Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2009
The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries tempted several European nations to exploit the opportunities for overseas trade by expanding their influence in distant seas and lands. When Vasco de Gama discovered a new route between Europe and South-East Asia during the last decade of the fifteenth century, Europeans increased their search for new colonies and for new trade routes. Like many other nations of the region the people of Balochistan also felt the impact of this new phenomenon. The Portuguese were the first European Colonisers to reach their shores.
The following is the revised English version of a paper published in Italian in M. L. Cusati (ed.), Il Portogallo e i mart: Un incontro tra le culture, Atti del Congresso Intemazionale, Napoli, 15–17 dicembn 1994, published by I.U.O. (Naples, 1996), pp. 281–303. A trip to Balochistan to collect material and other information relating to this work and another to Lisbon to look for any written record regarding the Portuguese presence in Makran were partially financed by MURST (fondi 40%: etnolinguistica dell'area iranka, directed by Prof. Adriano Rossi). My sincere thanks are due to Prof. Rossi, Istituto Univ. Orientale, Naples, for reading the Italian version, and to Prof. Margaret Mills, University of Pennsylvania, for reading an earlier draft of this version. But I am, of course, solely responsible for any shortcomings or inaccuracies. A previous draft of this article was also read by J. Elfenbein who made several suggestions some of which have been incorporated into the final version