Abstract
Coastal peoples who lived along the Eastern African seaboard in the first millennium A.D. onwards began converting to Islam in the mid-eighth century. Clearly rooted in and linked throughout to an indigenous regional Iron Age tradition, they created a marked difference between themselves and their regional neighbors through their active engagement with Islam and the expanding Indian Ocean world system. In this paper I explore three ways in which interrelated cultural norms—an aesthetic featuring imported ceramics, foods, and other items, Islamic practice, and a favoring of urban living—created and maintained this difference over many centuries. These qualities of their identity helped anchor those who became Swahili peoples as participants in the Indian Ocean system. Such characteristics also can be seen to have contributed to Swahili attractiveness as a place for ongoing small-scale settlement of Indian Ocean peoples on the African coast, and eventually, as a target for nineteenth-century Arab colonizers from the Persian Gulf. This paper examines the archaeology of these aspects of Swahili culture from its early centuries through ca. A.D. 1500.
Résumé
Les habitants côtiers qui vivaient en Afrique de l’Est depuis le premier millénaire A.D. ont commencés à ce convertir à l’Islam au milieu du huitième siècle. Clairement enracinés et liés à une tradition autochtone régionale de l’Âge du fer, ils se sont différenciés significativement de leur voisins régionaux à travers leur engagement actif avec l’Islam et l’expansion du système mondiale de l’océan Indien. Dans cet article, j’explore trois façons par lesquels les normes non esthétiques et inter-reliées comprenant des céramiques importés, des aliments et d’autres éléments, ainsi que la pratique de l’Islam et l’incitation au mode de vie urbain, ont créés et maintenues ces différences durant plusieurs siècles. Ces caractéristiques de leur identité ont permis d’instaurer comme des participants du system de l’océan Indien, ceux qui sont devenu les Swahilis. Ces caractéristiques peuvent aussi être interprétées comme ayant contribuées à l’attrait swahili comme endroit pour l’installation de petites agglomérations par des gens de l’océan Indien sur la côte africaine et, éventuellement, comme cible pour les colonisateurs arabes au 19ième siècle en provenance du Golfe Persique. Cet article examine l’archéologie de ces aspects de la culture swahili depuis les siècles anciens jusqu’à 1500 A.D.
Resumen
Los pueblos costeros que vivieron en la costa oriental de África desde el primer milenio A.D. empezaron a convertirse al Islam a mediados del siglo VIII. Con claras raíces y lazos con una tradición indígena regional de la Edad del Hierro, crearon una marcada diferencia entre ellos y sus vecinos regionales a través de su participación activa en el Islam y en el sistema mundial del Océano Índico en expansión. En este artículo exploro tres normas culturales interconectadas, una estética basada en cerámica importada, alimentos y otros artículos, la práctica islámica y la predilección por la vida urbana crearon y mantuvieron esas diferencias a lo largo de varios siglos. Estas características de su identidad ayudaron a anclar a quienes se volvieron Swahili como participantes en el Océano Índico. Se puede decir que estas características también contribuyeron al atractivo Swahili como un lugar para pequeños asentamientos de pueblos del Océano Índico en la costa africana y, eventualmente, como blanco de los colonizadores árabes del Golfo Pérsico en el siglo XIX. Este artículo examina la arqueología de estos aspectos de la cultura Swahili desde los siglos más tempranos hasta aproximadamente A.D. 1500.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References Cited
Abu-Lughod J. 1989 Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Abungu, G.H.O., and H.W. Mutoro 1993. Coast-Interior Settlements and Social Relations in the Kenya Coastal Hinterland. In The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns, edited by T. Shaw, P. Sinclair, B.W. Andah, and A. Okpoko, pp. 694–704. Routledge Press, New York
Allen J.de V. 1981 Swahili Culture and the Nature of East Coast Settlement. International Journal of African Historical Studies 14(2):306–334
Allen J.deV. 1982 The “Shirazi” Problem in East African coastal History. Paideuma 28:9–27
Allen J.de V. 1993 Swahili Origins. James Currey, London
Arens W. 1975 The Waswahili: The social history of an ethnic group. Africa 45(4):426–438
Casson L. 1989 The Periplus Maris Erythraei. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Chami, F.M. 1994. The Tanzanian Coast in the First Millennium A.D. Studies in African Archaeology No. 7. Societas Archaeologica Upsaliensis, Uppsala
Chami F.M. 1998 A Review of Swahili Archaeology. African Archaeological Review 15(3):199–218
Chami F., Msemwa P. 1997 A New Look at Culture and Trade on the Azanian Coast. Current Anthropology 38:673–677
Chittick H.N. 1974 Kilwa: An Islamic Trading City on the East African Coast. 2 vols. British Institute in Eastern Africa, Nairobi
Choudhury M.A. 2003 The Islamic World System. Routledge Curzon, New York
Connah G. 2001 African Civilizations, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Coquery-Vidrovitch, C. 2005. The History of African Cities South of the Sahara. Transl. M. Baker. Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton
Donley, L.W. 1982. House Power: Swahili Space and Symbolic Markers. In Symbolic and Structural Archaeology, edited by Ian Hoddermm, pp. 63–73. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Donley-Reid, L.W. 1990. The Power of Swahili Porcelain, Beads and Pottery. In Powers of Observation: Alternative Views in Archaeology, edited by S.M. Nelson and A.B. Kehoe, pp. 47–59. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, No. 2. American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C
Eastman C.M. 1971 Who are the Waswahili? Africa 41(3):228–236
Fleisher, J.B. 2003. Viewing Stonetowns from the Countryside: An Archaeological Approach to Swahili Regional Systems, A.D. 800–1500. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Virginia. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor
Fleisher, J.B. 2007. Rituals of Consumption and the Politics of Feasting on the Eastern African Coast, A.D. 700–1500. Paper presented to the Department of Anthropology, Rice University
Fleisher J., LaViolette A. 1999. Elusive Wattle-and-Daub: Finding the Hidden Majority in the Archaeology of the Swahili. Azania 34:87–108
Fleisher, J., and LaViolette, A. 2004. Pemba’s Pivotal Centuries: Archaeological Perspectives on Demographic, Socio-political and Linguistic Changes before and After the 10th and 11th Centuries A.D. Paper presented at the 47th Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, New Orleans
FleisherJ., and LaViolette A. 2007. The Changing Power of Swahili Houses, Fourteenth to Nineteenth Centuries AD. In The Durable House: House Society Models in Archaeology, edited by R.A. Beck Jr., pp. 175–197. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 35. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
Frank, A.G. 1998. ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age. University of California Press, Berkeley
Garlake P. 1966 The Early Islamic Architecture of the East African Coast. Nairobi and Oxford, British Institute in Eastern Africa
Gibb H.A.R. 1962 The Travels of Ibn Battuta, 1325–54, Vol. 2. Hakluyt Society, London
Glassman J. 1995 Feasts and Riot: Revelry, Rebellion, and Popular Consciousness on the Swahili Coast, 1856–1888. London, James Currey
Hannerz U. 1996. Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places. Routledge, London
Helm, R.M. 2000. Conflicting Histories: The Archaeology of the Iron-working, Farming Communities in the Central and Southern Coast of Kenya. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Archaeology. University of Bristol, Bristol
Horton, M.C. 1984. The Early Settlement of the Northern Swahili Coast. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge, Cambridge
Horton M.C. 1986 Asiatic Colonization of the East African Coast: The Manda Evidence. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 2:202–213
Horton M.C. 1987 The Swahili Corridor. Scientific American 255(9):86–93
Horton M.C. 1996 Shanga: The Archaeology of a Muslim Trading Community on the Coast of East Africa. British Institute in Eastern Africa, London
Horton M., Middleton J. 2000 The Swahili: The Social Landscape of a Mercantile Society. Blackwell Publishers, London
Insoll, T. 2003. The East African Coast and Offshore Islands. In The Archeology of Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa, pp. 136–205. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Juma, A. 2004. Unguja Ukuu on Zanzibar: An Archaeological Study of Early Urbanism. Studies in Global Archaeology 3. African and Comparative Archaeology, Department of Archaeology and Ancient History, Uppsala University, Uppsala
Kirkman J. 1964 Men and Monuments on the East African Coast. Lutterworth Press, London
Kusimba C.M. 1999a The Rise and Fall of Swahili States. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, California
Kusimba, C.M. 1999b. Material Symbols Among the Precolonial Swahili of the East African Coast. In Material Symbols: Culture and Economy in Prehistory, edited by J.E. Robb, pp. 318–341. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 26. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois
Kusimba, C.M., and S.B. Kusimba 2005. Mosaics and Interactions: East Africa, 2000 b.p. to the Present. In African Archaeology: A Critical Introduction, edited by A.B. Stahl, pp. 392–419. Blackwell Press, London
Kusimba S.B. 2005 What Is a Hunter-Gatherer? Variation in the Archaeological Record of Eastern and Southern Africa. Journal of Archaeological Research 13(4):337–365
Lapidus, I.M. 1969. Muslim Cities and Islamic Societies. In Middle Eastern Cities: A Symposium on Ancient, Islamic, and Contemporary Middle Eastern Urbanism, edited by I.M. Lapidus, pp. 47–79, University of California Press, Berkeley
LaViolette, A. 2004. Swahili Archaeology and History on Pemba, Tanzania: A Critique and Case Study of the Use of Written and Oral Sources in Archaeology. In African Historical Archaeologies, edited by A.M. Reid and P.J. Lane, pp. 125–162. Berlin, Springer-Verlag Publishers
LaViolette, A., and J. Fleisher 2005. The Archaeology of Sub-Saharan Urbanism: Cities and their Countrysides. In African Archaeology: A Critical Introduction, edited by A.B. Stahl, pp. 327–352. Blackwell Press, London
LaViolette, A., J. Fleisher., and B.B.B. Mapunda 2001. Town and Country: A Regional Study of Swahili Village and Urban Households on Pemba Island, Tanzania, A.D. 800–1600. Proposal submitted to the National Science Foundation
LaViolette, A., J. Fleisher., and B.B.B. Mapunda 2003. Pemba Archaeological Project: Preliminary Report, June–August 2002. Manuscript on file, Department of Archives, Museums and Antiquities, Zanzibar
LaViolette, A., J. Fleisher., and B.B.B. Mapunda. 2004. Pemba Archaeological Project: Preliminary Report, Second Season, June-July 2004. Manuscript on file, Department of Archives, Museums and Antiquities, Zanzibar
Mazrui A.M., Sheriff I.N. 1994 The Swahili: Idiom and Identity of an African People. Africa World Press, Trenton, NJ
Nurse D., Spear T. 1985 The Swahili: Reconstructing the History and Language of an African Society, 800–1500. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia
Piot C. 1999 Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Pouwels R.L. 1987 Horn and Crescent: Cultural Change and Traditional Islam on the East African Coast, 800–1900. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Prestholdt, J. 2004. On the Global Repercussions of East African Consumerism. American Historical Review 109(3):755–781
Prins A.H.J. 1967 The Swahili-Speaking Peoples of the East African Coast. International African Institute, London
Sahlins, M. 1994. Cosmologies of Capitalism: The Trans-Pacific Sector of ‘the World System.’ In Culture/Power/History: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory, edited by N.B. Dirks, G. Eley, and S.B. Ortner, pp. 414–416. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Sinclair P., and T. Håkansson 2000. The Swahili City-State Culture. In A Comparative Study of Thirty City-State Cultures, edited by M.H. Hansen, pp. 463–482. The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, Copenhagen
Stahl A.B. 2001. Making History in Banda: Anthropological Visions of Africa’s Past. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Strandes, J. 1899. The Portuguese Period in East Africa. Translated by Jean J. Wallwork. East African Literature Bureau, Nairobi
Tampoe, M. 1989. Maritime Trade between China and the West. British Archaeological Reports International Series, No. 555, Oxford
Tolmacheva M. 1976. The origin of the name “Swahili.” Tanganyika Notes and Records 77–8:27–37
Wallerstein, I.M. 1974. The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. Academic Press, New York.
Walshaw, S.C. 2005. Swahili Urbanization, Trade and Food Production: Botanical Perspectives from Pemba Island, Tanzania, A.D. 600–1500. Ph.D. dissertation, Washington University, St. Louis. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor
Willis J. 1993. Mombasa, the Swahili, and the Making of the Mijikenda. Clarendon Press, Oxford
Wilson, T.H. 1982. Spatial Analysis and Settlement Patterns on the East African Coast. Paideuma 28:201–219
Wright, H.T. 1993. Trade and Politics on the Eastern Littoral of Africa, AD 800–1300. In The Archaeology of Africa: Food, Metals and Towns, edited by T. Shaw, P.J.J. Sinclair, B.W. Andah, and A. Okpoko, pp 658–672. Routledge, London
Acknowledgements
I would like to express my gratitude to Charles Cobb and Diana Loren for inviting me to contribute the original version of this paper to their Society for American Archaeology session in 2006, and for their continued support as this paper was developed for Archaeologies. Appreciation also goes to the two anonymous reviewers who provided helpful commentary. I thank Jeff Fleisher for his input on the present version, particularly with regard to the ceramic data. I am indebted to the National Science Foundation, which generously funded the research at Chwaka and Tumbe from 2002–2006 (#BCS0138319). And finally I thank Jeff Hantman for his support in producing the conference and present versions of this paper and for multiple insights along the way.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
LaViolette, A. Swahili Cosmopolitanism in Africa and the Indian Ocean World, A.D. 600–1500. Arch 4, 24–49 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-008-9064-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11759-008-9064-x