John Hanning Speke John Hanning Speke John Hanning Speke (4 May 1827 – 15 September 1864) was an English explorer and officer in the British Indian Army who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa. He is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile and was the first European to reach Lake Victoria. He is also known for propounding the Hamitic hypothesis in 1863, in which he supposed that the Tutsi ethnic group were descendants of the biblical figure Ham, and had lighter skin and more Hamitic features than the Bantu-featured Hutu over whom they ruled. Speke was born on
John Hanning Speke "race" comprised many tribes, including the Watusi (Tutsi). Speke described their physical appearances as having retaineddespite the hair-curling and skin-darkening effects of intermarriage"a high stamp of Asiatic feature, of which a marked characteristic is a bridged instead of bridgeless nose". Two species of African reptiles are named in his honor: Speke's hinge-back tortoise, "Kinixys spekii"; and Speke's sand lizard, "Heliobolus spekii". Two species of antelope are named in his honor; "Tragelaphus spekii" and "Gazella spekei". The film "Mountains of the Moon" (1990), starring Scottish actor Iain Glen as Speke, related the story of the Burton-Speke controversy, portrayed as having been