The Arab Chests of the Peoples of the Monsoon

The image shows the chest in the entrance hall of the hotel: Africa House in Stonetown, Zanzibar This was the old 'English Club'.

They are known as ‘Arab’ Chests but that is only part of the story. There is no collective name for the communities of the Indian Ocean that created these amazing chests: chests to store peoples’ most precious possessions. I like to think of them as peoples of the monsoon - a community of coastal civilisations that relied on the powerful winds of the Indian Ocean. From China, through Asia, western India, to the Arabian Gulf and down to the East African coast the winds allowed trade to take place and these chests are their testament.

Our family owns an Arab chest. It was purchased over 60 years ago in Zanzibar. Nowadays Arab chests are collectors items, found in the museums of the African coast and old houses of the Arabian Peninsula, particularly of Oman. The diverse origins of the solid wooden, brass-studded and plated chests that are called ‘Arab’ chests are deep in history. Research by a collector, Sheila Unwin, has revealed some of these cultural roots. The chests were trade items that came from the West Indian coast, from Surat down past Bombay. Local craftsmen made the chests from teak, rosewood and shisham. They were exported to Arabia and some were transported onwards down the coast to Africa. The chests were often the prized possessions of the dhow captains, the nakhodas.

The Portuguese had brought their own sea chests with them when they sailed into the Indian Ocean in the 16Century. These invaders devastated the region, wiping out cities, overpowering local rulers and building their sea-facing forts from Kilwa in Africa, Muscat in Oman to Goa in India. Their chests were on fretted stands and local craftsmen admired and adopted this design into their chest making. There is a golden16^th Century Chinese screen painting depicting Portuguese traders arriving in China. The high backed caravel is filled with people offloading boxes of trading goods. Two sumptuously dressed Chinese officials are seated on the shore observing the activity. Clearly drawn at their feet is an ‘Arab’ chest.

The Dutch were the next conquerors and brought their camphorwood sea chests to India. From them the ‘Arab’ chest inherited the brass knobs and backplates. The Chinese gave the chest makers the idea of the ingenious three-ring-padlocks and the internal cash boxes or till boxes were probably copied English chests.

When the simple chests reached Oman brass decoration could be added according to the wishes of the owner. In the simple Arab houses of the Gulf, there was no furniture. Persian carpets decorated the floors and embossed niches held items of decorative value. Valuable possessions were kept in the prized chests and a bride would leave home with her valuables, her dowry, in a new chest – often painted red to symbolise fertility.

In the 19 century Zanzibar grew rich on the monsoonal trade. The winds also brought invaders to her shores. It was a safe port with rich fishing grounds, fertile soils and it facilitated the trade from the east and from the rich African interior. Zanzibar had many chests for sale in the old days. They arrived with the NE Monsoon that blows from October to March. It was where our family bought the chest that graced our home.

It came from a tiny Stonetown shop or dukka along Portuguese Alley, now called Gizenga Street. Recently I opened the chest’s lid to see if it had a secret drawer under the small till box. It did. Inside was a piece of paper, yellowed and insect eaten. The writing was in Arabic, beautifully scripted. A friend did the translation and explained that it was a prayer, a dua, a promise to Allah. I returned it in the drawer where the previous owner had put it for safekeeping. With the chest, it had travelled a long way.

The Arab Doors of Stone Town

The doors of Stone Town, Zanzibar, add much to the character of the town and with the buildings make up the architecture that earned it a World Heritage listing. The coralline thick walled houses of the ancient city are simple and imposing but their most distinctive feature is their doors. The door was the visual statement of the occupant’s status in society. The home was a protected place, its privacy of vital importance in a Muslim society.

No two doors are the same. Look carefully and take in the various elements. The outermost frame usually shows a slim chain. The chain was meant to capture evil spirits that tried to enter the home. There is an inner frame, a lintel, frieze, centre post and shutters. The range of styles, of carving, makes each one a delight. There is much symbolism in the images. See if you can find the sea waves, fish or pineapple emblems that are at the bottom of the frame. The rows of dates in the centre post hark back to wishes for plenty. There are Indian influences, the winding lotus; the tree of life motif. Some doors have a central Koranic inscriptions in the lintel, one of which says, ‘Enter peacefully, believers’.

One of the pleasures of Stone Town is to wander the narrow streets and back alleys. You can find imposing doors in the old palaces but many gems are to be found in the hidden corners of the city. I bought a copy of the book, ‘Doors of Zanzibar’ by Rau and Mwalim and with the help of the enclosed map located some of the doors Rau photographed from Malindi to Shangani. Unfortunately, many doors have deteriorated in the eighteen years since these images were taken.

Around 500 doors remain. There are over 1700 houses in Stone Town, approximately 1300 are deemed to be of architectural significance. Over 100 have already collapsed. In my meanderings through the twisting streets I would suddenly find a sun filled space piled with stones where paw-paw trees climbed into the light. ‘We are losing what we had’. Charles Hiza of the Aga Khan’s Cultural program told me. The Aga Khan Cultural Services have a Historical Cities Support Program which has restored various significant sites and houses. It is race against time.

A house owner remarked that only 13% of the houses are in a good state of repair. Round many doors, blocks of the coralline stone are collapsing. Another local told me that it is better to let a house collapse as then you can build a cement block house without restriction on the site. He was frustrated with the law that requires permission from the Stone Town Conservation and Development Authority for any building work to be done. I was told that 300 buildings have been sold to the private sector on condition that they are repaired. Some houses are being preserved as boutique hotels.

The doors are showing their age, the effects of weather and neglect. Created during the heyday of construction in Stone Town most doors are around 150 years old. Although many are built of teak and built to last they do need care in the monsoonal climate. Dampness leads to rotting of the wood and termites can take hold. Some doors have lost their architraves, many doors have lost the brass studs and dark scars show their absence. Removed studs can be found for sale in the curio shops for a few dollars each.

Stone Town is a living, vibrant city. The doors are not museum pieces but used and enjoyed by residents and admired by tourists. However the new wave of tourism has resulted in the loss of many doors from the island. I have seen whole doors complete with heavy lintels and frames stacked for sale outside a Johannesburg curio shop.

There are many reports and plans for the conservation of Stone Town but from outward appearances it seems to be a losing battle. Each door removed, each house that collapses is a loss of its precious history, a loss for our future generations.

The connection between Malawi & Zanzibar....

I think the Malawi connection is Zanzibar is the disputed "zanzibariness" of Sheikh Abeid Aman Karume, the first President of Zanzibar (1964-1972) and father of Dr. Aman Abeid Aman Karume (the 6th President of Zanzibar, 2000-2010).

The Sheikh (also called 'Fadha' Karume by some) is believed by many to have been born in Malawi of Malaian Muslim parents who immigrated to Znz. He grew up in Znz but had many relatives in Malawi. He did not have an original Birth Certificate in Znz but acquired an Affidavite in the late 1950s with the help of Himid Mbaye, a Notary Public of Comorian origin (who I think was a French subject).The Karume family also had close ties with Dr. Kamuzu Banda's family and also the Sepetu family.

The family name Karume is from the old Nyasaland from among the speakers of Chichewa (in Malawi, also called Chinyanja in Zambia). In Swahili, this language Chichewa/Chinyanja was called 'Kinyasa' and its speakers were referred to as 'Wanyasa'. Sheikh Karume was also referred to as 'Mnyasa' by some people in Znz befor the Revolution. The Muslim Malawians are mostly of Yao origin, and often bilingual in Kiyao and Kiswahili. (The Muslims in Malawi form about 20% of the population but are not proportionally represented in government etc.)

The terms 'nyasa', nyanja and 'nyanza' all mean 'lake' or 'sea' in many Bantu languages of eastern and central Africa. The personal name 'Karume' is an amplified form of the root 'rume/lume' (male, masculine person, man) meaning 'strong man', 'he-man', 'brave man', heavily-built man', 'hero' etc. (Compare with Swahili mume = husband, mwanamume = male/man, dume/ndume = masculine, uume = penis, etc). In some contexts in some languages the prefix ka- can have derogative connotations, such as in Swahili 'Kaburu' (Boer, Afrikanner, South African White racist; ukaburu = Apartheid racism, etc) from Zulu (ka + buru = the hated/ugly/cruel/savage/dirty Boer).

After a few years of primary school in Znz, Aman Karume and his younger brother Ali infact went to school in Malawi staying with Dr. K. Banda. (My friend Christopher 'Stoff' Banda of Uppsala now back in Malawi was their schoolmate and gave me all this info.) They then came back to Znz with Issak Sepetu and joined Saint Joseph's Convent in Kijiweni (Stone Stown). Issak Sepetu lived with the Karumes and both Aman and Issak finished Form 4 end of 1963, as I did, and we used to meet sometimes after football in the late afternoon at the 'Jobless Corner' at Wailesi.

Issak Sepetu was 'adopted' by the Karume, got a scholarship to study in GDR, and later became Tanzanian Ambassador etc while his parents remained in Malawi all their life. He attended their funerals in Malawi. I'm told Issak Sepetu, who was born in Malawi and came to Znz as a Malawi citizen, was never naturalised as a Zanzibar citizen, and therefore he cannot be a Tz citizen, but he was a Tz Ambassador anyway! Several others like him, 'Field Marshal' John Okello being the best example of those "revolutionaries" and other leaders or politicialns in Znz who were not Zanzibaris, rose to high ruling postions in Zanzibar after the Rev. (Okello did not even speak proper Swahili! This should be compared with the overthrown Sultan Jamshid who was a 5th generation born Zanzibari, or I who am a 7th generation born Zanzibari.) Issak Sepetu tried also to be nominated for the presidential election in Znz, but the Znz leadership opposed him on grounds of not being a 'Mzanzibari halisi' (genuine Zanzibari).

To date, little is known or written & published about this Znz-Malawi connection. More is known about Susi and Chuma, the great East African travellers and linguists who accompanied Dr. David Livingstone (the inventor and advocate of the sinister ideology of Coloniazation, Christianity and Commerce) from the Indian Ocean across Africa to the Atlantic and brought his remains back to Znz. They guided and protected him, fed him and took good care of him etc. Susi and Chuma were not Swahilis nor Zanzibaris - they were born Malawians! ......
Maalim Abdulaziz Lodhi.

by Abdulaziz Y. Lodhi (PhD), Professor.
Swahili (with Bantu Linguistics & East African Area Studies).
Dept. of Linguistics & Philology.
Uppsala University, Box 635,

Zanzibar: “The Magic Island & its Ghosts “ by ANON

I was awakened very suddenly in the early hours of the morning. I sat up in bed and saw a tall figure standing nearby, looking eastward, dressed in a light brown burnoose with its hood up, concealing the face. I tried to call out but my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth and my limbs were paralysed with fear. The apparition slowly disappeared: but looking down the room, there it was again, standing in the same way looking to the east. Again it gave way to-nothing and vanished and only then was I able to move."

This experience was described to friends by Dr Spurrier, a respected British medical doctor who was staying at Dunga Palace in December 1895. Dunga has a strong reputation for being haunted. One apparition which has frequently been seen is that of an Arab lady walking through the long rooms at dead of night, followed by a black dog. Also, the sounds of rattling chains and of heavy objects being moved about are said to have been heard.

The Lord of Dunga, Mohammed bin Ahmed el Alawi, was descended from a line of rulers who may have begun with Hasan bin Abubakar, a Persian of the 13th century who is mentioned in the Kilwa Chronicles. His descendant, Queen Fatuma, married an Arab from the Hadramaut, called Alawi.
She had a palace on the site of the present day House of Wonders, next to the Old Fort, in the Stone Town. Her son Hasan became King around 1828 and when the Omani Sultan Said took control of Zanzibar, Hasan had to move to Bweni, near Dunga, where he was allowed to rule on condition that he gave half of the taxes he collected to Seyyid Said.

Mohammed inherited from his brother Hasan in 1845 and was made of stern stuff. He used the local people's unpaid labour to build the palace, which took about 10 years. He lived there until he died in 1865. His 15 year old son Ahmed was recognised as a ruler in his place and moved to live in the Stone Town of Zanzibar, where he shortly died of smallpox, in rather suspicious circumstances.

A friend of mine, Yoland Brown, was born and brought up in Zanzibar. She lived in the Mambo Msiige building, just to the south of the Serena Inn, when she was a child. Her father, William Frederick Waddington, was the Port Officer in Zanzibar from 1946 to 1958. The Mambo Msiige building was built around 1847 by a prominent Arab and its name means, "Don't copy me, friend"! In 1864 it was rented and later sold by Sultan Majid to the UMCA, the Universities' Mission to Central Africa. They sold it in turn to the British Foreign Office in 1874 when it became the residence of the British representative to Zanzibar, the first of whom was John Kirk. From 1918 to 1924, the building accommodated the European Hospital, which was set up to take care of casualties of the First World War.

After this, the house was occupied by Government Offices. Yoland's mother, Dorothy Betty Waddington, was Tourist Information Officer in Zanzibar because of her knowledge of Swahili and her tremendous interest and consequent knowledge of the people and customs. She never found any bones in the garden! However, she did see a ghost, twice, of an Arab gentleman who appeared at the side of the bed. The first time he looked quite benign and she woke her husband who said, "go back to sleep -he has been here before"!

The second time the man appeared at the bottom of the bed and had a very malevolent look - Betty did not wake her husband again, in case she got another flea in her ear. By coincidence, she happened to be visiting the palace a few days later and told the Sultana about her experience. The Royal Personage was not the least bit surprised and said there was a little girl who walked down a particular passage in the palace and everyone had seen her. The Sultana said Yoland's mother should speak to the ghost and not be frightened, but he never appeared again.

At Mbweni Ruins, just five miles south of the Stone Town, the ghost of Caroline Thackeray, a spinster lady who lived in Zanzibar for 49 years, is said to walk near the ruins of the school for freed slaves where she was headmistress. She retired to Sir John Kirk's house in the neighbourhood, and died there in 1926 at the age of 83. She is buried at St John's Church nearby. There is now a hotel in the grounds of the ruins and none of the staff will go near the ruins at night.

One night, my children and I were staying at Mbweni, before the hotel was opened. We saw a light shining in one of the windows of the Industrial Wing of the ruins. After a certain amount of daring and cajoling, we took a torch and made our way inside the tall walls and up the collapsing stairs, only to find that our "ghost" was just the full moon, shining with amazing brightness, right through two windows opposite each other.

Recently, an askari reported seeing the figure of a tall Arab man, standing under a large mango tree below this wing above the beach, gazing out to sea; he slowly dissolved into nothing. A few days later, the askari, an old man, died of a heart attack. The Arab man has also been seen by others. There was an Arab mansion on the site of the school when the Universities' Mission to Central Africa purchased Mbweni Point shamba, to build a village for freed slaves, in 1871. This mansion was incorporated into the school but became dilapidated with the rest. The ruins are being restored with a view to returning them to their former state. Hopefully then the ghosts may disappear!

In 1885, Seyyida Salme, a daughter of the founder of the Albusaid Sultans, Seyyid Said, who had eloped and married a German trader, Heinrich Ruete in 1866, returned to her homeland to try to force a reconciliation with her family. Her efforts were hopeless but while in Zanzibar she visited her birthplace, Mtoni Palace. She was deeply shocked by the ruin and decay into which the lovely old buildings had fallen.

As her children ran about, laughing and chattering with the accompanying German officers, Salme went into a kind of trance from which she could see the figures of the former inhabitants coming forward from every slanting door and collapsing heap of beams. For a while she was transported from the depressing present and her mind lived the beautiful years of her youth.

This kind of experience happens to all of us quite often in Zanzibar, where the past seems to melt into the present and the dead seem to move freely amongst the living, sometimes leaving a cool breath of air and a scent of spices as they pass.
Zanzibar is truly named "The Magic Islands".

The Dhows of the Monsoon

At Christmas time, in the harbour of Zanzibar in the early 1960s a great fleet of huge dhows would ride at anchor. They were the biggest wooden boats that I had ever seen. We would sail past them with our little fourteen foot dingy taking in their strangeness and gazing at their vast solidness in awe. These were real vessels of the sea. Festooned with ropes made of sisal, their masts slanted at an angle, they spoke of journeys by men who knew the sea like no others. Sometimes I would see lithe sailors shimming up the masts with their bare feet. We always complained about the smell of the dhow fleet. Later I learnt that they used fish oil to season the wood. Aging fish oil is not recommended for its smell.

Off the stern of the boat hung a large box, big enough for a person to sit in. It had a hole in the bottom. It was the toilet, called the thunder-box. Strange inscriptions and twirling designs were carved as decorations along the hull and over the stern hung the red flag of the Sultans of Zanzibar. On their prow would hang an oculus or talisman. The oculus is the ‘eye’ of the boat and was often in the form of a large painted eye, rather like a Cyclops eye from Greece. No human or animal replications were portrayed - as the Koran dictates.

I knew that this dhow fleet plied an ancient triangular route, from India to the Arabian Gulf and then on to the East African coast. India was the connection to those trading countries even further east. From ancient times the monsoon winds had made this route feasible and as boats become more sophisticated its importance grew. The monsoon winds were not reliable a little further south than Zanzibar and our harbour, tucked into the western coast of the island, was very protected when the northern monsoon was blowing.

The Arab dhow captains were superb seamen. In 1939, Australian adventurer, Alan Vickers, travelled on a dhow from Aden to Zanzibar and back. In his book, ‘Sons of Sinbad’ he recounts how he found a nakhoda or captain of a boum dhow and arranged his passage south with the north-east monsoon on a boat called The Triumph of Righteousness. Alan believed he was living through the last days of sail. He tells of the journey and it is a window into the past. With western eyes he found the filth the accumulated on the overcrowded main deck rather horrible but recognised that these sailors were tough men, ‘the constantly cramped quarters, the crowds, the wretched food, the exposure to the elements, the daylong burning sun, the nightlong heavy dews, if they continued to be disadvantages, were far offset by the interest of being there….’

You were always aware of the monsoon in Zanzibar. There was no summer and winter on the islands. It was one monsoon or the other or the time in-between when the rains came. The northern monsoon blows from late November to February and the long rains, or masika, come in March as the winds become variable. If you were a girl child born during the rains, you could be called Masika – born in the time of the rains.

April is the start of the south-west monsoon. This wind is more violent during the months of June and July so the boats leave with the first winds or stay to the last weeks of the monsoon. It was hard to get insurance for your boat if you left during June and July when many seasoned dhow captains would stay put in a safe harbour. By late September the winds become variable again and Zanzibar experiences the short rains or vuli. Monsoon is a word that English has copied from Arabic.

They were not called the ‘trade winds’ for nothing. Zanzibar was a trading nation, perfectly positioned and blessed with the richness of its spices and the produce of the African hinterland. In the 1800s when Zanzibar was the centre of a maritime commercial empire, the cargo used to be gold, gum copal, ivory and slaves. In my days it was spices, predominantly cloves, mangrove poles, Persian carpets, dates and dried fish that plied its way to and from Arabia. In the narrow streets of Zanzibar’s Stonetown could be found a cornucopia of riches. Small open fronted shops or dukas were filled with wares from east and west. The shopkeeper sat cross legged at the shop front on the elevated concrete ledge talking to his neighbours. On the main street were the gold and silver merchants with worked semi-precious stones from Ceylon and India.

My father wanted to buy some Persian carpets directly from a dhow captain so he put out the word and a little while after the dhow fleet arrived from the Gulf my mother and he went on board to look at the cargo of Persian carpets. Carpets were not discussed until much strong sweet coffee or kahawa was imbibed and general pleasantries had been exhausted. ‘The red dust of the desert was still in the carpets’, my father said, ‘each one that they brought up from the hold seemed more beautiful than the one before. It was impossible to choose!’

The dhow fleet were part and parcel of what Zanzibar was in its hey day, when the Omani Sultans ruled and controlled the east African shores. When Sultan Said bin Sultan of Oman and Muscat had moved his capital to Zanzibar in 1840, he travelled with his fleet of dhows to take possession. His family would rule Zanzibar till 1963 and the revolution that ousted the newly independent Zanzibar. Sultan Jamshid escaped by sea in a steamship while many other Arab Zanzibaris did not. The story goes that some other Arab people were forced to embark on overloaded and under provisioned dhows and sent to sea. The revolutionaries wanted them to go back to Arabia. Some of those dhows did not survive the trip.

Recently someone told me of a story he had heard while travelling down the East African coast 50 years ago. The first mate of a large cargo boat woke the captain early one morning and asked him to get to the bridge urgently. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘look at our bow!’ There over the bow was draped a huge sail. Both realised what it was: the tremendous triangular sail of a dhow. ‘Get if off,’ the captain replied,’ throw it away’. The cargo boat had ploughed down a dhow in the night. They did not turn around to see if they could find any survivors clinging to bits of wooden hull. It was just one more hazard of the open sea.

Some dhows have been converted to motor and still trade along East Africa. Still trading and still involved in smuggling. But the ancient stories of the dhow captains’ bravery are mostly lost to us. The great dhow fleet under sail travels no more. The beauty of the lateen sails on the horizon is now a mirage from history.