Artistry Permits and Custom May Ordain - Northwestern University

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but intensive agricultural production yielded considerable surpluses of consumable
commodities and provided the requisite wealth-base for a complex and urbanized society.
“There is no memory of any famine there,” reported Francisco Barreto in 1571, 54 and with
the exception of periods of extensive conflict 55 this observation holds true for the majority
of the Swahili world. The mainland coast was highly productive, and the Comoros,
northwestern Madagascar, Mafia, Zanzibar, and Pemba produced enough surplus to
export foodstuffs to distant points on the Swahili continuum. Kilwa even exported rice to
Aden in the fifteenth century. 56
Among agricultural commodities the coconut palm yielded the largest profits for
agriculturalists as its fruit, timber, and fronds could all be marketed. Attesting to the
variety of coconut palm products, a visitor to Nzwani noted that the residents sailed to
Mozambique in vessels “of 40 tons made of Cocor, sowed insteed with Pinns, Cawked,
tackled, and wholly fitted with that universal tree.” 57 Ownership of palm trees was
considered a sign of wealth. Dos Santos described the Lamu archipelago town of Faza as
“very rich and very prosperous, and with the best buildings, of all the cities of the coast,”
having over 8,000 palm trees on its plantations (mashamba). 58 Dos Santos recalled that
these were “the principal property and sustenance of these mouros; such that [after the
Portuguese leveled the palm groves] there remained nothing there but a flat plane, where
there once was the pride of the city of Ampaza.” 59
54 “Lembrança da Carta de Francisco Barreto, Capitão-mor da Empresa do Senhorio de Monomotapa, para el-Rei,
Moçambique, 1571 Agosto 5,” DPMAC. 8:206.
55 For example, in the early seventeenth century internal rivalries between Sultan Omari and Mwana Khadija in
Pate led to attacks on contenders’ coconut and fruit trees, destroying the local economy. “Stigand Version,” Pate
Chronicle. 77.
56 N. Chittick, “The East Coast, Madagascar, and the Indian Ocean,” 217.
57 William Foster, ed., The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul, 1615-1619, as narrated in
his Journal and correspondence. Vol.1. Liechtenstein, 1967. 21.
58 Dos Santos, Ethiopia Oriental. 1:385-6.
59 Ibid, 1:397.
Immense agricultural surpluses decreased the demand for labor in the service of food
production and allowed a majority of town-dwellers to become, for example, specialized
exchange agents, skilled artisans, and religious practitioners—all highly developed spheres
of activity by the 1500s. Thus Swahili society was underpinned by not only its agricultural
economy but also its long-distance trading partnerships, political concern with economic
arrangements, and specialization in the production of cloth, ships, monumental