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The Use of Comorian Documents1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2014
Extract
The Comorian archipelago is located at the northern end of the Mozambique channel in the western Indian Ocean. Of volcanic origin, the archipelago consists of four major islands and several smaller ones which, for many centuries, have been the sites of ports for ships from Asia, Africa, and Europe. They played an especially prominent role in the networks of maritime trade in the Indian Ocean during the fifteenth century and were involved in the maritime trade much earlier. As one would expect of people involved in trade over a long period of time, Comorians have been keepers of records. Thus, the Comoro Islands have become a rich source of both written and oral documents.
Some of the numerous documents that have been discovered on the islands have served as the basis of the published histories of the Comoros. Others have been published themsleves and all have provided valuable information about life in the islands. Many documents, however, still remain unpublished. I have had the opportunity to collect numerous documents over the nearly twenty years that I have been gathering information about the Comoro Islands, and this collection continues to grow today. When I am not in the islands, Comorians send or bring documents to me in Kansas which I copy or record before returning them to their owners. During my trips to the islands I have taped oral information, photographed data of historical significance, hand-copied documents, and have been given or lent rare publications.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © African Studies Association 1985
Footnotes
1.
An earlier version of this paper was read at the Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Los Angeles, 1984.
References
Footnote
2. Grosset-Grange, H., “La côte Africaine dans les routiers nautiques Arabes au moment des Grandes Découvertes,” Azania, 13 (1978), 1–35.Google Scholar See the latest evidence for early Comorian involvement in the Indian Ocean trade networks in Wright, H., “Early Seafarers of the Comoro Islands: The Dembeni Phase of the IX-Xth Centuries A.D.,” Azania, 19 (1984).Google Scholar
3. The most general of the histories are Gevrey, Alfred, Essai sur les Comores (Pondichery, 1870)Google Scholar and Faurec, Urbain, L'arahipel aux Sultans batailleurs (Tananarive, 1941).Google Scholar There is also Martin, J., Comores: quatre îles entve pirates et planteurs (Paris, 1983)Google Scholar and a recent work, Newitt, M., The Comoro Islands (Boulder, 1984)Google Scholar, contains much historical data but the reader must be wary of the information about life in the islands.
4. See, for example, al-Shirazi, Qadi Umar ibn Abu Bakr, “Ahadith al-madi” in Rotter, G., tr. and ed., Muslimische Inseln vor Ostafrika: Eine arabische Komoren-Chronik des 19 Jahrhunderts (Beirut, 1976)Google Scholar; Allibert, Claudeet al., “Texte, Traduction et Interprétation du Manuscrit de Chingoni (Mayotte) Part I,” Asie du Sud-Est et Monde Insulinden, 7 (1976), 25–62Google Scholar; Said Ahmed, Bakari B. Sultani, ed. Harries, Lyndon, The Swahili Chronicle of Ngazija (Bloomington, 1977).Google Scholar
5. This material is in preparation as Martin Ottenheimer, Documents from the Comoro Islands.
6. Document L14922. This and all following document designations refer to the collection in my library of Comorian material.
7. Document L17596.
8. Document H681.
9. Document H682.
10. Document L53137.
11. Document L20361.
12. Document B20.
13. Document B36.
14. Ottenheimer, Martin, Marriage in Damoni (Prospect Heights, 1985).Google Scholar
15. Pospisil, Leopold J., The Kapauku Papuans (New York, 1978), 103.Google Scholar
16. Newitt, Comoro Islands.