The Black Kingdom
The Land Of Ophir, Ruins Of Zimbabwe and King Solomon
The land of Ophir was related to me by a young black professional Chemist, Freddie. The story is unbelievable, and something about the Slave Trade I have not heard before?
Solomon’s Song of Songs.
Sheba
Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth
Your love is more delightful than wine.
Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
your name is like perfume poured out.
No wonder the young women love you!
Take me away with you — let us hurry!
Let the king bring me into his chambers.
Sheba
How right they are to adore you!
Dark am I, yet lovely,
daughters of Jerusalem,
dark like the tents of Kedar,
like the tent curtains of Solomon.
Do not stare at me because I am dark,
darkened by the sun.
Having coffee in my office Freddie told me about a story his great grandfather told him about Ophir, the Slave Trade and King Solomon.
The only way to reach the land of Ophir was via the Port of Sofala (Beira) in what is known as Mozambique today. Sofala, built on the river of the same name and later changed back to the original name Buzi, was the central town of a sprawling Arabian state. The harbour, before it was conquered by sea sand was vast and could hold more than a hundred vessels and, as the crow flies, the nearest port to Zimbabwe ruins in the land of Ophir.’
Indians, Arabs, and Phoenicians landed at the port of Sofala and went inland where they, through bartering, traded spices, garments, copper, incense, and perfume in exchange for slaves, gold, ivory and Kaffir beer. The Tribal Chiefs were unaware that their sons and daughters were going to the slave trade.
The Phoenicians were habitual liars and told the Chiefs that their sons and daughters were going to be taken too far away lands where they would become high Chiefs. The Phoenicians demanded only the healthiest and fittest African men and women to accompany them to the areas of milk and honey. Heads well paid for each slave, and the price varied depending on the strength, quality, and beauty of the potential candidates.
The chosen men and women also rewarded with new garments, copper earrings and bangles before departure. The unsuspecting men and women could not wait to get aboard the boats and depart to the promised destination. The availability of vessels exceeded demand, and many had to return home disappointed and wait for the next ship.
The joyous African men and women would only realise once they are on the open sea, when the ankle shackles come out, that they are prisoners and slaves. En-route to their destination they will, for the first time experienced the cruelty of their new masters as they lashed with sjamboks into obedience!
During their stay over in Zimbabwe, the Phoenicians, apart from practising their religious rites and sacrificing some of their offspring to Baal, indulged in an orgy of sex, drank Kaffir beer and generally had a good time. The Chiefs and their subjects took part in the rites and did not mind the sacrifice of the yellow-skinned babies and watched in awe during full moon nights as the bird-head hooded priest removed the hearts of human sacrifices while they are still alive. The beating of African drums would increase to the frenzy while dagga and Kaffir beer intoxicated dancers, their eyes yellow with madness, would tear the fragile bodies of the slaughtered infants, thrown at them by the priests, apart before eating the flesh! The priest will hand the hearts of the infants, while still hot and pumping, to the fathers and mothers to consume who did so with obvious delight and pleasure while the blood of their own infant stained their clothes.
Anything that had to do with the Indians, Arabs and Phoenicians bordered on pure magic, and the Chiefs and their subjects regarded these white, yellow and chocolate skinned people as gods that replaced their forefathers as gods. To the indigenous people of Ophir, it appeared that Baal and the lesser gods have showered the visitors with all the blessings of life. Spellbound the Africans were attracted to these strange human gods and did almost anything to please them.
For years the myth that the men from the north and east were gods flourished. But as time went by and the gods grew more and more arrogant, the African became aware that these gods were human and in all physical aspects like himself. He noticed somewhat curiously that his own domestic life closely resembled that of the men he had regarded as gods. The African female became pregnant when she slept with a god but the child born out of this conjugal association was not godlike. The gods died, stooped and were wrinkled in old age, fell or bumped their heads injuring themselves, urinated and emptied their bowels in the same way like any African. Gradually the myth that the visitors were gods died. The African felt deceived and realised that they were the same.
Gradually the Chiefs of Ophir became concerned that their best sons and daughters went away never to return. The remaining women in their clans were concubines breeding a yellow-skinned nation of half-castes that did not want to be associated with the traditions and aspirations of the indigenous peoples of Ophir.
The Chiefs found it strange that the fathers of the half-castes were not interested in taking the women with them to the lands where they came from, placing a burden on the mothers during the father’s absence. Chiefs admit personal wealth had grown since the trade with the men from the east had begun but feared that their people had become completely degenerate. The indigenous people of Ophir were strangers in their own land and subservient to the new masters who demanded more and more from them. Apart from wanting more men and women for the slave trade, the men from the east also wanted more ivory and gold. The elephants were now being hunted and killed to the brim of extinction. The improved gold furnaces using technology from King Solomon’s copper mines were now running night and day. Discontent grew, and the Chiefs of Ophir started discussing and making plans to rid the land of the oppressors.
It was Sheba’s brother, son of the great Chief of the River Save (Sabie) that pushed the Chiefs into action. Ndlovu, the elephant, after having been taken away several years before after being promised that he will become a great Chief in the land of King Solomon, suddenly turned up at his father’s kraal in the dark of night. The great Chief could not believe it when his son told him about the lies of the Phoenicians and that the young men and women from Ophir are being sold as slaves in Egypt and in the land of King Solomon. Ndlovu told his father how he and a few other slaves had escaped from King Solomon’s mines, about the suffering the slaves have endured in the pits, their arduous trek for almost four years, mostly during the night, across several lands to reach the area of Ophir. Ndlovu’s father was immediately concerned for his daughter Sheba, and he wondered aloud if she was okay? He never heard of her again.
Drums carried the message of Ndlovu’s return and what happened to all the men and women that were taken away by the Phoenicians. Chiefs furious of having being deceived in such a spectacular way by the Phoenicians and planned their revenge carefully.
The Phoenicians were unaware of what was happening. There was a strange quietness on the part of the Africans, and their yellow offspring were not talking in fear that they may also suffer the wrath of the Chiefs.
The new slaves assembled as if nothing was amiss when the time came to load the more than fifty boats in the harbour of Sofala. However, the slaves were prepared for the Phoenicians and hidden sharp knives, daggers, and swords under their garments. When the boats reached the open sea, the slaves overpowered the Phoenician wardens and slaughtered them alive tearing their hearts from their chests in revenge of what their brothers and sisters had suffered at the hands of the slave traders.
In the darkness of the night, the ships returned to Sofala and blockaded the harbour to ensure that no Phoenician, Arab or Indian escape the main attack that was planned later that night. The signal to attack was again carried by the drums all across Ophir and caught the Phoenicians by surprise. In an orgy of madness and blood, every man, woman, and child of eastern origin were slaughtered that night, and their possessions were taken. What could not be removed was broken, vandalised or destroyed by whatever means possible. No Phoenician escaped. Returning Phoenician traders were also caught unaware and slaughtered as they entered the harbour of Sofala.
The Phoenician’s could not understand what had happened and why those seafarers that had journeyed to the land of Ophir never returned home. After a while, the Phoenicians stopped going to the area of Ophir.
The disappearance of those ventured to Ophir would remain a riddle for centuries to come and even to the present day, few people knew what had happened! The yellow descendants of Arabs, Indians, and Phoenicians drove out kraals of the Chiefs and out of the land of Ophir. These fugitives joined new tribes like the Barotse of the upper Zambezi.
The lucky ones were allowed to remain with their tribes became the slaves of the African people that were not contaminated by the blood of eastern men. The Chiefs made sure that half-caste women were raped and impregnated only with the sperm of pure African blooded men to dilute the impure blood and try and wipe out the eastern look-alike in future generations. All half-caste men and boys were castrated to prevent the spread of the tainted blood. It was as if the slave traders never existed, and the higher civilisation was absorbed by the primitive culture.
So great was the disgust for the men from the east that no one later knew who had built Zimbabwe — It was not something that the people of Ophir wanted to talk about.’
When the ethnic cleansing of Ophir was complete, the trade of gold, ivory, and slaves finished. The furnaces destroyed, and the elephants were allowed to accumulate and roam free. The Chiefs ordered that the eastern garments be destroyed and prohibited any African to wear these long flowing oriental dresses. They had to wear their traditional clothes made from animal skin.
The indigenous people of Ophir returned to the domestic life taught to them by their forefathers and performed the rites and rituals they accustomed too. To this day there are if any, very few Indians and Arabs in Zimbabwe.’
Matt suddenly remembered that he had not seen one Indian or Arab in the old Rhodesia or present Zimbabwe during his travels in that land. But plentiful in the African states, mainly north of Mozambique.
It crossed Matt’s mind that Mozambique people should be proud to know that the Queen of Sheba came from their land and that she was taken by the tremendous biblical King Solomon as a wife. Matt was also reminded that he had never heard Afrikaners or their church leaders complain that King Solomon had married an African woman and had made her his Queen? Surely they must have known this!
‘There was something that could not be wiped out by ethnic cleansing. The Phoenicians were excellent craftsmen and taught the indigenous people the trade of glassmaking, metal casting, hammering and engraving it perfectly. It was the Phoenicians who made the lotus flower, the Sphinx and a variety of winged monsters familiar to western eyes.
They taught the Africans of Ophir the art of stone and wood sculpture and passed this art down to their descendants. Today the Zimbabweans are renowned as most probably the best craftsmen in Africa and their sculptures carved out of soapstone and wood are sought after and sold all over the world.’
Freddie continued; ‘perhaps the most important and greatest inheritance from the Phoenicians was the spread of the alphabet to the west. The alphabet had been developed from Egyptian hieroglyphics and had twenty-two signs, all consonants. The Phoenicians arranged the letters in a fixed list. A common word called each. Letters ‘a and b’ represented the words alpha and beta in Greek, and this is where we get our word alphabet from.’
The story “land of Ophir” was fantastic, Freddie was asked about the absorption of a higher civilisation by a primitive culture and asked to get to the moral of the story. Freddie surprised again!
‘The moral of the story is the tragedy of Africa. Indigenous people will allow foreign nations to occupy their land in exchange for a better life, the promise of trade, education and the sharing of wealth’.
African’s always experienced this partnership as a one-sided affair. The occupier’s greediness always resulted in the so-called civilised partner walked away with the fruits of their combined efforts and labour and the less enlightened partner is just a glorified slave
The cultured partner eventually becomes the dominant and arrogant master that will use his education and know-how to cheat rob the lesser partner. He will enhance the enslavement of the grovelling more minor partner — losing everything, including his dignity!
In the palaces and parlours of the power of White and Asian supremacy, the African is expendable. When the African decides to take back what rightfully belongs to him, he characterised as a savage and stereotyped as a villain, a rapist and a murderer capable of the most heinous crimes against humanity.’
Dissatisfied, Matt took Freddie on about latter remark, and asked to explain;
‘Freddie but is it not true that cruelty does not mean anything to the African and that human life to him has no great value, not even the life of a close relative? You told me the infants sacrificed on altars of the Phoenician god Baal and that the hearts of the infants were eaten by the parents. Take, for instance, the gruesome murders committed by the necklace method we have spoken about and that you fear. Isn’t it also true that the African has been conditioned by thousands of years of savage, bloodthirsty life to seize what he desires wherever he can find it?’
‘Matt, I don’t deny it to be true what you have just said about the African having been conditioned by thousands of years of savage, bloodthirsty life to seize what he desires wherever he can find it! But the statement is also equally valid and applicable to any race in the world. Take, for instance, the British. They have a small country with no real deposits of any value to accept coal in its earth. For many years Britain was historically a country of pirates, sponsored by the Royal Family, their Kings, and Queens. These British Pirates attacked Spanish and Portuguese ships on the high seas and took possession of not only the valuables on board but also of the ships themselves.
Conditioned by hundreds of years of a cruel life, the British seized what they desired from the countries they occupied in Asia, Africa, the Americas, Australasia and other non-European nations. The British settlers in Australia killed off most of the Aborigines they considered as lesser humans. The British and European colonists in America did the same and wiped out almost all of the Indians to make a place for themselves. Closer to home the British started a war to get their hands on the wealth of South Africa (diamonds and gold) and in the process incarcerated the women and children folk of the Boers in Hell Camps and starved them to death. We can go on and on about the natural behaviour of nations all over the world, and we will get nowhere! What can be worse than the Hell Camps of Hitler and the extermination of millions of Jewish People?
It is not only a characteristic trait of the African to kill his neighbour with relish as other nations do the same thing. It is the holier than thou attitude of some countries that are pissing the African off.
Advancement is not a commandment of the natural world. The progress made by the leaders of one generation can be lost by the next. It is a fact that Africans will take back what belongs to them even if it means destroying the country of their birth as a whole and themselves.’ Freddie likened this African mentality to that of the Palestinian suicide bomber. The Afrikaner was somewhat different. He will blow up things that belong to someone else but not his own stuff and in the process, if he can help it, not kill himself.
It made Matt think about the two prostitutes in Biblical times, who claimed that the same baby was theirs. King Solomon sat in judgment and gave the baby to the woman who instead wanted the baby to live instead of having it cut into two halves. One half to each of the woman. The one who given the baby was the rightful mother and Matt likened the Afrikaner to her.
Matt would only realise somewhat later that his thoughts at this time were prophetic and that the Afrikaner would give away the country instead of having it destroyed!
At the heart of the decision to introduce Apartheid shortly after the 1948 election and the 1990 decision to bring to an end Apartheid was a calculation about preventing the destruction of South Africa and improving the survival prospects of the Afrikaners and in particular the white man. Matt had a lot to think about Africa.
Freddie a shrewd operator, and much of what he said could not be denied.
