Folks is good to know your history thanks to brother Runoko Rashidi.


Niamo

> THE AFRICAN PRESENCE HISTORICALLY IN GEORGIA AND ABKHAZIA
>
>
> BY RUNOKO RASHIDI
>
> There has always a presence, albeit a small one, of African
> people in the areas of Georgia and Abkhazia.  This has been
> brought to my attention again through the media coverage of the
> current Russia-Georgia conflict.  Here is a bit of
> information excerpted from my upcoming book on the history of
> the African presence in this volatile area.
>
>
> Colchis, a land located along the western slope of the Caucasus
> mountains near the eastern shores of the Black Sea in the area
> known now as Georgia and Abkhazia, is at the dividing point or
> frontier between Europe and Asia. The Greek historian Herodotus
> (ca. 450 B.C.E.) regarded Colchis, considered the home of the
> Golden Fleece sought by Jason and the Argonauts in Greek
> mythology, as a Nile Valley colony established in the nineteenth
> century B.C.E. during the reign of one of the Senusret monarchs
> of Kamite Dynasty XII. Herodotus not only pointed to the
> Colchians' black skin and woolly hair, but also to their oral
> traditions, language, methods of weaving, and practice of
> circumcision.
>
> Regarding the African presence in ancient Georgia and Abkhazia
> Herodotus noted that:
>
>
> "It is undoubtedly a fact that the Colchians are of Egyptian
> descent. I noticed this myself before I heard anyone else
> mention it, and when it occurred to me I asked some questions
> both in Colchis and in Egypt, and found that the Colchians
> remembered the Egyptians more distinctly than the Egyptians
> remembered them. The Egyptians did, however, say that they
> thought the original Colchians were men from Sesostris'
> [Senusret] army. My own idea on the subject was based first on
> the fact that they have black skins and woolly hair (not that
> that amounts to much, as other nations have the same), and
> secondly, and more especially, on the fact that the Colchians,
> the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians are the only races which from
> ancient times have practiced circumcision. ... There is a
> further point of resemblance between the Colchians and the
> Egyptians: they share a method of weaving linen different from
> that of any other people."
>
>
> Saint Jerome, writing during the fourth century, called Colchis
> the "Second Ethiopia." Two hundred years later, Sophronius,
> patriarch of Jerusalem, described an "Ethiopian" presence in the
> same region.  Even today, in the same district about which
> Herodotus wrote, exists a minute, black-skinned and woolly-
> haired community, although the argument is waged that the
> Africans currently occupying the region are there solely as the
> result of enslavement.  Obviously, like many aspects of the
> Global African Community, there is much more research that needs
> to be done.
>
>
> http://www.cwo. com/~lucumi/ runoko.html
> _________________________________________________________________
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