Indigenous Berber, the Blue men, with the eponymous blue cloth veil
One of the most misrepresent people in North Africa are the indigenous Berber people. These beautiful women are not shown on mainstream television, movies and rarely in print. These are the descendants of the ancient Berbers that the ancient Romans spoke of and wrote about.
The original indigenous Berbers were the North African ancestors of the present day dark-brown peoples of the Sahara and the Sahel, mainly those called Fulani, Tugareg, Zenagha of Southern Morocco, Kunta and Tebbu of the Sahel countries, as well as other dark-brown arabs now living in Mauretania and throughout the Sahel, including the Trarza of Mauretania and Senegal, the Mogharba as well as dozens of other Sudanese tribes, the Chaamba of Chad and Algeria.” The Westerners have chosen to concentrate on the most recent world of the Arab and Berber-speaking peoples and present it as if it is a world that has always been. “It is like comparing the Aztecs of five hundred years ago with the ethnic mix of America today,” wrote Reynolds. “The story of when North Africa was Moorish and Arabia, the land of Saracens, has yet to be told.”
– Dana Reynolds, Anthropologist
Anthropologist, Dana Reynolds traced the African roots of the original North African peoples through a dozen Greek and Byzantine (neo-Roman writers) from the first to the sixth century A.D. “They describe the Berber population of Northern Africa as dark-skinned [modern Europeans call dark brown skin color, as black-skinned] and woolly-haired.” Among these writers who wrote about the Berbers were Martial, Silius Italicus, Corippus and Procopius.
Saint Augustine was a dark-skinned Berber and many of the later Roman emperors would have trouble getting citizenship in some of today’s European states.
– Professor Mikuláš Lobkowicz, the former rector of the Munich university and current director of the Institute of Central and East European Studies in Eichstätt.
There are those who say that the Berber is part of the African story of Ham, from the land of Ber, the son of biblical figure Ham.
The original inhabitants of Ireland before the Celts invaded were Berber people who stretch all the way from Saharan Africa to Western Ireland. In North Africa they are known as Berbers, the original people before the Arab invasion of North Africa, they were known to the ancient Greeks and Romans as “barbarians,” the Tuaregs of Nigeria, Niger, Chad, etc. are a Berber people.
[Editors note: the Kanuris of North-Eastern Nigeria are known as the Iberi-beris. They are Berbers originally from Fezzan Libya]
In Spain and Portugal they were known as “Iberians,” which is the name of the Peninsula. In Ireland the Berbers are known as “Hibernians.” The Celts and later invaders pushed them back to the West of Ireland, where you most commonly see the “black Irish” with black hair and brown eyes. The most popular recreational organization of Irish Americans is the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH).
Modern Berber family having a traditional meal
The images that are shown in mainstream television, movies and in print are of the lighter skinned people that are also referred as Berber. Modern north Africa has changed a great deal, from waves of invasions such as the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Germanic tribes, Arabs, Turks and the French have led to the amalgamation in the region. The role of literally millions of enslaved Indo-Europeans and concubinage in the creation of admixed populations in cities like Tunis, Tripoli, Fez, Sale and Algiers are well documented. This is the formation of populations in north Africa today. These now lighter skinned people do not call themselves African. In fact, the term “African” is a very demonized term to many, more than likely because of the modern European invasion into Africa, Europeans had to justify their behavior (some still do), and the term African is the object of ridicule and humiliation. The term Berber is now a regional word to apply to these people that now share many common cultural ideas and customs. “
Great info. Keep it coming. Thanks!!
Please my question is why Fulani’s play with the Berbers,help out me out.tanx
This is so incredibly offensive to light-skinned Berbers like myself. I am beyond tired of hearing this double standard of “black people” being offended by cultural “misappropriation”, meanwhile the same ideology is used to denigrate and negate the entire culture and existence of another race of people simply because it conflicts with an erroneous notion of “African-ness” that was actually created by Europeans in order to justify enslaving black people. There have always been PEOPLE OF ALL SHADES OF SKIN COLOR who ARE INDIGENOUS TO AFRICA! So that said, I use quotes around the words and phrases above for sarcastic affect, because of course this whole mind set is driven by none other than the very western machine against which people like this author claim to rebel. Nevertheless, here you are repeating the same garbage.
For the record, as you explicitly state above, the Berber people existed all the way from Northern Africa, up through central Europe – having done so since at least 3,500 BCE. As for my father’s family – which are from a Berber tribe which resided in the mountains of Northern Libya for millennia, they are all light skinned – but, for the record, they don’t get “sunburnt” easily – and, I won’t get into the details of how ancestry DNA tests work, but to put it simply my father’s DNA is 95% North African Berber, and 3% Iberian. So, it absolutely infuriates me to see written AGAIN and AGAIN articles like this about the Berber people as if the “light skinned Berbers” are stealing culture from the “Black Berbers.” The fact that you even say that, demonstrates to what extent you are brainwashed by western culture and not a “free-thinker” but instead, enslaved in mind. Basically, you think you’re woke, but you fast asleep, goofy.
That is the TRUE irony of the Berber people: We are indigenous Africans just as much as “Black people” claim to be and we are indigenous Europeans just as much as “White people” claim to be, and yet we are neither the typical “Anglo-Saxon white person” (or Welsh, for that matter); and we’re not dark-skinned (or “black”). Take a look at our rich culture, and you will see, everything you thought only “Black people” create – Berbers created it, too, as one of THE MOST ISOLATED COMMUNITIES ETHNICALLY AND CULTURALLY throughout recorded TIME AND SPACE. So, no, we didn’t steal those bumpin’ gnawa rhythms from Congoans; we didn’t steal the sacred geometry from the Jews or the Christians; LIBYAN MESHWESH BERBERS RULED EGYPT FOR OVER 200 YEARS. The 23rd & 24th Dynasties – and THOSE dynasties have been erased from history essentially. So, again, this notion that it’s only “black Africans” who have suffered the erasure of their culture, it disgusts me, because it couldn’t be further from the truth.
I appreciate you having gathered the bits and pieces of information that you have, despite having cherry-picked it to fit a narrative that is first of all untrue, secondly offensive to those whose culture you are self-electing to reinterpret and re-write, and lastly, you essentially perpetrate the very same behavior here which you assert “white people” are guilty of – meanwhile lumping in EVERYONE who has “light skin” – including INDIGENOUS BERBERS, not some “watered down” light skinned version of “Black Berbers”, but genetically isolated, long-standing heritage, in BOTH the big beautiful continent of Africa and the less-lovable, but considerably more temperate CENTRAL Europe. Of course because the very existence of Northern Berbers – and they fact that we ARE one of the most genetically isolated cultures of the world to this day, making it easy to substantiate claims that our ancestors were INDEED in BOTH AFRICA AND EUROPE FOR MANY, MANY THOUSANDS – not hundreds – THOUSANDS of years!! The fact that we are the ORIGINAL Pagans, the fact that LIBYAN BERBERS RULED ANCIENT EGYPT DURING THE 23rd and 24th DYNASTIES!!! NO ONE has AS RICH a CULTURAL HISTORY AS US.
And yet, we light skinned Berbers of Libya, the Amazigh! The FREE PEOPLE which are the origins of the BERBER CULTURE! We are HATED MOST by “black people” and “white people” alike WHO ARE SO CAUGHT UP in SKIN COLOR. Skin color says NOTHING about who we are as people – but sadly so many people still believe our color should be central to everything we think, do or say!
Being so focused on adhering to this label or that label will always cause us to fail, because ultimately that sort of mindset causes war, and war always has a victor & a victim, and after enough turns, in order to become the victor, the victim must become the abuser. Having said that, when war MUST occur, no one better to lead the way than a bad ass Berber bitch like Kahena, who was literally the living emblem of “Lady Liberty” in whatever form you wish to think of her, but you might not be ready for that part of Berber history just yet. Btw, why does NO ONE seem to want to mention the longstanding tradition among many North African Berbers of passing down the surname of women born to powerful Berber clans instead of the father’s name onto the offspring? Only if the maternal bloodline of the husband is more powerful than the maternal bloodline of the wife does the man pass down his name to his children. And it’s the father’s first name which is used as the “middle name” for all children – but really, it’s treated more as we treat double surnames in America. I believe Tuaregs observe those traditions as well, although I could be mistaken.
So what does that show? Historically, the Berber tribes were strikingly egalitarian when it came to the amount of respect and esteem held for each of the sexes, unlike the nonsense depicted in the butchered religious texts people claim to be the book of Christ, or of Muhammed, or of Yahweh and so on and so forth… Nor did they try to EQUATE the sexes as one and the same (nor did they believe you could change the status of your sex based on your gender identity). Men and women always were intended to compliment one another – enhance one another – and it mattered not who filled this role or that, so much as it mattered that the most adept filled the role at hand.
We the Berber People – ALL BERBERS, INCLUDING THE LIGHT SKINNED BERBERS OF NORTH AFRICA AND CENTRAL EUROPE – WE ARE the true ANCESTORS OF THE DRUIDS; WE ARE they who taught the “Book of the Dead” and the Book of Life to the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt; it is us, the Amazigh, who knew of and believed in mysticism, divine union, introspection and exertion, all the pillars of modern religions, long before any of those religions existed – including Judaism. We are the ORIGINAL FREE PEOPLE, and we have such a rich history, and only the lucky few who get to hear the TRUE oral traditions of the word which was never written, only spoken among us with minds free enough to open and eyes open enough to see, despite all we have lost, despite all the world’s hatred for us and the revisionist histories both black and white people wish to propagate about our appearance and heritage, we shall restore our culture, and our kingdom, as foretold in prophecy.
Here’s an article to compare: https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-africa/rich-mythology-and-megalithic-culture-ancient-berbers-lords-desert-003216
“Archaeologists have traced their origins to the Caspian culture, a North African civilization that dates back more than 10,000 years. Berber-speaking people have lived in North Africa since the earliest times and are first referenced by the Egyptians in 3,000 BC under the name Temehu. Phoenician, Greek, and Roman texts also refer to them.”
The between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea was the land where the Norse God Odin supposedly resided before his departure from his garden of paradise…. Indeed, there are many Berber legends which sound like they should be the tales of vikings. So… Again, this notion that “white Berbers” are watered down Black Berbers has been unsupported by recent archeological advances; not to mention the fact that, as historians and anthropologists become less racist, suddenly its being revealed that – gasp – Africa is actually home to people of more than one skin color!
I have been reading the bible and for some reason started sensing somethings are amiss. For example, the cultures and traditions closely matched those of Subsaharan Africans but in the mainstream media, those characters are depicted as lighter individuals. Hence my research to find out who the people are that occupied North Africa and it is starting to make all the more sense now. Keep it coming and I would like to know more about resources and timelines.