UNESCO Ancient Civilizations of Africa (Editor G. Mokhtar)

Madagascar
note the existence of factors that might invalidate such a hypothesis, for the
direct journey covers a distance of nearly 4000 miles over a marine desert
without a single port of call. We should, therefore, rather envisage a
route that called in at southern India and Ceylon. Deschamps alludes to
references made to pirate incursions in these regions in the firsthalf of the
first millennium of our era.
The journey from southern India to Madagascar does not pose any great
problem. The route along the southern coasts of West Africa had been
known since the period of the Periplus, and the abundance of Chinese
coinage found later at Siraf testifies to the importance of trade between
the Far East and the Middle East by sea. From the Middle East travellers
went down the African coast as they had done in the days of Rhapta's
prosperity, and it is probable that the discovery of the Comoro Islands
was an intermediary step to that of Madagascar. From off Cape Delgado
one can make out the silhouette of Kartala on the Great Comoro in
clear weather, the contours of Moheli can be seen from the Great Comoro,
and so on all the way to Mayotte. It is easy to imagine that a boat heading
for one of the islands in the Comoro Archipelago might have missed its
destination and ended up in the Nosy-Be or Cape Saint Sebastian, as
often happened to Zanzibar dhows forced off route by bad weather in the
nineteenth century.
It is in fact very likely that the Comoro Islands were settled a long time ago.
The chronicles of local writers such as Said Ali note the presence there of
pagan populations during the Beja period that preceded the arrival of the
Muslims. Although we do not know whether they were Africans or
Indonesians, it is nevertheless an interesting clue. According to some
authors such as Repiquet and Robineau, 26 the population of the Heights
of Anjouan, the Wamatsa, include a certain proportion of the descendants of
the firstpre-Islamic inhabitants. This hypothesis has not yet been properly
examined. We may admit to the possibility that the Proto-Malagasy
immigrants were Indonesian in origin on toponymical evidence (for
example Antsahe can be compared to the Malagasy 'Antsaha') or on the
evidence of traditional technology. At Ouani a traditional type of pottery
survives that bears a marked resemblance in the shape and decoration of its
cooking-pots to the corresponding Malagasy utensils. 27 Hébert has shown
that in Anjuan there are also taboos on the eels of the mountain lakes that
are very similar to the taboos observed by some Malagasy with respect
to the same eel, which in Madagascar, as in Anjuan, bears a name that is
of Indonesian derivation. Barraux 28 points to a tradition, that may be
Malay-Polynesian in origin, found in Voueni. Of course, the culture of the
Comoro Islands, like that of the east African coast, possesses objects from
26. C. Robineau, pp. 17-34.
27. P. Vérin, 1968, pp. 111-18.
28. M . Barraux, pp. 93-9.
705