By Jessica Goldstein
Were the Ancient Israelites pygmy people from Africa?
Yet it was I who destroyed the Amorite before them, whose height was like the height of the cedars, and he was as strong as the oaks; yet I destroyed his fruit above and his roots beneath. Also it was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt, and led you forty years through the wilderness, to possess the land of the Amorite(Amos 2:9–10).
The Emim had dwelt there in times past, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim. They were also regarded as giants [Hebrew rephaim], like the Anakim, but the Moabites call them Emim(Deuteronomy 2:10–11).
[The land of Ammon] was also regarded as a land of giants [Hebrew rephaim]; giants [rephaim] formerly dwelt there. But the Ammonites call them Zamzummim, a people as great and numerous and tall as the Anakim. But the Lord destroyed them before them, and they dispossessed them and dwelt in their place(Deuteronomy 2:20–21).
The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight”(Numbers 13:32—33, NASB).
By these narratives, it appears that there were either giants roaming about on earth "in those days". Either that or Ancient Israelites were pygmies from Africa who had migrated to present day Palestine region, because taller Africans were killing them in numbers, i.e. Dinka & Tutsis.
Exodus of the Pygmies
In Ancient Egypt, especially during the Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom periods, dwarfs and pygmies were seen as people with celestial gifts. They were treated with considerable respect and could enjoy high social positions. During the 1st Dynasty (c. 3150–2900 BC), dwarfs served and worked directly for the king and royal household, and a number have been found buried in subsidiary tombs around those of the kings. In fact, the rather high proportion of dwarfs in the royal cemeteries of the 1st Dynasty suggests some may have been brought into Egypt from elsewhere.
Later, in the Old Kingdom (c. 2680–2180 BC), dwarfs were employed as jewellers, tailors, cup-bearers and zookeepers, could found families or be brought into one. Pygmies were employed as dancers for special occasions and religious festivals. The social position of dwarfs seems to have declined after the Old Kingdom. By the time of the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC) they were depicted in ridiculing ways, and while the papyrus "The wise doctrine of Amenemope, son of Kanakht" asks people not to treat them badly, this probably shows that they were subject to abuse
Dwarfs in ancient Egypt appear to have suffered little due to prejudice. This was the most serious congenital abnormality recorded in ancient Egypt. Well known Egyptologists Kent Weeks has recorded nine skeletons of this type, and Dasen lists 207 known representations of dwarfism.
The disease, known as achondroplasia, was probably caused by inbreeding, and thus might very well have occurred in royal families. This disease results in a head and trunk of normal size with shortened limbs. Examples have been found even dating back to Egypt's predynastic period. We know of a number of examples where dwarfs were well integrated into society, holding important positions and marrying woman of normal stature.
This is not to say that the condition was not recognized by the Egyptians, but tolerance was taught. In the Instruction of Amenemope at the end of the 2nd millennium BC, a call for justice and forbearance is provided:
Mock not the blind nor deride the dwarf nor block the cripple's path; don't tease a man made ill by a god nor make outcry when he blunders.
We find dwafs in the form of gods, such as Bes. While the Egyptian reasoning for dwarf gods such as Bes is unclear, some have suggested that the belief sprang from an association with dwarfs as familiar protective beings. It is likely that dwarfs benefited socially from their resemblance to these gods.
We find examples of dwarfs in skilled positions such as jewelry craftsman as depicted in the Old Kingdom tomb of Mereruka at Saqqara, and in other wall paintings they are shown tending animals, undertaking agricultural work and occasionally as entertainers for high officials. At other times they are shown as serving important households sometimes as entertainers and in other capacities.
One example of a very important dwarf was Seneb, biblical Joseph, a 4th or early 5th Dynasty dwarf. He was overseer of the palace dwarfs, chief of the royal wardrobe and priest of the funerary cults of Khufu. A fine statue depicts him with his family, including his wife who was of normal stature, and two children. His wife was known to have been a lady of the court and a priestess.
While dwarfs might be a part of the court, the pygmies were entertainment for the court, but valued in this respect. A letter from Pepy II of the 6th Dynasty urges Harkhuf, who was on his way back from an expedition to the south of the Sudan, to take great care of the dancing pygmy he had acquired. The letter states that, "My majesty desires to see this pygmy more than the gifts of the mineland (Sinai) and of Punt".
!JACOB, ISRAEL of TSWA(PYGMY) PEOPLE!
"The pygmoid Tswa people, who reside in the Zairian province of Equator, tell a . . . legend of the sainted ancestor who ascended to the sky. His name is DJAKOBA; his diminutive descendents call themselves the "children of Djakoba," as Schebesta reported. Hebrew Ya'akoba or English JACOB was the original name of Israel, the first Israelite, who sired the famous Children of Israel. After his death, according to the legends in the Hebrew Talmud, Jacob or Israel went to live in the moon.
The Tswa "Children of Jacob" piously maintain that God or a spiritual force somehow intervened on their behalf to divide a body of water. This fragmentary and poorly understood tradition is summarised in Schebesta's description of "elima, the vital force that parted the water(?)." His text explains that Elima probably represented the original Tswa "name of the supreme being, thus of God." In the Efe language, ilani or ila is energy, force, power, or strength. The Pygmies use this word to describe any form of energy. Ila'tado, "pulling energy," is the Efe name for the magnetic force embodied in lodestones. Pygmies who have seen magnets explain that these devices operate by the same principle, Such enormously abstract concepts and words are commonplace among the vast ostensibly "savage" Pygmies. Ilani or ila demonstrates the vast antiquity and importance of these concepts: Old Norse elijan, energy; Anglo-Saxon ellen, strength; Hebrew el or il, a strong and mighty one, a hero, a god, God, Arabic ilah, God; Al-ilah, the God, "Allah"; Phoenician elonim or elim, Hebrew elohim, god or gods; Tswa elima, the vital force or God.
Genesis 1:1 proclaims in Hebrew that Elohim created the hevens and the earth, after which the deity recited the "Let ther be" formula. The book of Exodus give a rousing account of the journey accomplished by the children of ISrael through the divinely parted waters. The pygmoid "Children of Jacob" are better known as the Tswa, a name that illustrates their close connections with the Sua Pygmies of the southern Ituri and the pygmoid Twa people of Zaire, Burundi, Rwanda and the bordering regions of western Uganda, where a few upre-blooded Pygmy bands survive on the eastern side of the Mountains of the Moon. Egyptian records dating back to the sixth dynasty describe the Pygmies as a semi-legendary people of the far southland or equatorial :land of trees and spirits" near the Mountains of the Moon. E.A. Wallis Budge verigies that the Pygmies were undoubtedly well known to the predynastic Egyptians. The Pygmies by any stretch of the imagination be interpreted as the descendents of Hebrews or Israelites who departed from Egypt no earlier that the fiteenth century B.C. or during ANY period of Egyptian history."
- "Pygmy Kitabu", p. 113-114
