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The Importance of Maritime Traffic to Cultural Contacts in the Indian Ocean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Michel Mollat
Michel Mollat*
Affiliation:
Institut de France.
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The conclusions and recommendations resulting from a number of meetings held in Port Louis, Mauritius (1974); Colombo, Sri Lanka (December, 1978); and Perth, Australia (August, 1979) could serve as authority for the present work. Running through them was a continuity and logic that is stimulating for research, and from them emerged an appeal for the coordination of efforts. From all the evidence, the idea that inspired the meetings was that the countries of the Indian Ocean make up an entity. The consideration of this entity, moreover, had been the guideline for the work of a number of international conferences, among which were the colloquies held in 1962, 1966 and 1972 by the International Commission of Maritime History of the Indian Ocean. The first studied the commercial societies and companies in the Orient and in the Ocean; the second, the joint role of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean in maritime relations; and the third, the movement of populations in the Indian Ocean.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 28 , Issue 111 , September 1980 , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
Copyright © 1980 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 We refer the reader to the outlines contained in our preceding contributions to the work of the International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies. "Les relations de I'Afrique de l'Est avec l'Asie: essai de position de quelques problèmes historiques," Cabiers d'histoire mondiale, XIII, 2, 1971, pp. 291-316 (with bibliography); "Les contacts historiques de I'Afrique et de Madagascar avec l'Asie du Sud et du Sud-Est: Ie rôle de l'océan Indien," in Final Report of the meeting of experts of the Committee of Unesco for the general history of Africa, Mauritius, 1974 (14 pages with bibliography);

We add to the above, among other works of a general order, the Actes des colloques et congrès d'histoire maritime consacrés à l'océan Indien:

  1. ——

    —— "Océan Indien et Méditerranée," Lourenço-Marquès, 1962, a special edition of Studia, XI, Lisbon-Paris, 1964, 552 pages

  2. ——

    —— Sociétés et compagnies de commerce en Orient et dans l'océan Indien (Beirut, 1966), Paris, 1970, 722 pages

  3. ——

    —— Mouvements de population dans l'océan Indien (St-Denis de la Réunion, 1972), Paris, 1979, 462 pages

  4. ——

    —— The Indian Ocean in Focus. International Conference on Indian Ocean Studies (Perth, Western Australia, 1979) 6 vols., (mimeographed)

Also to be noted: Vol. V of the Bibliographie de l'Histoire des Grandes Routes Maritimes (1932-1974) (Océan Indien) by J.-C. Roda, publ. by the Commission internationale d'histoire maritime, St.-Denis de la Réunion, 1976, 90 pages, mimeographed; collection of Actes d'une Table Ronde: Migrations, minorités et échanges en océan Indien XIXe-XXe s., Univ. Aix-en-Provence, 1978, 272 pages; and a special edition "Commerces et navires dans les mers du Sud," in Archipel, 18, 1979.

2 J. Beaujeu, Hist. Univ. des Explorations, I, 2, l'Antiquité, Paris, 1957; J. Filliozat, "Les Echanges de l'lnde et de l'Empire romain aux premiers siècles de l'ère chrétienne," Rev. Historique, CCI, 1949, pp. 1-29.

3 G. H. Hourani, Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times, Princeton, 1951.

For the following passage, cf. the article of the C.H.M., XIII, 1971, cited in note 1. The inquiry on the linguistic contacts and influences in maritime language brings interesting results. Thus in Indonesia a list of 2,750 Arab words and 320 Persian words has been compiled, of which 70 percent were also borrowed by Swahili; cf. R. Jones and J. Knappert, "The Arabic and Persian Loan Words in Indonesian and Swahili," in The Indian Ocean in Focus (cited above in note 1).

4 C. Salmon and D. Lombard, "Un Vaisseau du XIIIe s. retrouvé avec sa cargaison dans la rade de ‘Zaitun'," Archipel, 18, 1979, pp. 57-67.

5 Ibn Battutah, Voyages…, ed. and trans. by C. Defrémery and B.R. San guinetti, Paris, 1853-1859, IV, pp. 91-93, 247-248; cf. also M. Mollat, "Ibn Batoutah et la mer," in Travaux et Jours, XVIII, Beirut, 1966, pp. 53-70, reprinted in Etudes d'Histoire Maritime, Turin, 1977, pp. 319-336.

6 J. Dars, La marine chinoise du Xe siècle au XIVe siècle, doctoral dis sertation in Letters, Univ. Paris VII, 373 pages (typewritten); cf. also "Les jonques chinoises de haute mer sous les Song et les Yuan," Archipel, 78, 1979, pp. 41-56.

7 Also to be noted is the information brought to this area by Professor Lallanji Gopal concerning naval technology in the Bay of Bengal since the 11th century and its role in establishing contacts with Indonesia on the one hand and Arabia and East Africa on the other. In addition, thanks to Professor Subhadradis Diskul, we know that in Thailand recent discoveries of thou sands of ceramic pieces, especially from the 14th to the 16th century, attest to the importance of relations with Vietnam and China.

8 A center of undersea archaeology has been founded by the Univ. of Western Australia at Perth.

9. C.C. MacKnight, "The Study of Praus in the Indonesian Archipelago," and V.Y. Manguin, "The Southeast Asian Trading Ship. An Historical Approach," The Indian Ocean in Focus, III.

10 H.N. Chittick, "The Shirazi Colonisation in East Africa," Journal of African History, VI, 1965; P. Vérin, Les Echelles anciennes du commerce sur les côtes nord de Madagascar, 2 vol., Lille, 1975.

11 To the now classic works of P. Paris, J. Poujade and A. Villiers, we will add some more recent studies, such as those of M.P. Nougarède, "Qualités nautiques des navires arabes," (especially those of Aden) in Océan Indien et Méditerranée, cited above in note 1, pp. 95-122; Zaabi al Zaabi, Les boutres du Golfe Arabique Koweitiens, 3rd cycle thesis, Univ. Paris I, 1980 (typewritten).

12 Concerning ports of call, see the works of the 10th Colloque international d'histoire maritime, Brussels, 1968; Les Grandes Escales, 3 vol., Rec. Soc. Jean Bodin, Vols XXXII, XXXIII, XXXIV, Brussels, 1972-1974, especially Vol. I, pp. 179, 207, 225; Vol. II, pp. 29, 91, 171, 197, 209, 299; Vol. III, pp. 213, 695.

13 To the references in note 10 add several works presented at the Perth Conference in 1979 (cf. note 1) with respect to Sri Lanka, the Comores and especially the Maldives (A.D.W. Forbes, Archives and Resources for Maldivian History).

14 Guillaume Adam, a Dominican missionary, was in Socotora for the first thirty years of the 14th century and provided interesting information on the island (De modo Sarracenes extirpandi, ed. Ch. Kohler). Rec. Histor. Croisade Doc. Arméniens, II, pp. 549-555). Cf. M. Mollat, Grands voyages et connaissance du Monde du milieu du XIIIe siècle à la fin du XVe, part 2: L'océan Indien et ['Afrique de l'Est, Paris (C.D.U.), 1969, p. 27 et seq. on the observations of missionaries in the Indian Ocean (cf. especially pp. 31-34).

15 S. Labib, "Les marchands Karimis en Orient et sur l'océan Indien," in "Sociétés et Compagnies de Commerce…" (cited above in note 1), pp. 209-214; R. Pankhurst, "The ‘Banyan' or Indian presence at Massaua, the Dahlak Islands and the Horn of Africa," in Mouvements de population… (cited above in note 1), pp. 107-128.

16 Sinica franciscana, ed. by A. Van den Wyngaert, Quarachi, 1929, I, pp. 340-345.

17 Odorico da Pordenone, Voyages in Asia.

18 The Indian Ocean in Focus and Mouvements de population…, op. cit.

19 We are reminded of the 16-meter-long map regarding the expedition of Cheng Ho in the 15th century, which Professor Yamamoto mentions in the following article. See also G.R. Tibbetts, "Comparisons Between Arab and Chinese Navigational Techniques," Bull. of the School of Oriental and African Studies, XXXVI, 1973, pp. 97-108.

20 On the art of navigation in the Indian Ocean cf. A. Teixeira da Mota, "Méthodes de navigation et cartographie nautique dans l'océan Indien avant le XVIe siècle," in Océan Indien et Méditerranée, cited above in note 1, pp. 49-91; various articles by H. Grosset-Grange in Arabica, XXII, 1975, pp. 51-60; XXIV, 1977, pp. 42-57; XXVI, pp. 90-99; in Azania, XIII, 1978, pp. 1-35; cf. also P.Y. Manguin, "Note sur l'origine nautique du mot Jam," Archipel, 18, 1979, pp. 95-105. Cf. also note 3.

21 Ibn Battutah refers to this traffic in horses and describes in general the usages of maritime commerce in the Indian Ocean.

22 See also G. Bouchon, "Les Musulmans du Kerala à l'époque de la découverte portugaise," in Mare Luso Indicum, II, 1973, pp. 3-59; by the same author, Mamale da Cananor. Un adversaire de l'Inde portugaise (1507-1528), Paris, 1975. Cf. also J. Aubin, "Le royaume d'Ormuz au début du XVIe siècle," in Mare Luso Indicum, II, 1973 pp. 77-179.

23 V. Magalhaes Godinho, L'Économie de l'Empire portugais aux XVe et XVIe siècles, Paris, 1969, especially pp. 337-419. See also J. Heimann, "Small Changes and Ballast: Cowry Trade and Usage as an Example of Indian Ocean Economic History," in The Indian Ocean in Focus, cited above in note 1. For interesting comments on Battutah, cf. M. Mollat, "Ibn Batoutah et la mer…," pp. 64-65.

24 We refer to two round tables organized in Australia as part of a Festival of Arts of the Indian Ocean, and the 18th General Assembly of the International Council of Music.

25 Ibn Battutah, op. cit., IV, pp. 90-91. Elsewhere Battutah describes the panic on a foundering ship. He says that he himself noted the donations promised by the passengers (ibid., p. 305). In another passage he transcribes the text of the prayer usually addressed to Allah by sailors in danger (cf. Mollat, "Ibn Batoutah et la mer…," p. 60).

26 Ibn Battutah, op cit., IV, pp. 126-128.

27 D. Lombard, "Le thème de la Mer dans les littératures et les mentalités de l'archipel insulindien," in The Indian Ocean in Focus, 19 pages.