Blemmyes

Various species of mythical headless men were rumored, in antiquity and later, to inhabit remote parts of the world. They are variously known as akephaloi (Greek ἀκέφαλοι, "headless ones") or Blemmyes (Latin: Blemmyae; Greek: βλέμμυες) and described as lacking a head, with their facial features on their chest. These were at first described as inhabitants of the Nile system (Aethiopia). Later traditions confined to their habitat to a particular island in the Brisone River,[a] or shifted it to India.

Blemmyes are said to occur in two types: with eyes on the chest or with the eyes on the shoulders. Epiphagi, a variant name for the headless people of the Brisone, is sometimes used as a term referring strictly to the eyes-on-the-shoulders type.

The first indirect reference to the blemmyes occurs in Herodotus, Histories, where he calls them the akephaloi (Greek: ἀκέφαλοι "without a head").[12] The headless akephaloi, the dog-headed cynocephali, "and the wild men and women, besides many other creatures not fabulous" dwelled in the eastern edge of ancient Libya, according to Herodotus's Libyan sources.[13]

Mela was the first to name the "Blemyae" of Africa as being headless with their face buried in their chest.[14] In a similar vein, Pliny the Elder in the Natural History reports the Blemmyae tribe of North Africa as "[having] no heads, their mouths and eyes being seated in their breasts".[15] Pliny situates the Blemmyae somewhere in Aethiopia (in, or in the neighboring lands to Nubia).[b][15][16][17] Modern commentators on Pliny have suggested the notion of headlessness among Blemmyes may be due to their combat tactic of keeping their heads pressed close to the chest, while half-squatting with one knee to the ground.[c][5][18] Solinus, adds they are believed to be born with their head part dismembered, their mouth and eyes deposited on the breast.[19]

The term acephalous (akephaloi) was applied to people without heads whose facial parts such as eyes and mouth have relocated to other parts of the body, and the blemmyes as described by Pliny or Solinus conform with this appellation.[20

Etymology
As for the origins of the name Blemmyes, various etymologies had been proposed, and the question has long been considered unsettled.[1]

In antiquity, Blemmyes was said to be named epyonmously after King Blemys (Βλέμυς), according to Nonnus's 5th century epic Dionysiaca, but no lore about headlessness is attached to the people in this work.[2][3] Samuel Bochart of the 17th century derived the word Blemmyes from the Hebrew bly (בלי) "without" and moach (מוח) "brain", implying that the Blemmyes were people without brains.[4][5] A Greek derivation from blemma (Greek: βλέμμα) "look, glance" and muō (Greek: μύω) "close the eyes" has also been suggested.[6]Wolfgang Helck claimed a Coptic word "blind" for its etymology.[7]

Leo Reinisch (de) in 1895 proposed that it derived from bálami "desert people" in the Bedauye tongue (Beja language). Although this theory had long been neglected,[8] this etymology has come into acceptance, alongside the identification of the Beja people as true descendants of the Blemmyes of yore.[9][10][11]