Continental-Sized Conquest

Was Sunday morning when I got on this flight.  Preparing to land now on a Monday afternoon.  For the first part of this flight I was determined to finish the book I was in.  Peter Mathiessen writes beautifully.  His “The Tree Where Man was Born” is approachable.  We’re looking at a trip to East Africa and I’ve been slowly reading up.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but aside from being an artful travelogue it is also a remarkable recap of how migration waves functioned to populate what we otherwise think of as the original cradle of humanity. 

According to Mathiessen, much of East Africa was populated with Stone Age tribes until waves of Bantu people migrate from the West of Africa, down further along the Atlantic Coast into the Congo, South Africa, Zimbabwe before making their way up what is no Tanzania and Kenya.  This began as late as the late Roman period.  I would not have assumed that all this transpired in the last two millennium.  That seems remarkably recent.  Me thinks I should be sourcing a second opinion or two here, but if it’s so, then the “Bantu” people diaspora must represent a remarkable consistency in genotype, language, etc.

On the Indian Ocean coast what he refers to a Caucasoids from Arab lands also make their way down and mingle to form something new, but again, this is only one thousand years ago.  What struck me is that while the European conquest of the America’s is rightly seen as a uniquely modern and a sadly thoroughgoing destruction two continents’ worth of civilization and ways of life, the history of the Old World isn’t entirely different.   It would appear that in the history of East Africa at least the same sort continental-sized conquest of native societies by technologically more advanced Iron Aged Bantu people took place.  What we see now isn’t necessarily from time immemorial.  It mirrors our own ruthless and complete repopulation of a continent with a new ruling race.   Because it was five hundred years ago and not two thousand, the conquest of the America’s seems more accessible.   

  

Sounds like we have some good weather in Beijing.  I hope it’s clear day.  I’d like to feel good about being home.  I think I’ll make it to dinner and then I’ll get horizontal swiftly thereafter.  Power off. 

Power on.  It isn’t.  It’s overcast as we take off for home in the cab.  But it looks like legitimate water up there in the clouds.  Even grey can be natural.  It was raining when I landed in New York as I recall as well. 

Monday, 5/22/17