End of the Middle-ages Mogadishu by the Portuguese
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Taken from: Ásia de João de Barros VOLUME I: dos feitos que os portugueses fizeram no descobrimento e conquista dos mares e terras do Oriente.
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…. The first foreign peoples who came to inhabit this country of Zanguebar were a group (huma gente) of Arabs exiled after their Islamization. From what we have learned by a chronicle of the kings of Kilwa (Quiloa) which will be mentioned later, these people were called Emozaydij (1). They were exiled because they had adopted the doctrine of a Muslim (Mouro) called Zayd, grandson of Husayn, son of Ali, the nephew (sobrinho) [of the prophet] Muhammad, who had married his daughter Aisa (2)(Axa, sic). This Zayd had opinions contrary to the Koran and all those who had adopted them, were called by the Muslims Emozaydij, which means: subjects of Zayd (subditos of Zaide); and they are considered heretics.
Although they were the first to inhabit that land from outside, they did not make any notable contributions, but they largely retreated to parts close to the Caffres' dwellings. And at last, they entered like a slow plague, they were raging along the coast. In a new action there came three ships with a great number of Arabs in the company of seven brothers: those who came were from the town of Lacah (3) which is about forty leagues from the island of Baharem (4), which is located in the Persian Sea near the land of Arabia on the mainland. The reason for their arrival was that they were much persecuted by the Kings of Lacah, and the first settlement they made in this land of Aijan (5) was the city of Magadaxo, and then Braua, which even today is governed by twelve chiefs in the manner of a Republic, who descend from these brothers. This city of Magadaxo grew to such greatness, power, and status that it later became the patron and Magadaxo the chief of all the Moors of this coast. But the first people who came there were called Emozaydij. They had different opinions from the Arabs about their religion, they did not want to submit to them, and they were gathered inside the land, joining with the Kaffirs by marriage and by cohabitation, so that they were mixed up in all the houses. These were those whom the Moors who live along the sea call Baduini, a common name, as among us we call Arabs those people who live in the countryside. The first nation of foreign people, who by way of navigation had the trade of the mine of Cephala (Sofala) came from the city of Magadaxo, not that they were trying to cover that coast, but because of the chance of a ship from that city, which by fortune and force of the currents went to arrive there.
(1) Emozaydij: an indication of early Shia Muslims in East Africa.
(2) Not Aisa (that was the Prophet’s youngest wife; but Fatima his daughter.
(3) Lacah: the Shaykh of El Hasa ?
(4) Bahrayn
(5) land of Aijan: Ajan, Aian, Adjan or Acanne (fire) is the antique reference for Aiaua or Hawiye tribe in Somalia.
Taken from: A description of the coasts of East Africa and Malabar, in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Duarte Barbosa 1514. Transl Stanley.
MAGADOXO.
Leaving …… Brava, on the coast further on towards the Red Sea, there is another very large and beautiful town, called Magadoxo, belonging to the Moors, and it has a king over it, and is a place of great trade in merchandise. Ships come there from the kingdom of Cambay and from Aden with stuffs of all sorts, and with other merchandise of all kinds, and with spices. And they carry away from there much gold, ivory, beeswax, and other things upon which they make a profit. In this town there is plenty of meat, wheat, barley, and horses, and much fruit; it is a very rich place. All the people speak Arabic; they are dusky, and black, and some of them white. They are but bad warriors, and use herbs with their arrows to defend themselves from their enemies.
Taken from: Álvaro Velho: Roteiro da primeira viagem de Vasco da Gama. (1497-1499).
Álvaro Velho was on board but left on the return at Sierra Leone.
(On the return voyage) [Magadoxo]
We found ourselves off a large town, with houses of several stories, big palaces in its center, and four towers around it. This town faced the sea, belonged to the Moors, and was called Magadoxo. When we were quite close to it we fired off many bombards, and continued along the coast with a fair wind. We went on thus during the day, but lay to at night, as we did not know how far we were from Milingue [Malindi] whither we wished to go.
Taken from: The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, Second Viceroy of India ... edited by Walter de Gray Birch 2017 Vol I
(in 1507)
……. Having collected his ships, the chief captain (Tristao de Cunha in 1507) set sail, and kept along this coast with all the fleet, intending to touch at Magadaxo. And, as it had been agreed the other day that they should attack the city, Afonso Dalboquerque went forward and anchored in front of it. But when the chief pilot of the fleet, by name Afonso Lopez Buraquinha, perceived that it was the intention of the chief captain to attack Magadaxo, and that much time would be spent (since he was well acquainted with the navigation of these parts having gone thither already in company with Antonio de Saldanha) he went to him and told him that the monsoon of those parts was now nearly exhausted and if he went any farther on that coarse there would be no time left for him to double the shallows of St. Lazarus, which were distant fifty leagues (2), — but when they were doubled, the head- winds, which at that season blew off that shore, could not do him any injury, even if they were to come; for there was plenty of sea-room for tacking. ………….
(in 1507)
The end of April was now come, when Francisco de Tavora arrived at the Cape of Guardafum, where the great Afonso Dalboquerque (1453-1515) was stationed, and brought with him in his company Diogo de Melo and Martim Coelho whom he found at Melinde, having come from Portugal; and while all three were in the latitude of Magadaxo, they captured a ship of Cambaya, laden with clothing, and after having stripped her of all she carried, they set her on fire. Afonso Dalboquerque was highly delighted at the arrival of Diogo de Melo and Martin Coelho, and divided with them the spoils of the prize ship; ………
Taken from: Chronica d'el-rei D. Manuel by Góis, Damião de, 1502-1574; Pereira, Gabriel, d. 1911 (1909) Vol 4
…………………………(1507) From this place of Brava went Tristao da Cunha to the city of Magadaxo inhabited by Moors, which is one of the oldest and richest of all that coast, XVIII leagues of Brava, in which the great deal of merchandise from India, Persia, Gujarat Arabian Sea, and other parts, and to see if the residents wanted peace, he sent Lionel Coutinho to give them the message.
But they took him badly, because he threw a captive of Brava ashore, to tell them why he was coming, and they tore him to pieces before him, at the command of many covered horsemen, who were walking along the beach, and from the boat they heard Lionel Coutinho said that if he went out on land they would do the same to him, and he saw a lot of people by the walls and around them, with which Tristan da Cunha new that he would want to fight against this city, but the pilots asked him not to do it, because he was running out of time to go to Çocotora, so he gave up on doing it, and he ordered to set course to the island, where he arrived in the month of April, in the above-mentioned year of MDVII (1507AD ) ……………
Taken from: Friar João dos Santos (1622) Ethiopia Oriental (Vária historia de cousas notaveis do Oriente), Lisbon, His book is about 1580-1600.
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CHAPTER XVI
Of the maracatos (1) and eunuchs of this coast and the eastern parts.
We have already seen the main things on this coast of Ethiopia that run from the line (=equator) to the South. Now it remains to report the other coast that runs from the same line to the North until it dies in the strait of the Red Sea. This coast is the most barren and rough that you can see. There is located the small but very strong city of Brava, populated by Moorish friends of the Portuguese and vassals of the king of Portugal. And a very hot land because it is only one degree from the equinoctial line in the North. And it is certain that the name of Brava suits him very well because it has such a laborious and brave bar that it cannot be taken or entered except at great risk and danger. This city does not have a king like the others on this coast but is governed by councilors or governors elected by the same republic as
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Venice. From here onwards, this coast runs towards the Northeast with the same boldness, until the city of Magadaxo, located in three and a half degrees of the North. Which city is a great fort and well surrounded with a high wall; it has many ashlar (3) stone buildings; it is very sumptuous, and adorned with many towers that are the towers of its mosques; Its residents are superb and rich Moors and the biggest enemies that the Portuguese have on this coast. In the land between Brava and Madagaxo there lives a nation of Ethiopians who they call maracatos (1), gentiles, very black and jet-black but with straight hair and good facial features. They are polite and well understood, and very similar in customs to the abexins (Ethiopians), which I look after and are not very far away. These maracatos usually prepare (=circumcise) females, when they are young girls, because they cannot conceive when they are old, for which they are highly esteemed, and they usually do this to captive girls, to sell them for a higher price, and thus they are worth more than the others, because they are more chaste, and don’t have the opportunity to be bad women, and for this reason their masters rely more on them, handing over their pantries and the government of their homes to them. These maracatos also usually emasculate captive boys so that they are flat, to sell them for more money. This custom of emasculating boys, when they are of tender age, is almost general in many kingdoms and provinces of the East, populated by gentiles, and particularly in the kingdoms of Bengal, where they make eunuchs of captive boys to sell them for more money, and so on and,
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that these are more esteemed and worth more than the others who are not eunuchs and this not only among the Portuguese but also among the Gentiles and Moors themselves because they rely on them and entrust them with the service and guardianship of their women, particularly the kings and lords who in these parts use many. ……………
p445
CHAPTER XVII
In which you can see the entire coast and the desert of this Ethiopia up to the Red Sea.
Beyond the city of Magadaxo to the Northeast, the coast runs more than one hundred and fifty leagues (2) to the island of Socotra, the coast of which is almost entirely deserted and uninhabited and so barren that it does not have a green leaf or sources or streams of water other than large areas and fruitless land for which they respectfully call it the desert of Eastern Ethiopia. ………
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(A ship leaving from Goa in January 1595 had a shipwreck in this dessert).
There only escaped sixteen who immediately made their way along the beach and came to Magadaxo supported with a little water and biscuits that they saved from the nao (=ship), but they arrived all skinned from the sun and black as kaffirs and bodies that represented more the figure of death than that of living men ………
(1) an apparent distortion of 'Katwa' tribe.
Taken from: Bantu, Galla and Somali Migrations in the Horn of Africa: A Reassessment of the Juba/Tana Area by E. R. Turton 1975.
Father Lobo (who was in Somalia in 1624) mentions the Maracates who were undoubtedly Somali, for Lobo mentions that they were Muslim and that their women practised infibulation. He met a number at the mouth of the river Juba and was told that they also lived further up the river where they were being attacked and enslaved. A few years later they are mentioned by another missionary as living inland from Brava and Mogadishu. The Maracates are particularly interesting because they also had a close association with the Lamu archipelago. When in 1636 the Portuguese stormed Pate, they also attacked a village of Maracates close by, and then forced the rulers of Pate, Faza, Siu, Lamu and Manda to sign a treaty promising never to use Galla or Maracates as troops in their internecine wars. However, this treaty was not honoured for long, and a few years later the Maracates were again involved fighting on the side of Pate; but gradually Pate came to rely on Galla mercenaries, while the Maracates were increasingly associated with the rulers of Faza. Both in 1678 and 1696 there are references to quite large contingents of Maracates being sent by the ruler of Faza to assist the Portuguese. At the same time, the Maracates were also to be found further up the coast because in 1685 the Portuguese arranged to rendezvous at Shungwaya, presumably Port Durnford, to pick up contingents of Maracates to fight against Pate.
Moreover, these Portuguese references to the Maracates are mirrored in the traditions of the Swahili. The people of Siu are said to have obtained assistance from the Somali on the mainland opposite when they were fighting against Pate in the seventeenth century. And according to the Chronicle of Pate, as recorded by Stigand, the history of Faza in the seventeenth century is associated with two groups in particular: the Tikuu or Bajun and the Katwa, who today are sometimes called the al-Somali. In fact the term Maracates, as Kirkman suggests, is probably a corruption of ‘Wakatwa’, the general Swahili term for Somali.
(2) leagues: Portuguese Maritime League = 5,555.56 metres.
(3) ashlar: is a cut and dressed stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape.
End of the Middle-Ages View of the Mogadisians by Sir Thomas Roe 1615.
Nearly 300 years after Ibn Battuta Sir Thomas Roe in 1615 also meets people of Mogadishu who also far from home live and work using their skills.
Taken from: The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul; Vol-I by Foster William. (1615)
…… From Cape Augustine a N.W. by N. Course will go Clear both of the shoals of India and the shoals of Saint Lawrance in 20°. These shoals are rugged, as a pilot of Magadoxa tould me ……
……… Molalia is one of the 4 Islands of Comoros, Angazesia, Juanny, and Mayotta being the other three. ………
……… The next in goodness (after Mayotta) is Juanny,(= Anjouan or Nzwani) ………… having obtained permission to come ashore, we landed some 40 Men …… The Governor they found sitting upon a Mat of Straw, under the side of a Junck which was being build, accompanied by about 50 Men. ……… The interpreters were certain Magadoxians, that spoke Arabic and broken Portuguese. ………
……… Many of them speak and write Arabic, and some Portuguese, trading to Mozambique in junks of 40 tons made of Cocos, sowed instead of nails, Cawled, tackled, and wholly fitted, victualed, and freighted with that universal tree. ………
……… I dealt liberally with him (A slave-trader from Madagascar), in present and in promises. To the south of Magadoxo all the Ports are Governed by Moorish Petty Kings, even to Mozambique. He persuaded me that we might in many places trade for gold and silver; that in Magadoxo the houses roofs were guilt, and that they had gold in sand and mingled with earth, which they esteem not; off the inland he knew little, only naming some Places or regions between Magadoxo and Prester Jhon as Odola, Maheza, Rehamy, and Gala ……… From Magadoxo to Cambaya he was expert. ……… The Magadoxians had some absurd belief that the current sett 15 days one way, and 15 another, and 15 days still (in the waters of the Comoros) …… August 14 (1615) — In the Morninge we saw the Coast of Magadoxo ……
……… The Coast is rugged, as the Magadoxian Pilot did assure me. From Cape Alabana in to Cape Guardafuy ………