تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 13.83

English (machine translation) 13.83

Language: English

13.83.1

The people of these islands are people of righteousness, religion, sound faith and sincere intention; their food is lawful and their prayers are answered. When a person sees one of them, he says to him: 'God is my Lord, Muḥammad is my Prophet, and I am a poor unlettered man.' Their bodies are weak, they have no experience of fighting and warfare, and their weapon is prayer. Once, when I ordered the hand of a thief to be cut off there, a number of them who were in the assembly fainted. The robbers of Hind do not raid them or frighten them, because they have found by experience that whoever takes anything from them is struck by swift misfortune. When enemy vessels come to their region, they seize whomever they find of other people but do no harm to any of them. If one of the infidels takes so much as a lemon, the amīr of the infidels punishes him and beats him severely, fearing the consequences of it. Were it not for this, they would be the easiest of people for anyone who attacked them, because of their weak build.

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In every one of their islands there are fine mosques, and most of their buildings are of wood. They are a clean people who keep away from filth; most of them bathe twice a day for cleanliness because of the intense heat there and the abundance of sweat. They use a great deal of perfumed oils such as sandalwood oil, and they anoint themselves with ghāliya brought from Maqdashaw.

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It is their custom that when they have performed the dawn prayer, every woman comes to her husband or her son with the kohl-pot, rose-water and ghāliya oil; he applies kohl to his eyes and anoints himself with the rose-water and ghāliya oil, which polishes his skin and removes pallor from his face.

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Their clothing is waist-cloths: they tie one of these waist-cloths around their middles in place of trousers, and on

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their backs they put wulyān cloths, with kasra on the wāw, sukūn on the lām, and the last letter of the alphabet [yāʾ]; these resemble iḥrām garments. Some of them wear a turban, and some a small kerchief in its place. When one of them meets the qāḍī or the preacher, he takes his cloth off his shoulders, bares his back, and walks with him like that until he reaches his house. Among their customs is that when a man among them marries and goes to his wife's house, cotton cloths are spread for him from the door of her house to the door of the chamber, and handfuls of cowries are placed on them to the right and left of his path to the chamber. The woman stands at the door of the chamber waiting for him, and when he reaches her she throws a cloth over his feet, which his servants take. If it is the woman who comes to the man's house, his house is spread with cloths and cowries are placed in it, and on arriving the woman throws the cloth over his feet. Such too is their custom in greeting their sultan: a cloth must be thrown on that occasion, as we shall mention.

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Their buildings are of wood, and they raise the floors of their houses above the ground as a precaution against damp, because their ground is moist. The way this is done is that they cut stones, each stone two or three cubits long, and set them in rows, and across them they lay beams of coconut wood; then they put up the walls of wood, and they have a remarkable skill in this. In the portico of the house they build a room which they call the mālam, with a on the l, where a man sits with his companions. It has two doors, one towards the portico, by which people enter, and the other towards the house, by which its owner enters. Beside this room there is a jar full of water, and it has a dipper which they call the walanj, with a on the w and the l, n without a vowel, and j; it is made of a coconut shell and has a handle two cubits long, and with it they draw water from the wells, since these are shallow.

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All of them, high and low, go barefoot, and their lanes are swept and clean and shaded by trees,

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so that one walking in them seems to be in a garden. Even so, everyone who enters a house must wash his feet with the water in the jar in the mālam and wipe them on a coarse mat of fibre that is kept there, and then enter his house; everyone who enters the mosque does the same.

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Among their customs is that when a ship arrives, the kanādir, which are small boats, go out to it (the singular is kundura, with u on the k and the d), carrying people of the island who have with them betel and karanba,

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which is green coconut. A man among them gives this to whomever he wishes of the ship's people, and that person becomes his guest, and he carries his goods to his house as though he were one of his relatives. Any of the newcomers who wishes to marry among them may marry, and when the time of his departure comes he divorces the woman, because they do not leave their country. As for one who does not marry, the woman in whose house he lodges cooks for him, serves him and provides for him when he travels, and in return she is content with the smallest kindness from him.

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The profit of the treasury, which they call the bandar, is that it buys a share of every commodity on a ship at a fixed price, whether the commodity is worth that or more, and they call this the law of the bandar. In every island the bandar has a wooden building which they call the bajanṣār, with a on the b and the j, n without a vowel, a on the ṣ, and ending in r, in which the governor, who is the kardūrī, collects all its goods, and there he sells and buys. They buy pottery, when it is brought to them, with chickens, so that among them a pot sells for five or six chickens.

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Ships carry from these islands the fish we have mentioned, coconuts, waist-cloths, wulyān

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and turbans, which are of cotton. They also carry from them copper vessels, for these are plentiful among them, and they carry cowries, and they carry qanbar, with a on the q, n without a vowel, and a on the b, and r, which is coconut fibre. They tan it in pits on the shore, then beat it with mallets, then the women spin it, and from it are made ropes for sewing ships together. It is carried to China, Hind and Yemen, and it is better than hemp. With these ropes the ships of Hind and Yemen are sewn, because that sea is full of rocks, and if a ship is nailed with iron nails it strikes the rocks and breaks apart, whereas if it is sewn with ropes it gives with the moisture and does not break.

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The currency of the people of these islands is the cowrie, an animal which they gather in the sea and put in pits there, so that its flesh goes and its shell remains white. A hundred of them they call siyāh, with s and y; seven hundred they call fāl, with f; twelve thousand they call kuttī, with u on the k and doubled t; and a hundred thousand they call bustū, with u on the b and the t and s between them. Transactions are made with them at the rate of four bustū to a gold dinar, and sometimes they become cheap, so that ten bustū are sold for a dinar. They sell them to the people of Banjāla for rice, and they are also the currency of the people of the land of Banjāla. They sell them to the people of Yemen, who use them in place of sand as ballast in their ships. These cowries are also the currency of the Blacks in their own country; I saw them being exchanged at Mālī and Jūjū at the rate of one thousand one hundred and fifty to the gold dinar.

Linked texts (1)

تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار — Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Arabic