18 § The Black Heads
THE name of the Ethiopians signifies, literally, 'burnt faces' (_Aithi-ops_),[1] and consequently 'black faces' is commonly interpreted as designating a people of the black race or at least of a dark complexion. This simplistic explanation, however, seems unsatisfactory as soon as we call to mind that the ancients gave the name of Ethiopia to very diverse countries, even to some for which that explanation would have been in no way appropriate. It is said, for example, that Atlantis itself was also called Ethiopia, whereas, on the other hand, this name does not seem to have ever been applied to countries inhabited by peoples belonging fully to the black race. There must therefore be something else in all this, and that becomes still more evident as soon as we take note of the existence of similar words or expressions elsewhere so much so that we feel compelled in the natural course to find out what symbolic meaning such expressions may really have.
In very ancient times the Chinese designated themselves as 'black people' (_li-min_); this expression is found specifically in the _Chou-king_ (the reign of the Emperor _Chouen_, 2317–2208 BC). At the beginning of the _Tsing_ dynasty, much later (third century BC), the emperor gave to his people another analo-gous name, that of 'black heads' (_kien-cheou_); and what is again peculiar is that exactly the same expression is found in Chaldea (_nishi salmat kakkadi_) at least a thousand years before this time. Besides, it is to be noted that the characters _kien_ and _he_, meaning black, represent fire; and thereby the mean-ing of this expression 'black heads' is brought back much closer to that of the name of the Ethiopians. The orientalists, who for the most part deliberately ignore all symbolism, wish to explain these terms of 'black people' and 'black heads' as designating 'people with black hair'. Unfortunately, if this character-istic in fact describes the Chinese it could not in any way distinguish them from neighbouring peoples, so that this explanation also would still appear to be fundamentally without significance.
On the other hand, some have thought that the 'black people' were strictly speaking the masses of the people to whom the colour black would have been attributed just as it is in India to the _Shūdras_, and with the same sense of indistinction and anonymity; but it seems that it is really the entire Chinese people who are thus designated, without any distinction being made between the masses and the _élite_, and if this was the case, then the symbolism in ques-tion could no longer apply. Moreover, given not only the fact that expressions of this kind have been used so widely in space and time as we have shown (and it is even very possible that still more examples exist), but also that the ancient Egyptians, for their part, gave their country the name of _Kemi_ or 'blackland', it seems most unlikely that so many diverse peoples would have adopted for themselves or for their countries a designation which would have a pejorative sense. It is not, therefore, to this lower sense of the colour black that we should refer here, but rather to its higher sense, for as we have explained on other occasions, black has a double symbolism, in the same way that anonymity, to which we have just alluded in connection with the mass of the people, has likewise two opposite meanings.[3]
It is known that in its higher sense the colour black symbolises essentially the principial state of non-manifestation, and that it is in this sense that one