¹ This is generally, but it seems erroneously, called Pate Island, and is so marked on maps. By the inhabitants, however, it is named Paza Island, the town of Faza (the present administrative centre) being properly Rasini. (Source: Mrs Janet Bujra, confirmed in the case of Rasini by my own observations, and those of Mr Godfrey Nyerwanire.) The confusion appears to go back to Portuguese times.

² Werner, A., ‘A Swahili history of Pate’, J. Afr. Soc. xiv (1913–1914), 149.Google Scholar

³ Anonymous, ‘Die Rechte der Nabahaniten’, Deutsche Kolonialzeitung (1890), no. 2, 22–3.

⁴ Prins, A. H. J. (‘On Swahili historiography’, Journal of the East African Swahili Committee, no. 28/2 (1958), 26–40Google Scholar) examines the various versions known at the time. The main versions are that of Werner (already cited); Stigand, C. H., The Land of Zinj (London, 1913, reprinted 1966)Google Scholar, chapters II, in, iv; Heepe, M., ‘Suaheli Chronik von Pate’, printed in Mitteilungen des Seminars für Orientalische Sprachen zu Berlin , Erste Abteilung, Ostasiatische Studien, 31, iii (Berlin, 1928).Google Scholar In addition, manuscript versions of the Chronicle exist in the collection of the Institute of Swahili Studies, University College of Dar es Salaam, of which one, known as MS 177, has been edited and translated by G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville in a paper which has been privately circulated.

⁵ These town sites are described at greater length in the article in Azania , vol. 11 (1967), already referred to.

⁶ The delightful myth about her conquest of Pate is still told, though in the version recounted to me the sultan of Pate had his afternoon sleep disturbed (to his fury) not by the hammer-blows of boat builders at Manda, but by women pounding grain.

⁷ Hollis, A. C., ‘Notes on the history of Vumba, East Africa’, J. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. xxx (1900), 275–97.Google Scholar

⁸ Ingrams, W. H., Zanzibar, its History and its People (London, 1931), 744.Google Scholar

⁹ An average for a number of Islamic dynasties ('Abbasids, 'Umayyads of Cordova, Fatimids, Ortukids, Othmanlis), the reigns of whose rulers are certain, gives the figure of 16 years, 5 months per reign. For what it is worth, this figure applied to the Pate Chronicle would give the date of around 1400 for the foundation of the Nabhani dynasty.

¹⁰ Gervase Mathew (‘Songo Mnara’, Tanganyika Notes and Records , no. 53 (1959), 155–60) adduces the fact that one of the mosques at Songo Mnara, near Kilwa, is named after the Nabahani, as evidence of the historicity of the Pate hegemony, and even suggests that Songo Mnara may have been the southern centre of administration of the Nabahani sultans. The mosque is in fact probably of the sixteenth century (Garlake, P. S., The Early Islamic Architecture of the East African Coast (Nairobi, 1966), 69).Google Scholar

¹¹ Boxer, C. R. and de Azevedo, Carlos, Fort Jesus and the Portuguese in Mombasa (London, 1960), 44.Google Scholar

¹² Freeman-Grenville, G. S. P., The East African Coast: Select Documents from the First to the Earlier Nineteenth Century , (Oxford, 1962), 155–64.Google Scholar

¹³ Guillain, C., Documents sur I'histoire, la giographie et le commerce de I'Afrique orientate (Paris, 1856–1857), partie 1, 547.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Axelson, Eric, The Portuguese in South-East Africa 1600–1700 (Johannesburg, 1960), 94Google Scholar, note.

¹⁵ C. R. Boxer and Carlos de Azevedo, Fort Jesus and the Portuguese , 52.

¹⁶ Strandes, Justus, The Portuguese Period in East Africa, trans. Wallwork, Jean F., ed. J. S. Kirkman (Nairobi, 1961), 278–9.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Biker, J. J. F., Collecão de Tratados e concertos de pazes que o Estado da India Portuguesa fez com os rets Senhores…de Asia e Africa Oriental , (Lisbon, 1881–1887), vi. 55–60.Google Scholar

¹⁸ This Bwana Tamu Mkuu is a nickname, and Werner (p. 287) is probably wrong in suggesting a ‘bin’ has been omitted before it.

¹⁹ I wish to thank the following persons who kindly made available texts: Bw. Bakari Ahmad, Bw. Haji Hamisi, Bw. Jambeni Muhammad, Mr J. S. Kirkman, Rev. J. M. Ritchie; and the following who have helped variously with their reading, interpretation, and discussion of their significance: Dr Abdullah Bujra, Dr B. G. Martin, s.s. ‘Ali al- Marashi and Dr Ahmed Salim.

²⁰ Etymologically, Batawi (‘of Batayr’) must surely be connected with the name ‘Pate’; one wonders whether it might be connected also (as a place of origin) with the Baṭā of al-Idrisi, which it has been suggested was in northern Somalia, in the region east of the present Burao (J. S. Trimingham,‘The Arab geographers and the East African coast’, in East Africa and the Orient , ed. H. Neville Chittick and Robert I. Rotberg, forthcoming).

²¹ One may guess that the obliteration of the name ‘Hūd’ may have been due to a later owner of the book having read ‘hadha nabl’, ‘this is my prophet’ in the fifth line (as I did initially), which, unless it referred to Muhammad, would be heretical. 11 Zakaria bin Muhammad bin Mahmud al-Kazwini (quoted by G. P. Badger, History of the Imams and Seyyids of Oman , 385) states: ‘The Khawarij Ibadhiyah prevail in that country up to our time [thirteenth century?] and the members of no other sect are to be found there, except such as are foreigners.’

²³ Nisba: a ‘surname’ indicating the country, town, people, tribe or family from which the individual derives.

²⁴ In passing, I have not seen any reference in a Portuguese source to either the Nabhani or Batawi.

²⁵ For example, the inscription on a grave at Takwa which he records (p. 159) as commemorating Abdullah Muhammad Ali, who died in 1094 H (A.D. 1682–3), contains in fact simply the names Allah, Muhammad, Abu Bakr, ‘Uthman, ‘Umar, ‘Ali (the four last being the first four caliphs), and the date, which Stigand correctly recorded; there is no mention of the dead man whatever. There is a precisely similar inscription dated 1093 H on a grave at Pate, on a similar dark grey stone, and evidently executed by the same hand.

²⁶ C. H. Stigand, The Land of Zinj , 30.

²⁷ Badger, Imams and Seyyids , 53–4; and S. B. Miles, The Countries and Tribes of the Persian Gulf (London, reprinted in 1966), 192.

²⁸ In putting this forward, I do not wish to suggest that Sulaiman ibn Sulaiman ibn Muzaffar ever came to Pate—in fact he is supposed to have died in Oman in 1500 (Badger, 51)—but rather that his name is outstanding in the memory of the Nabahani of Pate.

²⁹ Badger, Imams and Seyyids , 36. Mr Ritchie tells me that the Beni Kinda constitute a very large tribal grouping, rather than a single clan, and suggests that the Howari may be a section of this.

³⁰ Badger, Imams and Seyyids , 41. The man's name is given as Muzhaffir-bin-Suleimanbin-Suleiman; he is stated to have ruled only two months.

³¹ J. M. Ritchie comments on this: ‘ The various sets of rulers of ‘Uman mentioned in the margin of Kawkabu'l-Durriyya appear to have been often contestants for the supreme rule whose areas of power radiated from different centres in ‘Uman, and who were constantly at war with each other. Three of the centres he mentions are Nazwa, Bahla and Rustaq. It is easy to see from this that a writer might name as ‘Umani ruler of East Africa whomever of the warring rulers he favoured himself, or whomever he had been taught was the conqueror. And further each view may be partly right, though neither author nor reader may be able to say how right or how wrong these views may be. Thus, the statement, ‘ The Nabahani was a great king in the land of East Africa’ may imply no more than that he was regarded by the Swahilis as their supreme, though distant overlord, or that the author thought him to be such, while at the same time he need not have actually lived in Pate or on the coast of East Africa at all. It seems as though they are referring to real local Kings [in ‘Uman], since Swahili writers and informants have half their minds subconsciously in Arabia, their distant forefathers’ home and their present spiritual home even though they have never seen it nor set foot in it.’

³² C. Guillain, Documents , partie 1, 534.

³³ ‘ L'imam y avait placé pour gouverneur un Arabe de la tribu des Nebahan.’

³⁴ Neville Chittick, ‘A Note on Siu’, Swahili , vol. 38/2 (1968).