TRUE MYTH

BLACK VIKINGS OF THE MIDDLE AGES

Trafford Publishing

Contents

CHAPTER 1

THE ANCIENT WORLD RECONSIDERED

When we hear the term "Viking," the image that comes to mind most readily is that of a tall,blond, broad-shouldered, bearded white man dressed in animal skins, wearing a rounded helmet withhorns protruding from either side of it. Many books written by Western scholars present illustrationsof Norsemen thusly attired, and the few Viking films that have been made reinforce this image,although Vikings rarely, if ever, wore such helmets, or never actually wore them. Numerous books havechronicled the exploits of these vigorous peoples, also called Norsemen and Northmen, who swoopeddown from Scandinavia to wreak havoc on civilizations from the British Isles to Spain, Italy, Franceand Russia. That these Vikings or Norsemen left an indelible impact on the territories they scourgedis undeniable; that they were all members of the white or "Nordic" race, however, is questionable, forample evidence—evidence heretofore not unknown, strongly confirms that a substantial number ofthese peoples were black or dark-skinned.

Black-skinned will not always denote "African" in this work, although most people, especially Caucasians,seem to associate blackness of skin exclusively with Africa. However, there are numerous black-skinnedIndians (from India), Indonesians, Burmese, Pacific islanders and Southeast Asians and, as will be shown,several millennia ago the earth's population was comprised of many more black-skinned peoples in theseareas, as well as in Asia and Europe, generally. White historians and anthropologists have classified thepopulations of some of the aforementioned areas—including the black-skinned, so-called Aborigines ofAustralia—Caucasian by methods only they seem to understand, which has only added to confusion inthose of us unacquainted with their intricate methods of categorization. Even new DNA technology hasnot clarified the issue, somehow arriving at the same conclusions that pre-DNA historians and scientistshave asserted for two centuries or so in regard to race. The new DNA science has forced Eurocentricscholars and historians to grudgingly admit that the origin of Homo sapiens, or modern man, was Africa,but a number of them (although this theory is at least two centuries old) are still uncomfortable with thisnotion and continue to seek ways to revise it, rework it, disprove it to fit the Eurocentric racial models theyhave so long cherished.

I reject the classifying of obviously black-, brown-, and dark-pigmented people as Caucasian or white,as Eurocentric historians and scientists do the Aborigines, Indians, and historic peoples like the ancientEthiopians and Egyptians. And the reader who wishes to understand this humble work needs to understandthat an element of the white race—or people who considered themselves "white," different, and perhapssuperior to the dark races of mankind—introduced the theory of race, nurtured it after invading theterritories of the darker races all over the earth, destroying civilizations and countless human beings inthe process. They then wrote the books that most of us read depicting these deeds and assigning this orthat people to one race or another. A plague arose, and continues to afflict most of the world: racism.Racism is the dominant malady infecting today's world—more than crime, drugs, pollution, weapons ofmass destruction, poverty, cancer and war. Race and racism, in fact, seem to be at the root of most warsfought over the last thousand years or so, perhaps longer, obviously (at least to this writer) a factor in thefirst Crusade in 1096 when Christian Europe, with the blessing of Pope Urban II, invaded the Holy Landto wrest Jerusalem from the Infidels—dark-skinned, Muslim Turks and Saracens. European and Americanhistorians of course cite other causes for the wars Europeans have waged since the decline of Greeceand the fall of Rome at the end of the 5th century, but even a cursory look at wars fought by Europeansoutside the European continent would show them to have been expansionist and waged (when Europeancountries were not fighting each other) against dark-skinned peoples.

Except, perhaps, for World War I and the Revolutionary War, race has been a factor in all of America'swars, beginning with the subjugation and near-genocide of Native American peoples in establishing whatwould become the United States.

Eurocentric historians and scholars almost never mention racism—that is, a collective white racial hatredtoward non-white peoples—in their assessments of European colonization and warfare. They have excusedEuropean trespasses and the destruction of numerous non-Caucasian cultures and peoples as mere acts ofeconomic necessity (for Europeans) or strategic utilitarianism or necessary evil, exhibiting not the slightestregard for the lives of the affected populations in the areas overrun: Europe needed trade; Europe neededspices; Europe (or a particular European country) needed a trade route to the East; Europe needed rawmaterials; Europe (or particular European countries) needed slaves; Europe needed oil to maintain itsindustrial growth. The people who suffered the loss of their lands, way of life, resources, lives or particularcivilization are less important than the needs of European nations. Their resultant fates go unnoted, orare mentioned in a brief afterthought at the end of a historian's chapter.

The most profitable pursuits by Europeans for trade, resources, slaves and other riches were intoareas of the world populated by dark-skinned people—Africa, the Middle East, southern Asia, SouthAmerica, the Caribbean, China, the isles of the Pacific. Yet, racism—the dehumanization of dark-skinnedpeople in the minds of Europeans; their bold, and often undesired, intrusions into areas inhabited bydark-skinned populaces; their use of more modern weaponry to subdue these populaces; the guiltlessslaughter of untold numbers of people—is never mentioned by historians who write of the events that weingest in schools, universities and our own private readings which invariably present a one-sided picture:the European side.

We have become used to this presentation of history without realizing that another whole side ismissing, practically unrecorded, unknown. Whether we like it or not, the vast majority of inhabitants inEurope, Canada, India, South and Central America, the Caribbean, Africa and the United States—whateverour individual race or racial background—are westernized and attuned to Eurocentric thought and values.Most of the dark races of the world have not totally kicked free of the shackles of colonization, slavery,imperialism, fear and subjugation that they have lived under for the last five centuries. And the Whitesof Europe and North America—having shaped our modern world and mores, having benefited from theinjustices their ancestors wrought and continue to effect against the darker races of the world—have notlet go of the racial animus that consumed their forefathers, no matter how enlightened, liberal or tolerantsome may feel they are.

The scholars who write the histories we read are predominantly white and Eurocentric, and theirwritings present a Eurocentric view of history offering very little information on the contributions ofblack- or dark-skinned people to civilization. One method employed by Eurocentric historians to erasedark-skinned people from history is to declare them white, assert that this or that people were Caucasian—asthey have done with the ancient Egyptians, Indians, Ethiopians, Australian Aborigines and others, whichwill be discussed further on in this work. It will also become apparent that Western scholars have ignoredthe presence of black- and dark-skinned, non-Caucasian people in Europe so that we think of Europe asalways having been a continent inhabited exclusively by white-skinned people.

* * *

To assert that the Vikings or Norsemen were primarily black-skinned must cause the average readerto smile at this writer's naivete, a naivete certainly attributable to the publication of fairly recent booksand scholarly articles by African-American and other non-white scholars who have emerged over thelast three or four decades to challenge the oft-repeated assertions of white historians whose numerousworks have shaped the consciousness of most of the world for the last several centuries. Our nurturingby historians and scientists has been masterfully accomplished and we believe, for instance, that Asiahas always been inhabited by Mongoloid or "yellow" people; Europe has always been inhabited byCaucasoid or white people; and that Africa has, for the most part, always been inhabited by Negroidor black people who, the analyses contend, have never contributed much of anything to civilization.We look at the present distributions of races over the continents they dominate today and assume thatthese distributions have always been constant—especially the Caucasian presence in Europe. Blacks,scholars and scientists have drilled into us, could not have survived the colder climates of Europe andnorthern Asia.

While the writers of scientific and historical treatises seem to be caught up in the trend of moving awayfrom racial considerations in their writing, enlightened by the new science of DNA and what the sciencereveals about racial intermixing, so much damage has been done by the centuries-old focus on race byEurocentric scholars that suddenly replacing this focus with a supposed race-free veneer would merelyincrease the damage and confusion wrought by three centuries of Eurocentric, race-based scholarship.Blacks and other dark-skinned people who have been written out of history would still not find themselvesin it. Whites or white nations who perpetrated crimes against them could not be singled out andcondemned in absentia for racial crimes against humanity. Eurocentric writers whose racial theories wehave inculcated, whose often deliberate fabrications have obscured the blackness of some civilizations,would go unexposed and unvilified. An expression that has become popular in the United States over thelast two or three decades is "Let's move on"—an aphorism implying that the past is done and the presentshould be concerned with forging a new future. But to simply move on would not rectify the damage thathas been done over the past several centuries or reveal the falsehoods and omissions by the majority ofEurocentric scholars.

So this work will discuss race in terms we have come to understand, referring to the black, brown, red,yellow and white races that Eurocentric scholars originated and have drummed into us for three centuriesthat we have become accustomed to and which most of us still abide by. Only then, after considering whatis presented in this work, might we be able "move on."

History should show us that the races of man have been constantly in flux and that over manymillennia various peoples have migrated from one territory to another vanquishing, settling among andintermingling with the races they encountered, often spawning new races and acquiring or imposingnew languages, customs and lore. Over the last two decades (although such a theory has existed for twocenturies) it has been universally acknowledged by most scholars that true man first evolved in Africa andthen migrated over untold millennia to nearly every part of the earth—including northern climes. Hismovement out of the Mother Continent was made easier during the last great ice age (Wurm glacial),beginning roughly 2,500,000 years ago (the Pleistocene Epoch) and lasting until about 10,000-12,000years ago. Ocean and sea levels fell significantly and land-bridges were formed, connecting the IberianPeninsula to North Africa; Italy with Sicily, and Sicily with North Africa, or close enough to North Africathat the two continents were separated by a narrow channel of water between them; northeastern Asiaformed a wide land-bridge connecting with Alaska; and southeast Asia and Indonesia were joined in amore solid landmass which may have stretched to Australia. As well, many Greek isles were larger andthere was a land-bridge connected to Asia Minor (i.e., Turkey); the Greater and Lesser Antilles (i.e., theCaribbean islands stretching from Cuba to Trinidad) may have been a solid landmass stretching from theYucatan Peninsula of Mexico to northern South America; Japan and the Philippines may have mergedwith China; northern Japan may have been joined to Sakhalin Peninsula and northeastern Russia; the RedSea and Persian Gulf may not have existed, joining Africa and southwestern Asia in one solid landmass,with Arabia sandwiched between them. The whole of northern Europe was covered by glacial ice as wasmuch of northern Asia, and this was the prevailing condition on earth for more than two million years,until the glacial ice finally melted—raising sea levels and producing the present formations of continentsand island land masses—only 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

In 1989, a theory was developed by the late Allan C. Wilson of the University of California, Berkeley,strongly suggesting that the first "anatomically modern human beings" evolved in Africa 166,000 to249,000 years ago (Washington Post, 27 Sep. 1991, "New Evidence of 'Eve'"). This was the controversialstudy which asserted that all human beings are ancestors of a single, African woman. Dr. Wilson's theory ishardly new. He and his colleagues compared a special DNA type passed down through the maternal line.Changes or mutations that DNA undergoes can be counted, and analysis showed that "the trunk of thetree was African" (op. cit.).

A rival theory insists that man did not evolve into Homo sapiens in Africa but left Africa as Homoerectus and evolved into true humans simultaneously in different parts of the earth (op. cit.). But whetherHomo erectus or Homo sapiens walked out of Africa is not essential at this point. What is is that foras long as we have studied it, we've seen that the masses of humanity that flowed out of Africa havebeen black-skinned, and common sense should tell us that earliest man must have remained so for manymillennia after he reached various territories in Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas before climateor other still to be determined factors caused him to differentiate into other races which, over time,predominated in the regions he found himself in.

These earliest Homo sapiens, short and pygmy-like, are often referred to as "Negritos." These firsthumans spread from Africa (probably East Africa) to nearly all parts of the earth, and we must assumethat they resembled, in complexion and physiognomy, the present-day pygmies of central Africa.They would have emerged during the Paleolithic Period or Old Stone Age if man were in existence249,000 years ago, accepting Dr. Wilson's conclusion (although some believe that man has existedmuch longer). It must also be considered that the physiognomy of man began to differentiate—inmusculature, dexterity, limb length, waviness of hair and skin tone (i.e., jet-black, dark-brown, blue-black,reddish-black, copper-colored, reddish-brown, and so on)—brought about by the inexorable forces ofAfrican nature which first brought true man into existence, and not by naturalistic forces outside of theAfrican continent—although these must also be considered. However long these genetic alterations tookto produce each physically altered human type (there is evidence of a Mongoloid characteristic in one ormore present-day southern African tribes) and for each type to migrate out of Africa to some other partof the earth, those humans were essentially black-skinned and remained so for many millennia afterwardin the areas they eventually settled.

We can fathom the extent of black-skinned humanity around the earth in the statements of historiansand scholars who have long written of this reality, although their works and comments are largelyoverlooked today. In Why We Behave Like Human Beings, George A. Dorsey states:

Open your atlas to a map of the world. Look at the Indian Ocean: on the west, Africa;on the north, the three great southern peninsulas of Asia; on the east, a chain of greatislands terminating in Australia. Wherever that Indian Ocean touches land, it findsdark-skinned people.... (44-45)

In a work entitled India, H.G. Rawlinson notes that German anthropologist Baron E. von Eickstedt—

... considers the oldest stratum, going back to an early post-glacial period [in India] tohave been a dark-skinned group akin to the early Negroid stocks of Africa and Melanesia. TheseIndo-Negrids once covered the whole peninsula ... (my emphasis 9)

In The Arabs, Bertram Thomas states:

The original inhabitants of Arabia ... were not the familiar Arabs of our own time, buta very much darker people. A protonegroid belt of mankind stretched across the ancient worldfrom Africa to Malaya. (my emphasis, 339)
(Continues...)Excerpted from TRUE MYTH by Nashid Al-Amin. Copyright © 2013 Nashid Al-Amin. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing.
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