Note 65 — LECTURE IV. THE EURAFRICAN RACE; SOUTH MEDITERRANEAN BRANCH.

In offering this new derivation of the much discussed name Berberi or Barbari, one must remember that it has always been the name of a powerful tribe in Morocco, the Brebres; that it was what the ancient Egyptians called them (Herodotus); and that it is to-day a pure Libyan word. Iberru, is from the verbal root ibra, they are free; ibarbar, they come forth (Newman, Libyan Vocabulary, pp. 40, 133). The plural in the Hamitic group was originally formed by repetition (F. Müller, Sprachwissenschaft, Bd. III., s. 240). Hence Berberi may mean either “those who came forth,” i. e., emigrants, or those who go where they list, i. e., freemen. This is also the meaning of amóshagh, the generic name of the Touaregs (Barth, Travels in Africa, vol. v., page 555). Barth, a high authority, believes that the same word ber is the radical of the names Bernu, Berdoa, Berauni, etc. The legendary ancestors of the Moroccan Berbers (Brebres) was Ber, in which, says Barth, “we recognize the name Afer,” the f and b being interchangeable in these dialects. From “Afer” we have “Africa” (Travels, vol. i., p. 224). One of the principal gods of ancient Libya and of the Guanches was Abŏra, or Ibru. See my article “On Etruscan and Libyan Names” in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Feb., 1890. One of the Pindaric fragments recites a Libyan tradition to the effect that the first man, Iarbas, sprang from the sun-heated soil, and chose for food the sweet acorns of the tree (Lenormant, The Beginnings of History, p. 48). In “Iarbas” we can scarcely fail in recognizing the same root bar, the change being by the familiar process of reversal.