According to Diop, Bernal, and other scholars, "Ham was the ancestor of Negroes and Egyptians." According to Bernal, "the Talmudic interpretation that the curse of Ham (the father of Canaan and Mizraim, Egypt) was blackness was widespread in the 17th century".[1] Ham was the father of Mizraim (the Hebrew word for Egypt), Phut, Kush, and Canaan.