Bandar Siban (Manambolo river mouth?)
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Ibn Majid (1470) in his Hawiya is the only author to mention this place. He gives at 6 fingers of Nach Mankar at 18.3°S and Bandar Siban at 19.3°S.
Taken from: Madagascar, Comores et Mascareignes à travers la Hawiya d'Ibn Magid (866 H. /1462)
Par François VIRE et Jean-Claude HEBERT.
Bandar Siban, Port of stumbling blocks, on the west coast, is located by Khoury at the mouth of the Manambao River. Without commenting, Tibbetts rightly refutes the connection that Tomaschek makes between this toponym and the “Saboany” (Sahoany) of Portuguese maps, because this is a spelling error. Grosset-Grange supposes this place is further south, around Belo, in the delta of the Tsiribihina river. According to the meaning of the plural Siban ‘stumbling blocks’ (and not Sabqan as in Tibbetts), one cannot help but think of the formidable "baxos de pracels" of the first Portuguese maps, which later became, "banc de Pracel", a vast area of shoals including the Barren Islands. Luis Mariano already points out these shoals at the mouth of the Manambao (C.O.A.C.M, Il, 665). Ibn Majid puts bandar Siban at the same latitude as Mankar, which would mean that these “stumbling blocks” (if the word comes from Arabic) should be seen lower than the bench of Pracel; or the coast, from Morondava to Tulear and beyond is, in truth, only a series of reefs and shoals, in particular in the Cape Saint Vincent area. It is therefore futile to be too affirmative for a localization.
Seydi Ali Reis (d. 1562) in al-Muhit: Bandar I Suban (the port of bancs)
Note: I would put it tentatively somewhere at the mouth of the Manambolo river as that is at 19°S close to the 20°S of Sofale on the East African coast. Ibn Majid puts both places at 6 fingers. And at 19°S we have according to ‘Sailing Directions (enroute) for East Africa and the South Indian Ocean-1983’ the (south site) beginning of the Banc de Pracel.
Taken from: The History of Civilisation in North Madagascar - Pierre Vérin · 1986 ·
In 1613, Father Luis Mariano visited the part of the Menabe where the Manambolo flows into the sea. In 1616, he went back to the same district and stayed there for a year preaching the Christian religion. He wrote that the town, which was situated on the Manambolo and one league from the sea, ' had between nine and ten thousand inhabitants. He also said that the banks of the Morondava, the Mangoky and the Kitombo were also heavily populated. We are therefore led inevitably to believe that -- as we have already pointed out above - it was above all the slave trade, which flourished for centuries, that contributed to a very great extent to the depopulation of this unfortunate country.
Note: this only teaches us that there were enough people to have the use of a harbor.
Taken from: Le royaume Sakalava du Menabe Jacques Lombard
Luis Mariano describes to us the cult that was paid to the ancestors in the city of Sahadia (Menabe) in 1616:
They have many deities, among whom they put their dead, especially the chiefs and the nobles and those who die old. They address prayers to them and often offer them sacrifices, immolant in their honor, especially at the time of their funeral, oxen, goats and other animals; they also place food or ex-votos on their graves.
It is in the kingdom of Sadia (or Sahadia or Menabe), governed by the powerful Tungimaro who resides in Ankoala that we find the most crops.
Note: it is in this town of Sahadia or Menabe that under King Adriamandazoala (reigned c1540 - 1560) the Menabe kingdom was founded. The place might have been important enough already in 1470 when Ibn Majid wrote his Hawiya.
The town of Sahadia or Menabe must have been one league (about 5 km) inland. As the branches in the delta have changed over the centuries it is not clear where.
On the old map right the baxos de pracels stretches till south of the 20°S lines. (Willem Janszoon Blaeu 1635)