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#104113 05/25/03 12:47 PM
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in my family, i am the 'black sheep'-or odd man out, what ever you want to call it--i am naturally blond (yeah, i help it out now, but i was born blond!)

all of my siblings (and my parents) have dark hair-- my father in ireland, was described as having the n word type hair(there was no insult in the use of that word in ireland)-- his hair was black and kinky. two of my siblings have kinky (not curly, kinky!) hair. (the other 2 just have dark curly hair) 3 of my siblings have olive toned skin (very pale olive, but olive none the less, and they do tan.)

on my mothers side, there is also kinky hair, but its called 'lamb's wool' hair, as it is very blond. there is some evidence that the angles (of Anglo/Saxon) had this kinky, 'lamb's wool' hair (curly hair is a dominant gene)

ireland is a island, but the celts got there, and so did the vikings, and so did the romans, so who knows maybe some moors came too, after being made to feel unwelcome in spain.
(spain is a not uncommon last name in ireland.. and last name often reflect place names)
the irish would have welcomed them, (any enemy of england is a friend of ireland, sort of thinking)

and most of the 'moors' were not negro's, but rather berber's, a total different ethnic group,found along the north coast of africa..they are swarthier than most europeans, but they are not black in the common meaning of that word.


#104114 05/25/03 04:59 PM
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Well, what were the ancient Egyptians? Were they negroes or not? Couldn't we easily tell by some kind of genetic testing of the mummies? This is a puzzle that has bothered me to death. I sure would like to know once and for all.


#104115 05/25/03 06:03 PM
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Dear WW: I rmemeber reading that one of the Egyptian dynasties was founded by people living way up the Nile,
and thus of "African " origin. I don't think I could find reference to that quickly. Just got summoned to lunch.


#104116 05/25/03 10:09 PM
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up nile (south from egypt) would be current day Ethiopia, and the people of ethiopia are not exclusively negro's. (it hard to tell what they are(originaly where), since arab, and indians have traded with and settle in the area since before recorded history!

negro's, are found in centeral africa, and they had cities, (such as timbucktue, (what ever its spelling), and some groups had a written language (but a crude writing system, about on par with what the irish used before they adapted the western alphabet) the zulu's, an other negro group, were agressive brave warriors, with sophisticated kinship, and political groups, that 'united' a good deal of central africa (a territory extending from the congo to the edge of south africa) for a variety of reasons (many to do with tropical diseases, and lack of animals suitable to domestication,) they had a more nomadic life style than say the romans, but there kingdom was larger..

nowdays, its common for american blacks to claim that the egyptians (and much of there knowledge was the basis for greek and roman advancements.) were 'blacks'. but there is a really black culture, (that is largely unknown) and there is no real proof - (the images of the egyptians made of themselves don't look like negro's, but rather like the current day people of egypt and ethiopia..) (and there images are clear enough, that doctors have seen evidence (later proven, by examination of mummies) that the egyptians suffered from polio..they portrayed infirmities pretty acurately, no reason to think they wouldn't do the same for hair, noses and skin tone.

the head waters of nile, (lake victory) is in the heart of africa, an area the is/was inhabitated exclusively by negro's. but egypt never extended to the head waters.. its present day borders are not to different from its classicial boarders (at least in terms of the land along the nile..) they did battle with the ethiopians about the boarder..and it did move over time.. (and of course, ancient maps are no where near as accurate as current day ones.. even landmarks such as 'waterfall/cateracts move with time!

at several points in egyptina history, the dynasties were headed by people of ethiopia, and other times by the berber group that is more common to north africa. but ther doesn't seem to have been a mass influx of ethiopians when they ruled egypt... (just as england had the georges' as kings, but didn't become a germanic country)

(but what ever they are, they are different cultural and language group from the semites, who make up the jewish and non jewish population of the near east.)



#104117 05/27/03 11:13 PM
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Thank you for the memory flash. Your post brought back the image of the muslim women of the Upper (ie. southern) Nile. Tall, beautiful, black women with proud, erect posture. They wore the all-covering black burka but it was of the sheerest material they could find. and underneath they wore fabrics printed with bold graphics or huge flowers in vivid pinks and oranges and yellows. Absolutely stunning.


#104118 06/11/03 03:00 AM
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I have heard the term "Black Singers" for the Welsh?

I think black singers from Wales are just that - people who are black of skin and hale from Wales, like Shirley Bassey (my, what a voice). Presumably descended from immigrants from Africa or America [ie Afro-American] in the last 100 years or so (not before... I used to like the Spanish Armada theory because my mum's family are Cornish - black Cornish - meaning they have olive skin, and I loved the romantic idea of Spanish sailors being rescued... *sigh*)


#104119 06/11/03 03:26 AM
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Of course there is the other explanation for the "black Irish" or the dark ones... That they have a bit of the sea in them from their anscestors is true, but those anscestors were seals... silkies, to be exact. Those are part seal and part human. They come ashore every once in a while and shed their skins to catch some sun... and sometimes, they themselves were caught when somone captured their skin.


#104120 06/11/03 03:31 AM
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Selkies, I think, rather than silkies.


#104121 06/11/03 09:11 AM
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The name is preserved in a couple of folk tunes I know as "Silkie," though it doesn't really matter, given the way vowels move.

Tross, Silkies also came on land and fathered children, no? My husband, Faldage, refers to himself as a black Scot but I haven't asked him about the Silkie angle yet.


#104122 06/11/03 10:20 AM
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>The name is preserved in a couple of folk tunes I know as "Silkie,

I must confess, I am just using the spelling favoured by an SF author, Anne McCaffrey, resident in Ireland, who wrote SF stories featuring these creatures. She always spelled it with an e, so I just ape her. Would a blue-blooded s(i)(e)lkie be a royal seal?


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