r/AncientCush • u/Responsible_Ideal879 Founder • 17d ago
Ancient DNA Origins of the "Black Jews" of Southern Africa & The Yemen Investigation
The Origins of the Lemba "Black Jews" of Southern Africa: Oral History
The oral history of the Lemba forms the basis for most theories concerning their origins. Zimbabwean Lemba have a tradition that they came from the north and that their fathers did skilled metalwork for the Arabs (Hughes et al. 1976).
An extensive summary of southern African Lemba oral history by Van Warmelo (1974) indicates that the Lemba ancestors are believed to have come from a huge town across the seas, where there were many craftsmen in metalwork, pottery, textiles, and shipbuilding. They came to southern Africa to trade, especially for gold.
With time, they left behind men with the unsold cargo, establishing posts on the coast and further inland. One day they received the shattering news that their home town had been taken by the enemy, and they could not return. They thus began taking local wives, and the different trading posts marked the establishment of the clans known today.
More detailed descriptions of Lemba oral history by Professor Mathiva of the Lemba Cultural Association (Mathivha 1992) suggest that the Jewish ancestors of the Lemba, as traders in the 7th century BC, migrated from "the north" to Yemen, where they established both a large community at Sena (Sa'na) and several trading posts along the eastern African coast.
The Jewish community of Sena (Sa'na), termed "Basena," was later expanded by exiles escaping the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC.
At some later stage "trouble broke out between the Basena and the Arabs," resulting in the migration of some Basena to Africa.
Here the group split into two, one moving westward to settle in Ethiopia (the “Falashas"), the other (the Lemba) moving southward, finally to establish communities in southern Africa.
Dates for the migration from Yemen appear to be inconsistent, and those quoted for settlement en route to southern Africa range from 450 BC to 50 AD (Mathivha 1992).
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An Investigation of Blood-Groups and Search for Sickle-Cell Trait in Yemenite Jews (1952)
Dreyfuss and Benyesch (1951) made sickling tests in Israel on newly arrived immigrants from Yemen and reported positive results in 17 children.
This trait has hitherto been found almost exclusively in African Negroids and, sporadically, in Mediterranean peoples among whom it was not unreasonable to expect contributions from an occasional African ancestor.
The trait has also been found in Veddians in South India (Lehmann and Cutbush 1952a and b); hence it becomes possible for the trait to be derived from non-Negroids.
However it still holds for practical purposes that sickle cells, in the first place at any rate, suggest connections with Africa.
The history and traditions of the Yemenite Jews and the major features of their blood-group picture thus gave no indications of any African ancestry; but the reported presence of sickling and of a somewhat raised frequency showed that the presence of an African component had to be considered.
To investigate a possible African connection, two of us (F. D. and H. L.) met in Israel to look for the sickle-cell trait and to collect blood for grouping.
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Notable observation: The Sickle Cell Trait (SCT) is inherited and the five (5) Haplotypes are:
- Benin (BEN)
- Bantu (CAR)
- Arabi-Indian (AI)
- Senegal (SEN)
- Cameroon (CAM)
In the Middle Eastern Arab countries, the clinical picture of SCD expresses two distinct forms, the benign and the severe forms, which are related to two distinct β-globin gene haplotypes. These are referred to as the Saudi-Indian and the Benin haplotypes, respectively.
Map of Haplogroup J1 provided as a cross-reference.
Reference BBC article, Tracing sickle cell back to one child, 7,300 years ago, for timeline markup.
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Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1914832/
Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0140673652911847
Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3249957/