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Green-seeds.com:
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The Coconut Palm in East Africa
Excerpt reprinted with permission from the January 1994 issue of Principes
(Vol 38 No 1),
Journal of the International Palm Society
© 1994 The International Palm Society, all rights reserved
M. SCHUILING AND H. C. HARRIES
National
Coconut Development Programme, P.O. Box 6226, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Origin and Diversity
 The general consensus
has been that the Coconut originated in the southwest Pacific and reached
Africa later (Purseglove 1972, Child 1974, Ohler 1984). Purseglove speculated
that Malaysian sea-rovers introduced the coconut to Madagascar in the first
centuries A.D. and that from there it could have reached the coast of mainland
East Africa. Merrill (193-7) mentioned that the words for coconut used in
Madagascar also occur in the Far East and the Pacific. However, Sauer (1967)
thought that the early presence of coconuts on uninhabited islands like
the Seychelles and Mauritius strongly suggested natural dispersal. It follows
from this that coconuts could have floated to East Africa (Harries 1978).
Subsequently, Harries (1981) showed that the common tall varieties in East
Africa are late germinating, with wild type characteristics similar to the
coconuts on the Indian subcontinent, while the common tall varieties in
peninsular Malaysia are early germinating, domesticated types. Thus the
natural dissemination favored by Sauer and the human-aided introduction
suggested by Purseglove can be considered as consecutive events rather than
competing theories.
It has recently
been suggested that the coconut was domesticated in the region between southeast
Asia and Australasia (known as Malesia), but that the ancestral coconut
may have originated in western Gondwanaland at the time it split up into
the present continents (Harries 1990). This raises the possibility that
the wild type coconut may have existed on the fringes of the Pacific and
Indian oceans since the earliest time. In that case the coconut palm could
be considered indigenous over a very large area, including the coast and
islands of East Africa (Harries, in press). Indeed, the two closest botanical
relatives to the coconut are found respectively in southern Africa, Jubaeopsis
caffra (Uhl and Dransfield 1987) and Madagascar, Voanioala gerardii (Dransfield
1989). The presence of coconuts with wild-type characteristics does not
prevent the introduction of others with domestic-type characteristics nor
the subsequent introgression between the two, with the former characteristics
predominating. There is the possibility that when the Polynesians settled
in the Pacific, related peoples sailed to Madagascar. They would have been
carrying the domestic type of coconut from Southeast Asia and they may have
reached the African coastline.
The first written
reference to the coconut palm in East Africa is thought to be in the "Periplus
of the Erythraean Sea," written about A.D. 60. The Periplus mentioned
that the town of Rhapta, believed to have been located somewhere on the
coast of present day Tanzania, traded in coconuts (Schoff 1912). It is thought
that this town derives its name from the Greek or Arab verb " to sew"
(Ravenstein 1898, Schoff 1912), because the local boats were sewn together
with fibers. When the Portuguese first sailed to East Africa and India they
found Arab boats sewn with coconut fiber (coir) and carrying coconuts as
cargo. Although the reference to coconuts in the Periplus has been taken
as evidence of the introduction of the coconut to East Africa by Hindu merchant-seafarers
sometime in the 7th to 1st century B.C. (Schoff 1912, Hichens 1938, Hourani
1951), it can equally well be explained simply as the opening up of trade
between the two regions where coconuts already existed. It is certain that
the town Rhapta had an established place in the mercantile system of the
Indian Ocean. The Periplus strongly indicates a vigorous commerce between
India and East Africa. It is one author's conjecture (HCH) that coastal
towns like Rhapta developed where they did because coconuts were already
present. Two thousand years ago or more, the coconut palm not only served
to identify seashore locations with fresh ground water, but in those places
it literally acted as a natural desalination plant. The sweet, uncontaminated
drinking water from the immature nut was then, and is still now, an important
use of this plant to the local community. This applies to offshore islands
and to favorable parts of the African and Indian coast. It is not suggested
that the early coconuts were present in large numbers or spread over extensive
lengths of coastline and were certainly not found naturally anywhere in
the hinterland. 
While the earliest
history of the coconut in east Africa remains uncertain, there is no doubt
that its establishment was not a single event but a continuous affair extending
over many centuries. Although the Indian influence appears to have waned
somewhat after the times of the Periplus, trade relations between India
and East Africa continued to exist until well after the arrival of the Portuguese.
Several Arab geographers like Buzurg ibn Shahriyar, Al-Mas'udi, and Al-Biruni
attest to such connections in the early Middle Ages (Ingrams 1967, Kirkman
1968, Spencer Trimingham 1975). Marco Polo wrote of ships of the Malabar
coast which sailed to the islands Madeigascar and Zanghibar in the late
13th century (Wright 1892). Vasco da Gama met Hindu merchants at the larger
ports of East Africa (Ravenstein 1898). Duarte Barbosa observed in the early
16th century that ships from the kingdom of Cambay, the great seaport of
Gujarat, were often to be found in the harbors of Mombasa, Malindi and Mogadishu
(Stanley 1866).
Early
Arab History
The Arab and
Persian colonization of East Africa is of even greater importance. It was
a long and gradual process which began in remote antiquity and continued
more or less steadily for many centuries with at certain times more massive
waves of immigration due to political or religious persecution at home (Coupland
1938, Chittick 1975). There is little doubt that many of these traders and
settlers brought coconuts independently. In the Khabar al-Lamu, a chronicle
of Lamu, the introduction of the coconut palm on the Lamu archipelago (present
day Kenya) is attributed to Arab settlers, who came by way of India in the
7th century A.D. (Hichens 1938). They brought coconut seedlings and are
referred to in the chronicle as Kina Mti (kinsmen of the trees). In persistent
traditions on the coast of mainland Tanzania, Zanzibar and Mafia, the arrival
of the coconut is attributed to the Debuli, whose ships reputedly had sails
of palm matting (Piggot 1941; Gray 1954, 1962; Chittick 1965; Baumann 1896).
It is now believed that the Debuli arrived before the Shirazi and that their
name derives from the town of Debul, known to the Arabs who conquered it
in A.D. 711-712 as Daybul, a port situated near the mouth of the Indus.
It is now identified with the excavations at Bhambor, 40 miles east of Karachi
(Chittick 1965). Pemba tradition credits the introduction of the coconut
palm to the Wadiba, who according to Gray (1954, 1962) hailed from the Maldive
Islands, which were known to 14th century Arab geographers as the Diba Islands.
According to
the Arab traveller Ibn Battuta (Gibb 1962), great quantities of cowries
and coconut products were exported from these islands. Both the Maldives
and the Laccadives were the scene of remarkable shipbuilding activity. The
ships, including hulls, masts, ropes, stitches and even sails, were built
entirely of the various products of the coconut. The Arabs and Persians
from the Gulf used to import coconut products from these islands or go there
to have their ships built on the spot. There is evidence that the Maldives
were first settled by Singhalese Buddhists who planted coconuts and dug
wells (Hourani 1951, Sauer 1967).
The Shirazi,
who derive their name from the town of Shiraz on the Persian Gulf, settled
in East Africa from the 9th century A.D. onwards. Wild type coconuts may
have grown spontaneously around their earliest settlements, but there is
no doubt that they have imported coconuts as well. Though the area around
the Persian Gulf appears to be unsuitable for coconut cultivation, coconuts
did and do grow there. The traveller Nasir-i-Khus-raw observed them in Oman
in the 11th century A.D.; Ibn-Battuta found them in the 14th century at
Zafari, a port of the Hadramut, in the sultan's garden in the city of Zabid
on the Red Sea and in Oman (Gibb 1962). The Arabs and Persians around the
Gulf had further easy access to coconut products from India, the Laccadives
and the Maldives. The Shirazi have most certainly played an important part
in the distribution of the crop in East Africa. They first settled on the
Benadir coast (present day Somalia and Kenya), and from the 11th century
onwards they remigrated southwards and settled in many towns along the coast
as far south as Sofala in present day MoÁambique. Such migrations took place
as late as the 17th century, witness the settlement of Khatimi-Barawi at
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