Artistry Permits and Custom May Ordain - Northwestern University

222 G. de San Bernadino, Itinerario, in SD, 157.
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those still extant. Moreover, they were unique in their capacity to announce the presence
and extend the will of a ruler over great distances. De Barros wrote in the sixteenth
century that when the Sultan of Malindi’s siwa sounded, “the mountains and valleys
repeated with their echo [the sultan’s] pleasure.” 222 Because of their associations with
nodes of power, the instruments of office, much like cloth, became materials of
extraordinary political power and often functioned as symbols of political contention.
Royalties invested great amounts of wealth in public display, typically in the form of
festivals or performances of ritual sacrifice. Upon exiting his palace, the Sultan of Malindi
was greeted by the “richest and most honorable people [who] had a sheep, and when the
king mounted the horse they slaughtered the said sheep, and the king rode over it on
horseback.” 223 One Portuguese visitor reported that “they did [this] for ceremony and
enchantment, and the custom is thus in Zambochob [the coast of East Africa, or
Zanzibar].” 224 Aromatics were used at ritual sacrifices, in a fashion similar to that of
incense-burning at royal tombs, to enhance the purity of office. An observer at Malindi
noted that “the king . . . came down to the shore and ordered the priests to sacrifice a
sheep, over which he passed accompanied by a great number of people carrying perfume
pans.” 225 And in 1500 the Sultan of Malindi ordered “many women . . . to meet [visitors]
with vases full of fire, in which were placed so many perfumes that the odours pervaded
the land.” 226 At Kilwa, “when the King came out from his court, they threw water and
small branches over his head, and they were very merry and clapped their hands, and sang
and danced.” 227 Further, the Sultan of Domoni in Nzwani sponsored “large and
hospitable” public festivals, “at which a whole town [would] at one time be treated.” 228
Royal power was publicly affirmed through ritual purification and by funding public
display. 229
223 The rarity of horses in East Africa made them symbolic of the unique capabilities of the state to consume.
Muhammad al-Rukn rode through Kilwa on horseback after his coronation. DPMAC 1:527. Horses were also used
in “sham fights” at Malindi in 1498. Da Gama, in SD, 54-5. On the trade in horses to Kilwa, Malindi, Barawa,
and Mombasa see T. Pires, Suma Oriental. Vol.1. London, 1944. 14.
224 Cabral in SD, 62. P. Caplan, in Choice and Constraint, discusses the slaughtering of sheep before the launching
of a ship in Mafia.
225 Da Gama’s Second Voyage, in SD, 73.
226 Cabral in SD, 62.
227 Calcoen: A Dutch Narrative of the Second Voyage of Vasco da Gama to Calicut (printed in Antwerp c. 1504). Ed. J.
Berjeau. London, 1874.
228 J. Ovington, A Voyage to Suratt. New Delhi, 1975. 54.
229 See the Pate Chronicle (multiple versions) for the use of festival sponsorship as a tool for power negotiation.
On aromatics and Swahili notions of ritual purity in general, see L. Donley-Reid, “Life in the Swahili town house