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Portuguese Documents on Africa and Some Problems of Translation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

P.E.H. Hair
P.E.H. Hair*
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Extract

In 1983 a note in History in Africa described a survey of Portuguese archive documents on West Africa organized by Vice-Admiral Avelino Teixeira da Mota but left stranded by his untimely death in 1982. The task of continuing the project—by extending the survey, completing the transcription of the survey documents and other relevant material, and publishing the transcripts—has latterly been taken up by the present successor of Teixeira da Mota in the directorship of the same scholarly unit, Dr Maria Emilia Madeira Santos. The first two volumes of Portugaliae Monuments Africana appeared in 1993 and 1995, volume 3 has been at the press since 1997, and the material for at least two more volumes is in advanced preparation. As the title shows, the geographical range of the series is wider than that of the original survey. The documents appear in Portuguese (or occasionally Latin). But a brief summary of each document is supplied in French and English, as well as in Portuguese, making the contents to some extent accessible even to those African historians who do not read (late-medieval) Portuguese. Having translated into English some thousand or so of these document summaries, I now discuss some of my problems in translating, and hence certain problems for African historians in using this material.

PMA earns all those responsible the highest commendation for undertaking this difficult project; it is invaluable for that period of early African-European contacts it progressively covers; and it deserves the support of the scholarly community. The comments that follow are intended to make it better known and to explain some of its features, advantages and limitations.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 27 , January 2000 , pp. 91 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2000

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References

1 Hair, P.E.H., “The Teixeira da Mota Archive and the Guinea Texts Project,” HA 10(1983), 397–94.Google Scholar I concluded this note by undertaking to issue, albeit in an interim and “grey publication” form, my translations of the half-dozen Portuguese texts on early Guinea whose transcripts had been supplied me by Teixeira da Mora. I completed this task by 1990; for the titles sec the bibliography in Hair, P.E.H., Africa Encountered: European Contacts and Evidence, 1450-1700 (Aldershot, 1997).Google Scholar

2 Formerly the Centro (originally Agrupamento) de Estudos de Cartografia Antiga, it is now the Centro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga, having taken over the valuable research and publication organization started and directed by the late Father Leite de Faria. The intermediate director of the Centro, Professor Luís de Albuquerque, initiated the resumption of the project. Publication has been supported by the Comissão Nacional para as Comemoraçõcs dos Descrobimentos Portugueses.

3 One of the forthcoming volumes will contain a cumulated index, making the series more useful.

4 See Hair, P.E.H., “The Early Sources on Guinea,” HA 21 (1994), 111–12Google Scholarn2.

5 However, a few documents earlier appeared in English translation without the original Portuguese, and these are not noted. See especially Blake, J.W., Europeans in West Africa. 1450-1560 (2 vols.: London, 1942).Google Scholar

6 It is perhaps a pity that the editions do not discuss the critiques of selection and the relationship to previous collections.

7 But for material on the Cape Verdes, see also the concurrent series (covering up to 1519), de Albuquerque, Luis and Santos, M.E. Madeira, eds., História Geral de Cabo Verde: Corpo Documental (2 vols. to date: Lisbon, 1988–1990).Google Scholar Now that PMA has reached the period of Portuguese encounter with Southeast Africa, there will have to be a decision to prevent overlap with the scries Documentos sobre os Portugueses em Moçambique e na Africa Central, which covers much of the sixteenth century.

8 “Superintendant” might have served, but in British English, if not American English, the term nowadays has mainly a police flavor.

9 But not having seen proofs, I was not responsible for the dreadful error in the English summaries, when the printer followed Portuguese and French conventions, and began words such as Jew, English, French, Infante, etc, with lower-case letters.

10 E.g., Gonçalves, Nuno da Silva, Os Jauítas e a Missão de Cabo Verde (Lisbon, 1997), 53n105.Google Scholar

11 Very occasionally a Portuguese summary was revised after our translation, so that in print a slight discrepancy occurs, here corrected.