The Pate Chronicle: edited and translated from MSS 177, 321, 344, and 358 of the Library of the University of Dar es Salaam

HISTORY OF THE WITU ISLANDS

mSTORY OF THE WITU ISLANDS The following text is abstracted from the section entitled "Geschichte der Witu-Inseln" of Alfred Voeltzkow's Reise in Ostafrika 1903-1905.1 The full section (pp. 48-91) is a compilation of oral tradition, previous records (including the texts published by Stigand and Gullain, cited earlier in this volume), reports by explorers and colonial servants, and Voeltzkow's own observations from his 1903-4 stay in the northern part of the East African coast. Data referring to Mombasa and Zanzibar are also to be found in the chapter "Geschichte von Zanzibar und Pemba" (pp. 305-328). In the years elapsed between Voeltzkow's expedition and the completed publication of his book, Germany lost its African possessions, but the very name the explorer uses for the archipelago, "Witu islands," is a reminder of a turbulent and politically charged period when the Pate monarchy was fast becoming an inland principality before being extinguished. Although the bulk of Voeltzkow's study is a survey of geography and economy of the coast, he treated local history as part of his charge and offered a serviceable summary of major political developments, especially valuable for its late nineteenth century information. Dynastic and external affairs 100m large in this narrative. In discussing Portuguese activities in the archipelago, 1 Alfred Voeltzkow. Reise in Ostafrika, in den Jahren 1903-1905. Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse. vol. 2 (Stuttgart, 1923). 252 VOEL1ZKOW'S VERSION Voeltzkow largely relies on Strandes;2 for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries he offers more original observations on Pate's relations with the mainland, the Mazru'i of Mombasa and the Zanzibar Sultanate. On the European side, the German interests in the area and the Kiintzell affair (1890) receive considerable attention. The narrative is obviously synthetic but its parts cannot be easily separated in Voeltzkow's paraphrase. The passages below were somewhat arbitrarily selected from pp. 65-74 on the basis of their content and likely origin of information; in most instances they were also relatively easily identified through their use ofIslamic dates. Voeltzkow indicates both starting and ending dates of reigns, but their origin is unclear. Voeltzkow was familiar with the Stigand version, but not that published by Werner. The period covered in the following selections runs from 601 A.H. to 1240 A.H. (12041824 A.D.). Although it may appear, both from the contents and a commenl by Voeltzkow (Reise, p. 64), that the narrative is abstracted from Stigand, the dates of some reigns, and, on occasion, generational and family connection! of rulers differ in Voeltzkow. Voeltzkow never indicated the nature of hi! source; he speaks of "this chronicle" without informing the reader whether il addition to Stigand and the chronology in the Deutsche Kolonialzeitung (1890 he consulted a manuscript or had oral informants, as may appear from hi considerable familiarity with 19th-century events. Voeltzkow's data were late used by Heepe, who frequently refers to them in the footnotes and also in hi chronological table (Appendix 7). 2 Justus Strandes. Die Ponugiesenzeit von Deutsch- und Englisch-Ostafrika (Berlil 1899). The Ponuguese Period in East Africa (Nairobi: Kenya History Society, 1961). INTRODUCTION 253 The present translation into English was made by Dagmar Weiler from the German. Tom Stewart provided the translation of p. 73. The numbers in parentheses, highlighted in bold font, refer to the sequence of rulers and coordinate with the genealogical table, originally placed facing p. 65 and reproduced in the present volume in Appendix 4. A chronology crossreferenced with these numbers and provided with Christian dates for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was included by Voeltzkow on p. 91. It is reproduced below in Appendix 5. The present author provided Christian equivalents to Islamic dates in the narrative and notes placed in brackets, and modernized the spelling. The footnotes are Voeltzkow's. Those of Voeltzkow's comments, interspersed with the text, which throw important light on the content were not excised but are reproduced in a smaller font. Page numbers of the 1923 edition are indicated in parentheses. ...