who look like Irishmen, run to red hair, green eyes, and freckles. They cannot be explained by any historical invasion of North Africa, real or fancied; the bones of their preagricultural ancestors have been excavated from North African soil in sufficient quantity to confim the local antiquity of the genes which produces them. A broad head, a wide face, a snub nose, freckles, and other individual traits derived from this racial combination may be seen in other Riffians and in other Berber populations. Green eyes, for example, are common among the Middle Atlas Beraber (as anyone who was with the Goums in the last war may remember). Fair hair has been recorded from the Kabyles in Algeria, but actual statistical work shows them to be almost entirely Mediterranean with only a slight excess of blondism."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Carleton S. Coon, Caravan - The Story of Middle East: The Story of Middle East (1951), Read Books, 2007, p. 163
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Berber_people
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Berber people
29 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Berber people →
Related Quotes
"The noble Moor of Spain is anything but a pure Arab of the desert, he is half a Berber (from the Aryan family) and hi…"
"'Moorish' Spain does at least have the merit of reminding us that the bulk of the invaders and settlers were Moors, i…"
"Who were these conquerors, who had so quickly and so completely overturned the strongest western European monarchy of…"
"The Andalusians themselves were of varied origins. The numerically tiny Arab elite had intermarried with other people…"
"For a century, the Arabs tribes gave Islam the first of these victories. Then the rough mountain peoples of North Afr…"
"In one sense the word 'Moor' means the Mohammedan Berbers and Arabs of north-western Africa, with some Syrians, who c…"
"These Moors cultivated the sciences with success, and taught Spain and Italy for five centuries."
"It was, however, from Spain, and not from Arabia, that a knowledge of eastern mathematics first came into western Eur…"
"Our obligations to the Spanish Moors in the arts of life are even more marked than in the higher branches of sciences."
"Christianity destroyed for us the whole harvest of ancient civilization, and later it also destroyed for us the whole…"