SOUS LA DIRECTION DE

Chantal Radimilahy et Narivelo Rajaonarimanana

Civilisations
des mondes insulaires(Madagascar, îles du canal de Mozambique,.Mascareignes, Polynésie, Guyanes)

Mélanges en l'honneur du Professeur Claude Allibert

Éditions KARTHALA
22-24, bd Arago
75013 Paris

The Maldives connection:
pre-modern Malay World shipping
across the Indian Ocean

Pierre-Yves MANGUIN
Directeur d'études
École française d'Extrême-Orient

The people of Insular Southeast Asia, being the inhabitants of the large,tarchipelago in the world, have for long been routinely described as skilledmariners. l It is generally aceepted that Austronesians, after leaving their
homeland in Taiwan approximately 5 000 yeats ago, sailed south into lnsularSoutheast Asia, where they soon oversbadowed pre-cxisting populations.
From there, they went on ,ailing east into the Pacifie, al! the way to Easter
Island, leaving few islands unpopulated, and west across the Indian Ocean,partly tuming Madagascar, culturally and linguistically, into an offshoot of

L Throughout this essay, rather than write about "Austronesian speakîng peoples" only, 1will onen more gcneraUy refer to the "peoples of Southeast Asia" or of "InsuJar Southeast
Asta", Though the share of Austronesüm speakîng populations ofSoutheast Asta and thePacifie appear ro have bccn overwbelming În the dcvcloprnenr of sea going techniques.
Melanesians, Mon and pte-Han popula:tions of Southem China Illil}' weU aIso have had
thcir say în the proœss too,P.-V. MANGUINSoutheast Asia.' Howevcr, for long, once Iip service was paid to such
obvious maritime adaptations and sailing talents, liltle el se was usually said
about the matter. Excellent studies of the surviving small sailing vessels of
Oceania or Southeast Asia were often carried out. Only a few scholars,
however, remarked that Austronesians of the Western half of InsularSouthcast Asia could also have built larger vessels for high seas navigationand large scale trade. Cultural diffusionists were thus content to discuss theorigins and distribution of single or double outrigger canoes, of lug sails andother fealures, with no relationship to the historical context of Southeast
Asia.'The unsuspecting reader was thercfore largely left wilh the romantic, but
unsubstantiated idea that fearless Austronesians had paddled around half theplanet on fi imsy boats. Another prevailing theory contended that the
pcopling of the Pacific Ocean by Austronesians was tbe result of accidentai
island-hopping. In such a eontext, it was difficult ta try to understand howin which practical circumstances - those same Austronesians that had
peopled Southeast Asia had also leaped west across the lndian Ocean,reached East Africa and peopled Madagascar.
The very few scholars that b1cw an early whistle were experienced sailors
and knew something was amiss, but littlc attention was then paid to theirwork 4 The first solid blows to such a negligent approach came from the
Pacific fringes of the Austronesian world: scholars experimentally reenactcd, with the help of the last generation of skillcd indigenous high-seasnavigators, a variety of far reaching Oceanic crossings. 5 In the process, theybrought to 1ight the sophisticated non instrumental navigational techniques
which allowed the Austronesians to progressively oceupy the Pacifie Islands,
to reach and keep contact with remote and often tiny islands thousands ofmiles away, in a proeess that lastcd well into the first millennium CE.
2. The books by Bellwood (1997) and Bcllwood & (ilover (2004) provide the mûst up-todate synthesis of the availablc evidence on early peopling of Southcast Asia.
3. A typical examplc ofsuch a diffusionist approach will be found in Horncll's compilation
ofhis major works [1970 (1946), specificaUy pp. 253-27\].
4. Gabriel Ferrand (1910, 1918, 1919), a former Navy o11ïcer, looms prominently among
those schoJars who tried to draw attention to the past high-seas maritime skills ofSouthcast Asians. As carly as 1910, drawing on Portuguesc and Arabie sources, heremarked in his paper "Les voyages des Javanais à Madagascar" that Malay World sailingtmditions had a lot more ta show fOI than just what was then visible. The sociologist
Bertram Schrieke also tried to follow sueh commun sense tracks in a short essay (1919).
Later Christiaan Nooteboom, whose own dissertation was on Indonesian dug-outs (largo
sensu), followed up on Ferrand and Schrieke in anolher short essay (1950).
5. See, among many others, Gladwin (1970), Dodd (1972), Lewis (1975, 1980), Feinbcrg(1988).

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TIIE MALDIVES CONNECTION

Through rcassessing of the IS'b century descriptions by Western explorers, it
was also proven that the vessels that carried these people into the Pacitie had
often been complex and large plank-built canoes, not mere dug-outs.
Linguistic and anthropological approaches helped in the construction of arenewed paradigm for the role of Austronesians in shaping their seascapes.
The fact that sea, ships and maritime trade playcd such an important role insocieties speaking Austronesian languages is also made obvious by therecurring rcferences to these in their rituals, mythology, iconography andliteratures. Similarly, terms revealing early adaptations to a maritime
environment and mastering of sailing techniques were reconstructed bylinguists for proto-Austronesian languages (Scott 1982; Manguin 1986,
1991; Adelaar 1995, 1996, 1997; Blust 1976, 1984-85; Pawley & Pawley
1998; Waruno Mahdi 1999).
Meanwhile, those Austronesian speaking people that had remained in
Insular Southeast Asia developed large states during the frrst millennium CE,
leaving behind a number of written sources and monuments as a testimony
to their early grandeur. Until recenlly, the emphasis on the apparent
imposition of foreign cultural traits known' as "Indianisation" or"Hinduisation", from the 4tl'_5 th century CE onwards, followed by"Islamisation" after the 13 th century, largc1y conccaled the internai dynamics
of these Southeast Asian polities. As a reaction to this approach, historians
frrst started to draw attention to the vital role played by sorne of these early
potities in shaping local, then regional, and soon Asia-wide long-distanceexchange and trade networks. 6 Regional networks of South East Asia, sorneof them involving long distance exchange patterns, were clearly forged long
before Indian or Chinese religious or political influences were felt around the
beginning of the Christian era. In the last few centuries BCE, the diffusion
into the whole region, as far as New Guinea, of artefacts such as bronze
drums and axes from northem Vietnam are proof of the existence of suchlong distance networks. Archaeologists are now in the process ofbringing totight what may weil be incipient harbour polities on the west coast of the
Malay Peninsula, the east coast of Sumatra and the north coasts of Java andBali. As early as the tum of the first millennium CE, these appear to have
traded as far cast as Southem China and west across the Bay of Bengal.

6. Historians Van Leur (1955) and Wolters (1967), in their trend setting books on Southeast
Asian trade were instrumental in shifting the attention of scholars to Malay shippers andtraders. Studies by Wisseman Christie (1986, 1990) on the relationship between maritime
trade and state fonnation in early first millennium AD Southeast Asia provide c1ear
examples ofwhat has been achieved in this field. See also Manguin (2004).

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P.-Y. MANGUIN

Other sites on coastal Continental Southeast Asia similarly show evidence of
having been in touch with remote parts of Asia. 7
Maritime powers of Insular Southeast Asia not only controlled much of
the trade carried along the trans-Asiatic maritime route but were also among
the major shippers along these nctworks. The incipient trade-oriented
polities of the early first millennium CE. followed by more complex
Indianised states such as Srivijaya (7"'_13'h c.), Java-based Majapahi't (12"_l4 th e.), and finally the multiple lslamic harbour-cities of \3'h_17'h centuries(such as Aceh, Melaka, Banten, Demak, etc.) are all known to have operated
locally built trading vesscls of more than respectable size (500 tons is afigure one often cornes across in written sources). The "lashed-lug andstitched plank" technique (described below) was used for vessels of ail sizcs
during the first millennium CE and the flfst few centuries of the second
millennium. Progressively, during the first half of the latter millennium, it
gave way in the larger Southeast Asian trading vessels to structures whereframes and planks were assembled with waoden dowels only (and with ironnails in the hybrid South China Sea tradition).8

The building and operation of large sailing vessels by the people andpolities of lnsular Southeast Asia, al least as early as the first few centuries
CE, now being generally accepted as a fact, the question nevcrthelessremains as ta which routes were plied by these large ships (and, accessorily,ta what purpose). All Southeast Asian ship remains found sa far inarchaeological sites were excavated within the region itself. Wc therefore
have ta rely mainly on written sources and regular archaeolagical work ta
reconstruct Southeast Asian networks in the Indian Ocean during the fust
fifteen centuries of this era (the seant archaeological data available rarely
tells us which were the shippers of the artefacts found in recavered
assemblages).

7. See. among others, Ardika & Bellwood (1991. 1993), Christie (1990, 1995). Glov...
(1989), BeUina & Glover (2004). Manguin (2004).
8. On Southeast Asian shipbuilding techniques and trading shjps in historical anIlarchaeological contexts, see Green (1984. 1990. 1998). Flecker (2001. 2002. 2007),
Horridge (1982), Manguin (1980. 1985a. 1989, 1993a. 1993b. 1996. 2000).

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THE MALDIVES CONNECTION

Shipping along the northern routesof the Indian Ocean
The northern hernisphere part of the Indian Ocean bordered on the mostdeveloped Asian regions. In late prchistoric, proto-historie and historie
times, such sea routes were thus part and parcel of the esscntial trans-Asiatic
maritime route leading from East Asia to the Mediterranean, via the straits ofSoutheast Asia, the coasts of South Asia and the Middle Eastern isthmuses.
The key economic areas of Insular Southeast Asia, mainly the Malay
Peninsula, Sumatra and Java sat astride the Equator but had direct control, inthe straits zone, over the northern network. Most economic powers of thc
Old World, from China to Europe, at one time or another during the past two
millcnnia, had their traders and trading ships operating on these crowded sea
lanes. Most of them Icft us precious written records on what went on in thelndian Ocean. Such sources have been extensivcly studied during the past
century. During the last few decades, after the role of Southeast Asian
powers on this trade route started being recognized, it has become anestablishcd fact that the large ships they built and operated plied mostcommercial routes to the north of the Equator, from China to the Middle
East.
Chinese sources refer to such Southeast Asian ships being observed in
Chinese harbours as early as the 3'" century CE, and we know from the same
set of sources !hat the Buddhist monks that sailed on them in the 7"' century
CE towards Srivijaya harbours of Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula boarded
the same vessels on their way ta and from harbours in the Bay of Bcngal(Manguin 1980, 1996). Chinese sources also tell us that, during the threecenturies preceding the rise of Srivijaya in the 7th ccntury, Southeast Asian
powers had their ships plying Indian Ocean lanes to collect Middle Eastern
products at Ceylon and seH them back in China (Walters 1967, esp. chap.
10: 139-172). Portuguese sources of the 16" century then allaw us ta
partially reconstruct sorne of the earlier trade routes on which Malays andJavanese operated during the world wide economic boom of the 15"'_16"'
century, carrying cargocs that belonged ta mlers and merchants based in
Mclaka and in various harbour-cities of the straits area and the Java Sea(Pires 1944: II, 367,496 ff; Thamaz 1988).' By then, a few decades only
befare the people of the Malay Warld withdrew from high-seas shipping in
9. Two recent books describe with mueh detail the 15th-17th century Malay World trade
networks during this Islamic moment of their history, in what is now oftcn rcfcrred to asan "Age of Commerce": Reid (1988-93), Lombard (1990, esp. vol. 2).

265

P.-Y. MANGUIN

the second half of the 16'h century, they chiefly sailed to Southem China,
Philippines, the Moluccas and Coromandel. But these sources also carryc1ear indications oflate 15'h or early 16th century lndian Ocean trips leadingthem as far west as the Maldives, Calicut, Oman, Aden and the Red Sea. 10

The Southern Indian Ocean
and the Madagascar connection
Insular Southeast Asian polities were in a unique posItIOn in the lndian
Ocean. During more than two thousand years, as we have just seen, they
actively participated in and, at times (under Srivijaya or Melaka), they
appear to have largely eontrolled whole stretches of trans-Asiatie trade
networks. However, due to their geographic position asttide the Equator,
they also had easy aceess to routes leading into the lndian Ocean south of theline. The latter could Lead, via the southernmost islands of the Maldives,
towards East Africa and, chiefly, to the "Great Island", Madagascar.
Shippers from Insular Southeast Asia were probably the only ones to sailalong these routes, as will be seen fiuther down.
As early as 1910, Gabriel Ferrand had noticed that 16'h century
Portuguese authors, when they described the Malay World shippers theycame across in the lndian Ocean, transcribed still vivid memories of earlier
voyages to Madagascar and were the fust Europeans to note that languages
spoken on both sides of the lndian Ocean wcre akin. Ferrand actually started
his article on "Les voyages des Javanais à Madagascar" with a typical quotefrom Diogo do Couto's Décadas da Asia (Ferrand 1910: 281)11:"[The Javanese .. .] are ail very praficient in the art ~f" navigation. to theextent that they daim to be the mos! ancient navigators { ..]. There ls no
doubt that they have sailed ail the way ta the Cape of" Good Hope and thatthey had been in louch wilh the outer [i.e. Eastern] coasl of the Island of Silo
Lourenço [Madagascar] where one finds many coloured and Javanised
indigenous people w/tom they say are their descendants. ,-My purpose here is not to deal once more with the undisputed fact ofAustronesian participation in the peopling of Madagascar. The timing andthe modalities of this cultural, linguistic and genetic input remain very much
10. For the available textual evîdence, sec Manguin (1993: 199).
11. The quote is from Diogo do Couto, Da Asia, década IV/Hi/i (Barros & Couto 1777-1778:
voL 10, 169).

266

THE MALDIVES CONNECTIONa matter of discussion among scholars and depend on variable interpretationsof still shaky data gathered from the fields of anthropology, linguistics,
archaeology and history. 12 My aim is only to examine the problcm from theangle of shipping and sailing routes.
As noted abovc, a lot has been written about the diffusion from Southeast
Asia into the Indian Ocean of canoe-building techniques (particularly that ofsingle and double outriggers). There is little doubt that such techniques wereintroduced there by Austronesian-speaking people. This, howcver, does notnecessarily carry the corollary that they actually sailcd in these small vessels
across the Indian Ocean or along ils shores, all the way to and from
Madagascar. We have now seen that Insular Southeast Asia people didmaster the techniques necessary ta build large trading vessels from at least
the first few centuries CE, when the first contacts with Madagascar are
thought to have taken place. 1 therefore believe il is more reasonable topicture them sailing the latter rather than frail outrigger canoes. Large plankbuilt boats were still to be observed on the east coast of Madagascar in the
19 th century; due to the lack of relevant sources on the structures of such
vessels, il has been unfeasible so far to ascertain if the latter weredescendants of Southeast Asian vessels (Macé-Descartes 1846: 299-301;
Homell 1944). The smaller canoes (or the associated technical know how)would however have been brought along with them. 13 An assortrnent of moreor less explicit lOth to 13 th century Arabie texts tell us about people thought to be Southeast Asians - sailing in ships and large tleets to
Madagascar and surrounding areas of East Africa and the Middle East, but
this is about as much as we can gather from historical sources on thematter. 14

Another point of interest is to try and find out which routes could or
would have been used by navigators from Jnsular Southeast Asia to sail12. On various approaches to the study of the Austronesian component of Malagasy culture
and on trade contacts betwccn Southeast Asia and Madagascar, see, among others.,
Allibcrt (1999, 2007), Beaujard (2003, 2005), Vérin (1972, 1975, 1986), Vérin & Wright(1999), Dewar (1996), Dewar & Wright (1993), Kottack & Vérin (eds., 1986), Mar,chall(1995), Chittick& Rotberg(cds., 1975), Adelaar(l995, 1996, 1997), Dahl (1991,1995).
13. Though, of course, a crossing on an outrigger canoe Îs technically possible: such a canoe,
20 metres long and buiIt following the stitchcd-plank and lashed-lug technique,succcssfully crossed aver from Indonesia to Madagascar under the command of skipper
Robert Rabman in 1985, and has overwhclmingly proven the seaworthiness of such
vesse}s (Hobman J987). A replica of the outrigger vessel represented on the 8th

Borobudur reliefs was also sailed across the Indian Ocean in 2005.
14. These are summarized in Vérin (19X6: 41-45).

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P.-Y. MANGUIN

towards the "Grandc Île". One first remark about the 16th century Portuguese
reminiscences is that they are surprisingly specifie: one would not expect tobe offered such vivid recollections of earlier contacts with Madagascar if
these events - or rather the last of thcse contacts - had been removed
more than three or four generations in time. Taking the Portuguese arrivaI in
the lndian Ocean as the earlicst possible source for this information, thiswould bring us back, at the earliest, towards the second half of the 14'hcentury. This is later than the commonly acknowledged tenninal dates forsuch interactions between the two sidcs of the lndian Ocean, which isusually given as the 12 th or the early 13,h century.
A confinmation of these late contacts may be sought in the information
the Portugucse got when they first sailed east around Madagascar under thecommand of Tristào da Cunha, carly in the 16th century: c10ve was said to bc
available there. Clove, as is weil known, then only grew in the Moluccas andcould only have bcen made available in Madagascar ifbrought by Southeast
Asian shippers. Il would of course havc been available on most ports of thenorthern Indian Ocean, but it is difficult to imagine why it would have beenbrought down south to Madagascar as a trade commodity trom a northernroute; il makes more sense to envisage merchants from Insular Southeast
Asia with an easier acccss to the island, who would have taken it to the east
coast of Madagascar, for sale there or further north, to East African or
Middle Eastern merchants.
Later on, after this first Portuguesc cxpedition failed to find any c1ove,the instructions (Regimento) given ta Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, who was
due ta establish the first contacts with Melaka in 1509, ordered him to
invcstigate this enticing infonmation and, interestingly enough given thecircumstances, to sail non-stop from the outer side of Madagascar to thenorthem tip of Sumatra. This inquiry only managed ta bring back news thata Javanese junk had been wrecked on the eastern coast of Sao Lourenço,
spilling a cargo of c1oves. 15 This could of course be true; however, given theabundance of trade related myths and legends in the Malay World which
involve the wreck of a richly laden ship, this single testimony cannot betaken at face value. 16 The story, however, points towards earlier contacts of

15. Gaspar Corres, Lendas da india (1858-63: vol. 11. 131-132); Joào de Barros, déc.da
I1/iv/3 (Barros & Couto 1777-1778: vol. 3, 394); Castanheda, Historia do descobrimento
e conquisla da india pelos Poriugueses, II, xxxi: 279 ff; li, cvi, 447 ff. See aise the 1508
Regimento de Diogo Lopes de Sequeira (Alguns documentas .. " 1892: 184-197).
16. On trade related myths of Southeast Asian coastal polities, see Manguin (1991).

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TIIE MALDIVES CONNECTION

the sort referred to by Diogo do Couto, whichever the foundation of thispiece of information. Such memories were referred to in a Portuguese letterof 1540, where it is stated that the junks of the Java Sea did in earlier times
sailed from the straits of Bali and Lombok into the lndian Ocean, towards
Silo LourençolMadagascar. 17
Another way to investigate Malay and Javanese shippers' presence in the
Indian Ocean is to try ta clarify the recurrent mentions of their relationshipwith the Maldives. The archipelago lays roughly 3/5 of the way from
Tndonesia ta Madagascar. The question of the Maldives archipelago and of
its exact location, before the Portuguesc had a chance to "discover" it, hasconsiderable bearing on the subject under consideration here, as it no daubt
reveals a body of knowledge gathered among Asian navigators. In
November of 1505, the Portuguese Viso-Rey ordered a ship to sail to "theMa/dive isLands, situated sixty Leagues awayfrom the coast of India, ta seize
some of the many vessels and junks that were, for sure, sailing throughthere, jrom Melaka as weil as frnm Sumatra, Bengal and other kingdoms
south of the Equator".18
The generally accepted description of the Maldives was then, as reportedby Duarte Barbosa early in the 16th century and then by Joao de Barros, aslate as 1563, that the archipelago extended from Mount Deli or the Baixos dePadua, on the west coast of lndia, all the way down to the "coast of Sunda"(i.e. the western part of the island of Java) (Barros, in: Barros & Couto 177778, vol. 5: 306; Barbosa 1918: Il: 103-4; Pyrard de Laval 1893: II, 479 fI). 19
The northemmost part of the archipelago, in such descriptions, certainly
included the Laccadives. Tndeed, grouping of the two contiguous but
culturally separate archipelagos is nothing new: an 1195-96 CE charter
establishes that lakshadipa was a term used for Maldives (hence also for thewhole archipelago, including the Laccadives) (Forbes 1983). The southernreach of the archipelago in the above descriptions is not clear: Sunda issitnated quite far to the east of the Maldives. However, it is in Tomé Pires'
Suma Oriental that we find the most precise - if not totally accurateindicatiou ou the aclual latitude of the Maldives and on the people whosailed there, as perceived in early 16th ceutury. We are told, as in the above

17. Letter of Bràs Baiào to the King, publishcd in Thom.z (2002: 580 and n.703).
18. Castanheda, Historia ... , vol. Il, xxi: 256.
19. Barros adds that this is according to the navigational charts of the "Mouras", and that theMaldivian island furthest south is "Adu" (i.e. Adu Atoll), which is alrcady closer tomodem interpretations but conlfadicts what he has just written about the latitude of
Sunda. The chronicler appears to have amalgamated data gathered trom two different
sources.

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P.-Y. MANGUIN

sources, that, in the south, "the Islands of Diva [Maldives] jàce Sunda[literally: 'reach as Jar (south) as in front oJ Sunda '}; and they go along thewhole oJ Sumatra on its western side, ail the way up to Gamispolla [i.e. Pulo
Weh, at the northern tip oJSumatra] and [from there] until Cananor" (Pires
1944: 162, 169,409-410,414).20
It is therefore dear that what are meant by these indications on Sunda in
the south and Cananor (or the Baixos de Padua) in the north are latitudes, notprecise topographical positions. However, such southem latitudes for the
Maldives can only be understood if these are made to include the Chagosarchipelago (including Diego Garcia), a group of islands further south thanthe main atolls (ca. 6 degrees S). The Chagos happen to be situated exactly
on the latitude of the Sunda Strait, the only access to the Java Sea between
Sumatra and Java/Sunda. The island of Diego Garcia itself offeredfavourable conditions as a stop over: according to an East India Company
report of 1789-90, it "con/ains an excellent and capacious harbour [and] iscovered with wood, and good water may be had by digging wells".21 The
role played by the Chagos on a Southeast Asian sailing route scems to be
confirmed by a Maldivian tradition collectcd by Pyrard de Laval, who spent
sorne years there during the li"' century. It tells the story of a sovereign trom
Male who tricd with no success to conquer a remote island in the south
bearing the name of Folovahi or Pullobay.22 This appears not to be a placenarne understood in Divehi and is reminiscent of a Malay toponym (Pulo
Wai?). The only group of islands south of the main archipelago and of its
southernmost atoll is that of Chagos and Diego Garcia. These were not partof the body of knowledge of Indian Ocean navigators during the 1Sthcentury: only the southern atolls of the Maldives are described in Ibn
Majid's nautical texts, but there are sorne hints at islands situated further
south (Grasset-Grange 1970: 236).23
A variety of authors noted the ease of communication between theMaldives and Sumatra. Pyrard de Laval mentions wrecks of large ships trom

20. The two passages are to be found quite far apart in Pires' text, respectively in the chapters
dealing with Gujrati tfade in Sumatra and with Sunda. It Îs only by reading them together
that sense can be made ofthem.
21. Observations on the East if/dia Company's Settlements made during a voyage in the years
j 789 & 1790, Indi. Office Library. Ms> Eur B 288, pp.13-17.
22. Maloney (1980: 113), where other, less reliable tales about links between Folovahi and
Sumatra are recorded.
23. This assertion about the Maldives "reaching" Sunda may alsa explain why 16th century
Portuguese çartographers oft.en represented the Maldives as an archipelago which ahnast
rejoined Sumatra (Grosset Grange, ibid.).

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TH E MALDIVES CONNECTION

Sunda and he indicates that these islands were only half as far from Sumatraas their distance to Arabia: a curious mi stake, since he seldom makes errors
in his observations and later went to Indonesia himself. This reminds us that
Ma Huan, who took part in the Zheng He expeditions in the early 15'hcentury, wrote that the Maldives could be reached from Sumatra in ten days
only (Maloney 1980: 109- 113; Pyrard de Laval 1893: 256-58, 280, 284, 296;
Ma Huan 1970: 146-147). It may also be relevant here to remark that the
only place name in the Indian Ocean jotted down by the 18'h century Bugis
navigators on their maps (copied from Dutch originals) is precisely that of
the Maldives (Le Roux & Cense 1935 : 707) .

T UB MA LDIVES AT T l m HEART OF IN DIAN OCEAN ROUTES-----_. Tr.n. · Af ill M: rOUI U

AUll ronu ian Populltion,......... ... 5«ond.ry rO"I~'

U..bour d lie•• . •.• . •Hypothelicalroll\ o:..

..,The repeated remark in 16'" century Portuguese sources concerning thelatitude of the southernmost Maldives atolls and it being the same as that of
the Strait of Sunda appears therefore to clearl y indicate a sailing route. Shipsfrom Sunda would thus have sailed straight westward across the Indian
Ocean, running down a latitude (along the 6 degree South parallel), startingfrom the Strait of Sunda and making a landfall on the Chagos (the Pulo
WailFolovahi of the Maldivian legend?). This kind of sailing, on a course
lyi ng along a parallel of latitude, is known to Pacific navigators and, ofcourse, to other Asian navigators of the Indian Ocean. Rather than the more
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P.-Y. MANGUrN

sophisticated techniques found in the elaborate manuals of Ibn Majid or
Sulaiman al-Mahri, it is this kind of course that must have been current
practice aeross the Bay of Bengal: Arab sea pilots and nautieal eharts drawn
from them for use in the area during the 15"' eentury make il a point to list
harbours and landfalls situated on both sides of the Bayon the same parallelof latitude (Albuquerque & Tavares 1967), Winds, furtberrnore, are known
to be steadier at the latitude of Java (whereas they arc unstable aU year long
along the west coast of Sumatra) (Forrest 1783:41-51).
Having reaehed the Chagos, shippers from Java or Sumatra eould havesailed north to reaeh the central Maldives atolls and Male for trading
purposes. A regular return route would then have been again to mn down alatitude (6 degrees North), along the main braneh of the trans-Asiatie route,passing immediatc1y south of Ceylon and sailing straight to the northem tipof Sumatra, making a landfall on the island named Pula Weh or Wai (is thisa striking rejoinder to the Falavahi / Pula Wai / Chagos at the opposite
corner of the circuit?). This is eonfmncd again by Tomé Pires, who talks
about Sundanese sailing ta the Maldives in six or seven days only, to trade
there in slaves (Pires 1944: 169). We thus have proof, in the late 151h or early
16"' century, of shippers from lnsular Southeast Asia sailing along a southemroute to the Maldives which is nowhere documented in Arabie, Chinese or
Portuguese sea-pilots (Grosset-Grange 1970: 235-237; Tibbetts 197\: 458460).
The intimate links established over the centuries between Malay Worldand Maldivian shippers and shipbuilders is further confirrned by the làet thatthe boat-building techniques surviving in the Maldives have been
demonstrated to be of Southeast Asian descent, which is different from the
Arabo-Indian tradition of the Arabian Sea. They are closely related to the"lashed-lug and stilched plank" tradition now well documented in Southeast
Asian archaeological sites during the first thirteen centuries CE (Manguin
2000).
At this point, we may try to push this reasoning further down the line
(both metaphorically and literally), and into the realm of inforrned
speculation - as T am weil aware - . If these Southeast Asian shippers had
reaehed the Chagos running down a parallel of latitude from the Sunda
Strait, then they no doubt mastered the rcquired navigational techniques tokeep sailing further west to Madagascar, possibly via the Seychelles. This
east-west route is perfectly fcasib1c during the months of May to October (itis, however, at ail times impossible to cross the Indian Ocean at theselatitudes from west to east, due ta contrary winds; the return route to272

THF MALDIVES CONNECTION

Southeast Asia would have necessarily been made along the northem routes)(Allas ofPilol Charls 1966).24
This sauthem route fram Jnsular Southeast Asia to Madagascar, however,remains nndocumented in the available technical literaturc, both Asian or
early European. 25 The only hint at it so far is the above mentioned episode of
the c10ve reported to be available on the east coast of Madagascar: thiswauld only be explained if the "Javanese" did sail straight along theSouthem Maldives route to Madagascar, bringing with them spices to be
sold to Arabic merchants at harbours in Northem Madagascar, East Africa or
the Middle East. Arab geographers, chief among them Edrisi in his 12'hcentury work, supply various statements, ail rather difficult ta intcrprct,which appear to indicate that the northemmost islands of the Maldives areclose to Ceylon, and the southemmost near ta or only seven days sailingfrom the Malagasy coast. 26 Such remarks arc canspicuously parallel to those,quotcd above, describing in the East the Maldives as reaching towards
Sumatra and Java; such statements may however also be a rcflection of ageneral awarencss amang these writers of Ptolemaic representations of theworld.
Arab geographers further present us with a set of ambiguous remarks
regarding sailing in the Southem Indian Ocean. Ibn Rusteh (ca. 900 CE),after describing the regular route ta Java across the Bay of Bengal and theStrait of Mc1aka, states that "in passing by Zabaj [Java/Sumatra] 10 reach
Zanj [East Africa] one must pass Ihrough the regions ofDarkness" (Tibberts
1979: 31).27 This motif - the dreaded and inaccessible Sea of Darkness
which bordered towards the south the world known to Arab geographers crops up in many other sources nntil the 16th century. In later texts, it often
did so in connection with voyages to and from Insular Southeast Asia.
Odoric de Pordenone, writing in the 13 th century, is very clcar about this:"By the coasl of this country [Java] towards the South is the sea called the24. Both expeditions (1985 and 2005) whieh sailed on replieas of Austronesian ships to
Madagascar took the southem route deseribcd in this article, further demonstrating such acrossing is feasible (see note 13 above).
25. Shcphcrd (1982: BI, 133, 137), basing himself on source material on East Africa andMadagascar, has also gathered convincing cvidcncc pointing towards the existence,
during lhe 1Ïrst millennium CE, of two different trade networks: the one in the south, healso concludes, would have bccn the domain of Austronesians. But Shepherd dîffers frommy own hypothesis in that he describes this "southem" route to Madagascar as startingfrom lndia, then taking a southem course to the Chagos aJong the \1aldives before nrrning
west to Africa.
26. See such quotations by Shepherd (1982: 137) and Vérin (1972: 56) (and translations of avaricty ofsuch tcxts in Ferrand 1913-14).
27. On this theme among Arab geographers, see the many referenccs in Miquel (1967-1975).

273

P.-Y. MANGUIN

Dead Sea, the water whereof runneth ever towards the south, and if any one
falleth into that water he is never jound more" (Yule & Cordier 1913-1916:
II, 159-160).
Still in the 15 th century, Ibn Majid, inspired by earlier Arab geographersand possibly by the Alexander Romances, similarly deseribes the region
south of Madagascar and the islands furthest south from the Maldives as
belonging to the Sea of Darkness and as sorne sort of '"Iand's end" thatshould be avoided at ail cost (Grosset-Grange 1970: 236; Tibbetts 1971: 219;
Tibbetts 1979: 31, 67 68, 78,185). A few decades later, Joào de Barros gives
a more rational explanation to such statements when he writes about seas notdiscovered south of Java, with strong currents leading south that prevent
anybody from retuming (in: Barros & Couto 1777-78: vol. 7, 77).
Similar tales describing routes down south in the Indian Ocean were also
known in Southeast Asia. Sorne of them may have penetrated Malay lslamic
literary genres via Arab or Persian literatures (particularly via the Alexander
Romance) (Lombard 1990: II, 201-203 & n.1005). But the theme of theinaccessible Southem Ocean is also found in the pre-lslamic La Galigo epic
as told by the Bugis of South Celebes (an ethnie group known for its nautieal
skills): when it deals with the Western seas. it tells us of the waters of theocean that flow [south] into a region with giant whirlpools, sea monsters anddown into the Netherworld. In the far west of it, though, lies the island of the"mango tree ofthe Jengki (i.e. the Zanj, or East Africa)" (Pelras 1996: 75).28*
There appears therefore to be evidence enough to put up a strong case for asouthem route westward to Madagascar, via the Chagos, that would havepertained to Southeast Asian navigational practiee alone, a route along the 6
degrees South passage, caught between regular sea lanes of the northem
hemisphere and, further south, a mythical, dangerous world unknown ta
man. In tbis domain, the art of navigation would have been essentially anempirical one, comparable to that evolved by their Southeast Asian forbears
when they sailed cast and peopled the Pacifie. Research on surviving highseas navigation praetices of the lndonesian shippers of South-Celebes andMadura certainly points into this direction. Their use of stars and star

28. On other rcfcrences to Zanj in Southeast, Central and Eastern Asia, see, among others,
Ferrand (1919), Pelliot (1959-73: 1, 598-600).

274

THE MALDIVES CONNECTION

patterns to set and maintain course, their acute awareness of sun, winds,
wave shapes and patterns, currents, tides and the behaviour of birds andfishcs are ail reminiscent of the Polynesian' s better documented living bodyof indigenous knowledge (Lewis et al. 1980, Ammarell 1990).29 The
considerable heuristic gap between the empirical practices of Malays,
Javanese or other Austronesians and those of the pre-scientific mainstream
Arabo-Indian pilots would explain the difficulties in communication
between the two traditions, rather than sorne sort of secrecy strategy amon~
Southeast Asian shippers, comparable to the "sigilo" policy of the J6 'Portuguese crown. This communication gap would compare better with the
disdainfuJ ignorance by Westerners, until recenlly, of Oceanic navigational
traditions. At a time when pre-scientific navigational techniques were being
implemented in the northem part of the Tndian Ocean, those praeticed in thesouth would have been perceived as underdeveloped and not worth
considering. This gap would have been bridged, possibly after the 13 th _ISthcenturies, only by those Malay or Javanese Muslim pilots of leaming, literate
in Arabie, capable of reading and understanding Arabie sca pilots sueh as
those of Ibn Majid or Suleiman Al-Mahri (or, possibly, by those capable ofunderstanding or reading their Chinese equivalcnt). The famous "Javanese
Map" taken by Afonso de Albuquerque and lost in the Fior the la Mar
disaster would possibly have brought answers to many of the questions
raised in this paper (Ferrand 1918, Manguin 1979, Gelpke 1995). ft has been
proved by now that part of it benefited from both Arabie and Chinese inputs,
but it may well also have mentioned routes known to the Malay Worldnavigators alone.

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