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When Did the Swahili Become Maritime? A Reply to Jeffrey Fleisher et al. (2015)

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Sea Ports and Sea Power

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Archaeology ((BRIEFSUA))

Abstract

In a paper titled ‘When Did the Swahili Became Maritime’ published in the American Anthropologist, authors are sceptical about accepting the idea that Swahili societies of the East African coast were fully maritime from their earlier settlement times (about 20,000–30,000 years ago). Instead, they argue that “despite their proximity to the sea and the use of it, they practically remained not maritime societies until after circa C.E. 1000 when the level of maritimity increased greatly and became fully realized.” Although tracing when a certain society becomes ‘maritime’ is problematic, the authors did not recognize the full maritime-ness of the Swahili societies that existed several centuries before 1000 C.E., hence this reply. This paper uses historical and archaeological data with the view that the maritime-ness of the Swahili communities of the East African coast is older than thought by authors. I hereby argue that from their earlier settlement, Swahili communities were not merely part of their maritime environment but they were fully maritime and interacted with the Indian Ocean. Movements of people between and among the islands of the Indian Ocean along the coast of East Africa, individuals navigating abroad to learn some aspects of a foreign culture which they later brought back home, and the day-to-day uses of resources from the ocean verify that the maritime-ness of the societies is before 1000 C.E.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Tanambelo Rosolondrainy thinks that this Island named by Iambulus as ‘Island of the Sun’ is Madagascar. The assumption emanated from discovering rock paintings at Ampasimaiky rock shelter located in South-western Madagascar. These rock paintings, which have been dated from between the third and fifth centuries BC, according to Rosolondrainy are probably what Iambulus reported as vertical writing systems practiced by islanders. For a broader discussion of this, see Rosolondrainy (2012:173–195).

  2. 2.

    Among others indicative of early maritime-ness of the Swahili communities is the evidence of domesticated animals such as goats, sheep, cattle, dog, and cat as well as birds such as chicken from the limestone caves within the Indian Ocean (Chami 2009a, b, c; Mbasa and Assey 2009).

  3. 3.

    Neglecting to recognize these scholars’ works is also not surprising because, in some cases, western scholars tend to ignore African intellectuals (e.g. see Harrison 2009; Mafeje 1997).

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Acknowledgements

I am indebted to both the University of Dar Es Salaam and Tanzania Media Foundation (grant no.TMF/IST/160718/001 ) for the financial Support. Professors Felix Chami and Peter Schmidt read and commented on earlier version of the chapter. I thank the editor Prof. Lynn Harris and an anonymous reviewer for the very constructive comments.

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  1. Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, University of Dar es Salaam, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

    Elgidius B. Ichumbaki

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  1. Program in Maritime Studies, East Carolina University Program in Maritime Studies, Greenville, North Carolina, USA

    Lynn Harris

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Ichumbaki, E.B. (2017). When Did the Swahili Become Maritime? A Reply to Jeffrey Fleisher et al. (2015). In: Harris, L. (eds) Sea Ports and Sea Power. SpringerBriefs in Archaeology(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46985-0_1

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