Black Hannibal?

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa

[Condottiere 40K]

Carpe diem.

[Ludicus]

@Ludicus: good quotes, by the way. However, you've opened up Pandora's Box once more by reviving this thread.

Hehe.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

and I'm trying to close this thread dammit! Send it into the abyss from whence it came!

[Roma_Victrix]

and I'm trying to close this thread dammit! Send it into the abyss from whence it came!

LORD, HELP ME TO RELEASE...THIS...DEMON!!!!!!!

[Toilet flushes.]

Ah! ...Better.

[Condottiere 40K]

Hannibal ad portas.

[Dr. Croccer]

We've already had a black Oliver Warbucks (Jamie Foxx) and a black Dracula (William Marshall). So why not a black Hannibal followed by a black Hannibal Lecter?

The main issue is that Hannibal was a historical figure that actually existed, from a region in which many people still respect his legacy. Add the fact that the more silly Afrocentrisists in the US have laid a racial claim to pretty much every important figure from the continent, and you can see why quite a lot of people view this as some kind of endorsement of that kind of ahistorical thinking by the History Channel and get annoyed by it.

Personally, I don't really care. It's not like this is somehow the worst thing the 'History' Channel has done in recent years.

Although that doesn't explain when skin color is related to status.

In a lot of light-skinned populations in which people tan, a darker skin tone used to be associated with being out in the sun all day, i.e. being a manual labourer or peasant. Therefore, an exceptionally pale skin colour became associated with a lack of manual labour, meaning you had minions to do those sorts of things because you were wealthy. It's the same reason why noble classes in a lot of cultures wore cumbersome and elaborate clothing (think of the toga) or why Chinese of high rank often grew their fingernails to an impractically long length, it's a clear way to show that you as a person weren't meant to be rooting in the earth.

In alot of other cases, it's often the result of ethnic power relations, as you mentioned with the case of India. But it can work both ways. I believe I read somewhere that one of the reasons the Japanese disliked Europeans when they first arrived, was because they resembled the Ainu, whom they regarded as inferior.

[Roma_Victrix]

It's the same reason why noble classes in a lot of cultures wore cumbersome and elaborate clothing (think of the toga) or why Chinese of high rank often grew their fingernails to an impractically long length, it's a clear way to show that you as a person weren't meant to be rooting in the earth.

Not to derail the thread further (although why not, it's dying anyway, we're just picking at the carcass), but I think this might also have to do with the Confucian idea about respecting and observing everything one's parents gave to them, hence the ancestral worship at temples as well as growing one's hair out. Long hair was conveniently kept in a bun, though, to be hidden beneath a cap or just worn out in the open. This is why it was so shocking for the Chinese when the Manchu insisted that they shave the front of their heads, in the Manchu style (with the massive queue ponytail), at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty.

As for the Carthaginian elite, they probably also had the attitude of showing that they did not toil in the soil like the common man. Yet the Romans, somewhat like the Egyptians, loved to depict their men in art as usually suntanned and bronzed, while the women were often as pale as snow. This wasn't always the case, obviously, and there are obviously plenty of ultra-realistic depictions in Roman art, but this was still a common trope. Perhaps it was meant to signify that Roman men were out and about in public affairs, getting some sun, whereas women's proper place was within the household, the domus, shielded from the sunlight and the dangers of open society.

[Condottiere 40K]

Going by Shogun, body odour was also a complaint. And hygiene.

The default setting for female beauty is light to pale skin, to the point that cosmetics became a white mask.

[Cyclops]

Hannibal ad portas.

Aperi ianuam.
Ut in area.
Anno ambulabitis dinosaurum.

[Condottiere 40K]

Elephantus.

[Aermanner]

Carpe canem.

[Ludicus]

Dr. Croccer

...Therefore, an exceptionally pale skin colour became associated with a lack of manual labour, meaning you had minions to do those sorts of things because you were wealthy

Indeed, but aristocracy was replaced by the pigmentocracy around the 17th century (as example, in Latin America,the Spanish ruled a stratified society ranked in a pigmentocracy).
But ancient Roman/Greek/Chartaginian ideology relating to social status gave no role to phenotype in the system of social stratification.

------

.. one of the reasons the Japanese disliked Europeans when they first arrived

Another reason, because the barbarians of the south were..."butter-stinking" (bata-kusai)

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

But ancient Roman/Greek/Chartaginian ideology relating to social status gave no role to phenotype in the system of social stratification.

This.

Plebs.

[Ludicus]

... the barbarians of the south were..."butter-stinking" (bata-kusai)

But the barbarians of the south really liked the Japanese "pagans",
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...=1#post7923699
António Bocarro, 1635, A view of Japan through Portuguese eyes

The strength and courage of the Japanese in arms is such that there is no nation whatsoever which would dare to invade Japan (*); likewise their self-confidence and pride is greater than that of any other people yet discovered, wherefore wheresoever they go they are universally esteemed for their courage, and have proved it in deeds.
For this reason they are highly paid as mercenaries in all of these Oriental Kingdoms because since they always keep that contempt of death in which they are brought up, are very strong physically, and of a most daring spirit, they are justly reputed as courageous.

(*) A bomb is a 20th century invention

[Condottiere 40K]

If you can keep your head while others are losing theirs, you, too, may be a Samurai.

[saxdude]

Indeed, but aristocracy was replaced by the pigmentocracy around the 17th century (as example, in Latin America,the Spanish ruled a stratified society ranked in a pigmentocracy).

That's quite true, but was likely a process already in motion since the early 16th century due to the final chapters of the reconquista and interaction with darker skinned muslims from the Iberian south. The Spanish Crown "encouraged" the marriage of natives with spaniards under the excuse of the Native or "naturales" being pure and untainted by the likes of Muslims and Africans, and thus could become spanish within a few generations. Curiously enough, this practice produced opposite results on a lot of the descendants of allied Native forces like the Tlaxcalans and Quauquechollan, whom encouraged breeding within the same ethnic group, to keep the privileges given by the spanish crown and repeatedly reinstated since the fall of Tenochtitlan.

By the 18th century though, increasingly antagonistic racial attitudes by local spaniards (whom ironically were mostly mestizos in one way or another, but white by visual and thus caste standards), dismissal of allied claims to privileges through racial mixing with other natives and the spanish themselves (generally through criminal means like the robbery and destruction of legal paperwork), largely curtailed this practice, but didn't eliminate it entirely, at least not to the extent of the liberal inclined Mexican republic the next century.

As far as I'm aware there is little pigmental... awareness? In Mesoamerican societies pre-spanish incursion. Iconografic representations were generally of the same colour, indistinct of gender or class, whom were differentiated by status items and other physical differences. This rings true even with the chichimecs, whom were considered savages, yet no physical distinction is acknowledged.


EDIT: The best example of colour differenciation in Aztec society is in the Mendocine Codex, which is the closest example of a pre-contact "text", even though it's from the 1530's. It's quite schizofrenic though, with some nobles being of a light complexion whilst others are of a quite darker one, without differentiation of rank. Some warriors look very dark while others look realist "brown", or have very dark body skin with a lighter face. The latter could be anything from face paint, to body paint, to face and body paint, to class diferenciation.
Captive and defeated warriors are of lighter skin or the same skin colour as the victor in different panels of the same codex.

[Ludicus]

The Spanish Crown "encouraged" the marriage of natives with spaniards under the excuse of...

Encouraged is the correct term, indeed.Yes, the crown and the church encouraged the legitimization of these unions through Catholic marriage, because until the 1540's only about 6% of Spanish emigrants were females.So, many settlers did in fact wed their mistresses,butit was far more common for such relations to remain irregular.
In fact, in the early phases of the conquest, many emigrants collected veritable harems. Paraguay was called ... "the paradise of Muhammad"

But when Spanish women began to arrive in large numbers, they become the settler's favoured partners, because whiteness was the ethnic ideal (to sum up, racial prejudices+Spanish medieval concepts of blood purity)
The children of mixed blood were almost invariably not ligitimate.

...Native or "naturales" being pure and untainted by the likes of ... Africans,

Indeed, black men also lacked for women (of their race) and they too formed liasons with Indian females. This was a a source of concern to the Crown because of the strong prejudices that existed against Africans.

.

.antagonistic racial attitudes by local spaniards (whom ironically were mostly mestizos in one way or another...

Yes. Well, the creoles were a frustrated elite, often seething with resentment against the crown.

[saxdude]

But when Spanish women began to arrive in large numbers, they become the settler's favoured partners, because whiteness was the ethnic ideal (to sum up, racial prejudices+Spanish medieval concepts of blood purity)
The children of mixed blood were almost invariably not ligitimate

That largely didn't happen until the 18th century though, though it did become encouraged among native nobility who could afford it to wed their children or themselves to the spaniards.
Also I don't know about harems in paraguay, but in mexico it was largely restricted to the first wave of conquerors, with viceroyalty being rather strict in the restriction of marriage ties. Legitimacy only became a problem with the advent of harsher racial prejudices in the 18th century, when the caste system had gone way out of control in its complexity and most natives had grown out of their roles as serfs, even if they remained second class citizens. It turned into verafiable cluster that would give rise to the mestizo in the early period of the independance.

[Ludicus]

That largely didn't happen until the 18th century though,

Well, not exactly...
By 1540 European women could be found in most Spanish cities in America, ranging from Mexico to Assunción, and by 1550 they were a substantial presence throughout the colonies (16,5%).
At the end of the century, reached a high point between 28% to 40% of all immigrants.
But the numbers declined slightly by the 17th century, and yes, by the 18th century the numbers picked up again, but not too much, women constituted 15% of the immigrant group.
Between 1500 and 1700, around +-3,000 women arrived in America each year.

In fact, by the final decades of the 16th century, because of the combined effect of immigration and birth,Spanish women were no longer in short supply in many regions of Spanish America.
That's the reason why about this time the Spanish settlers began founding the first convents in part as a refuge for daughters who could find not suitable marriage partners...

Source, The Women in Colonial America, page 64,65

Thus, because of immigration and procreation, the female population of European descent in Spanish America went from scarcity to parity and in some regions to oversupply.

The rapidity with which a society of male conquistadores was transformed into one of male and female settlers varied from place to place, but the transformation was usually accomplished within two or three generations.

While numeric gender parity was slower to be established in Brazil, there too the number of women of European descent came to equal of men.

Now Iberians could get on with the business of establishing a stable society with a clear racial hierarchy