Island Subsistence: Hunting, Trapping and the Translocation of Wildlife in the Western Indian Ocean

Azania XLII 2007

Island subsistence: hunting, trapping and the translocation of wildlife in the Western

Indian OceanMartin T. Walsh

Researchers have recently begun to re-examine the settlement of the islands of the Western Indian Ocean from multi-disciplinary perspectives that incorporate evidence from both the natural and human sciences (Blench, this volume; Hurles et al. 2005; Mitchell 2004, 2005). In this and other respects the study of the maritime heritage of the Indian Ocean lags behind that of the Pacifi c, where the history of human colonisation is the subject of lively interdisciplinary debate (cf. Hurles et al. 2003). One particularly fertile area of research has been the historical ecology of oceanic islands and analysis of the environmental impacts of human settlement and subsistence practices (Kirch and Hunt 1997). In the Western Indian Ocean Madagascar has been the focus of this kind of investigation (Goodman and Patterson 1997), but it has not been extended to other islands or integrated with study of their settlement histories. In this paper I will make a preliminary attempt to do so, by reviewing the cultural and biological evidence for people’s interactions with the terrestrial fauna of island archipelagos that lie between East Africa and Madagascar. I will argue that the signifi cance of hunting, trapping and the translocation of wild animals has been greatly underestimated in previous histories of this region. The evidence presented here evokes a number of historical hypotheses, some contrary to received wisdom, about the settlement of the islands and relations between the communities involved. It also suggests some general correlations between island biogeography and human settlement that can be compared to observations based on research in Oceania.

Old histories and new histories

Older histories of the three archipelagos surveyed in this paper – Zanzibar, Mafi a, and the Comoros – make little reference to the importance of hunting and trapping for island subsistence, and generally say nothing at all about the translocation of wild animals or the ecological impacts of any of these activities. Even Ingrams, a key source, declared that there ‘is little game in Zanzibar, and so not much chance for the hunting faculties of the natives to develop’ (1931: 290). He was, however, enthusiastic about the ‘considerable ingenuity’ of their traps (1931: 291), and took some trouble to describe

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84 Island subsistence: hunting, trapping and the translocation of wildlife in the Western Indian Ocean

and illustrate them. The Ethnographic Survey of Africa volume on the Swahili-speaking peoples devotes just three short paragraphs to hunting (Prins 1967: 49-50). Despite the amount of ink spilled on Swahili studies since, very little has been written about the utilisation of wildlife on the East African coast and islands (Horton & Middleton 2000; Kusimba 1999; Spear 2000). The same can be said mutatis mutandis of other maritime communities speaking languages related to Swahili, including the Bantu-speaking inhabitants of the Comoro archipelago. The possible historical impacts of hunting on Madagascar have attracted more scholarly interest (e.g. Dewar 1997; 2003).

There are important exceptions to this general lack of interest in hunting and other aspects of human-wildlife relations. Grottanelli’s (1955) ethnographic description of Bajuni practice in southern Somalia is more detailed than most, though it focuses on the exploitation of marine animals (not considered in this paper) and hunting by these northern Swahili speakers on the mainland opposite their island homes. Harpet’s (2002) short study of attitudes to the common brown lemur on Mayotte is among the best of recent contributions by an anthropologist, in conjunction with her earlier book (2000) on the lemurs of Madagascar. The possible part played by human agency in introducing animal species to the islands is considered at greatest length in the work of the natural historians and zoologists – most notably by Moreau and Pakenham (1940) for the Zanzibar and Mafi a archipelagos, and Louette et al. (2004) for the Comoros. Disappointingly, though, we lack even basic mammal lists for most of the smaller islands off the East African coast, from southern Somalia and the islands of the Lamu archipelago in northern Kenya down to Mozambique. Mammal, bird and reptile lists have been drawn up for some islands associated with marine parks and other protected areas (e.g. Downs and Wirminghaus 1997), but these are often unpublished.

Excavation and archaeozoological reports are our best source for island wildlife and its uses in the past, though well-researched archaeological sites are few and often far-between in the archipelagos of the region (Chittick 1984; Horton 1996; Horton & Mudida 1993; Juma 2004; Mudida 1996; Redding 1992; Redding and Goodman 1984; Wright 1984, 1992). Unfortunately stratigraphy, dating, and the faunal identifi cations at some recently surveyed insular sites have all been questioned (Sinclair 2006), and even the best reports tend to suffer from an absence of reliable biogeographical, zoological and ethnozoological information to place the archaeological data in context.

The available archaeological evidence indicates that the ancestors of contemporary Swahili and Comorian speakers hunted and trapped animals for food, though this was probably always subsidiary to fi shing, farming and other subsistence activities in the community. Historical linguistics and comparative ethnography support and add to this generalisation. Most mammal names on the islands included in this survey (see the online Appendix and Tables A2-A7) reconstruct to proto-Sabaki, the ancestor of Swahili, Comorian and other languages that are thought to have fi rst diverged from one another somewhere on the East African coast, most likely in what is now Kenya. Some can be traced even further back to proto-Northeast Coast Bantu and higher (earlier) nodes of Bantu (Nurse and Hinnebusch 1993). The same can be shown for other terminologies associated with hunting and trapping. The existence of such practices today, varying by island and fauna, supports the thesis that they must have been practised by early Swahili and Comorian speakers as they moved down the coast and onto the islands, adapting to local conditions as they did so.

Recent research, however, suggests that this can only have been part of the story.


Martin T. Walsh 85

Archaeological investigations by Chami and colleagues in Tanzania indicate that at least some of the islands in the Zanzibar and Mafi a archipelagos were occupied by people with Late Stone Age and Early Iron Age cultural assemblages long before the appearance of Triangular Incised Ware / Tana Tradition pottery in the second half of the fi rst millennium AD (Chami 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004; Chami and Wafula 1999). The timing of the latter is consistent with presumed dates for the diversifi cation and movement of Sabaki speakers down the coast, including the linguistic ancestors of what was to become the Bantu-speaking community of the Comoros. Linguistic history and geography imply that the Late Stone Age fi shers, foragers and hunters of the coast and nearby islands spoke non-Bantu languages, perhaps related to one or more of the isolates spoken by East African hunter-gatherers in recent times (see Walsh 2006 and references therein). There seems little doubt now that Bantu-speaking farmers also settled on nearby islands, some centuries before the southward migration of Sabaki speakers. The linguistic evidence suggests that these Early Iron Age islanders may have spoken different East African Bantu languages, not just early dialects of Northeast Coast Bantu, the language group which later spawned Sabaki.

Archaeology has yet to provide convincing proof that the Comoros were also settled before the middle of the fi rst millennium AD, though a growing volume of circumstantial evidence, linguistic and palaeozoological, suggests that this might have been the case. If Blench (in press, also this volume) is right in proposing that Madagascar was fi rst settled by African hunter-gatherers, then it is not diffi cult to envisage similar sea-crossings to the Comoros, whether direct from Africa or from Madagascar itself. A number of linguists, meanwhile, have argued that the proto-Malagasy themselves probably spent time on the East African coast and then in the Comoros before they fi nally settled on Madagascar (e.g. Adelaar, in press; Simon 1988).

Hunting and the exploitation of island wildlife: a survey

The following survey is based on a combination of different kinds of evidence from a wide variety of sources, among them the zoological, archaeological, linguistic, historical and ethnographic. As part of this I have compiled mammal lists with scientifi c and local names for six of the islands considered in the survey: Pemba, Unguja, Mafi a, Grand Comore, Anjouan, and Mayotte - a selection determined by the availability of data. These tables (numbered A2-A7) are referred to in the text and can be found in an online appendix. The sources that I have used in this survey are uneven in quality, and often provide no more than a fragmentary view of what must be a more complex reality. If nothing else, I hope that this will highlight the many gaps in current knowledge, and suggest future topics for research.

The Zanzibar Archipelago

The Zanzibar archipelago comprises two large islands, Pemba and Unguja, each of which is associated with a number of smaller islets. Although Zanzibar is generally treated as a single geographic unit, the two islands have had quite different geological and ecological histories, and so are considered separately below. Research in Zanzibar since



the 1990s, most of it undertaken for agricultural development and community-based natural resource management projects, has provided us with more detailed knowledge about terrestrial wildlife and its exploitation than is available for other islands in the Western Indian Ocean. In the accounts which follow I have made extensive use of the published and unpublished literature, as well as notes from my own research in Zanzibar since 1994.

Pemba Island

Pemba is a low-lying island which lies c.40-60 km off the East African coast and covers an estimated surface area of approximately 1,000 km2 (Koenders 1992; Pakenham 1979), surrounded by a deep sea channel (of 600-750 m). It has evidently been separate from the African mainland for much longer than recent continental islands like Unguja and Mafi a (Kent et al. 1971, Pakenham 1979), as refl ected in the island’s relatively depauperate terrestrial fauna (Moreau and Pakenham 1940, 1942, Pakenham 1979, 1983, 1984).

About half of the terrestrial mammal species of Pemba are bats, and many of the rest are known or presumed to have been introduced. It has even been suggested that all of Pemba’s ground-dwelling mammals owe their presence to human activity, and were brought to the island either deliberately or accidentally. Table 1 below summarises the evidence in favour of the theory that all of the four-legged mammals on the island have been introduced.

Table 1: Evidence for the introduction of mammals on Pemba island

Mammal species Evidence for introduction / translocation

Tiny musk shrew,Crocidura fuscomurina

The subspecies endemic to both Unguja and Pemba, C. f. sansibarica (Pakenham 1984) is small enough to be have been carried accidentally from the former to the latter.

Asian house shrew,Suncus murinus

This is a known ship-borne introduction, originally from south and/or south-east Asia, and now found on many islands in the Western Indian Ocean and on parts of the East African coast (Hutterer and Tranier 1990).

Small-eared greater galago, Otolemur garnetti

This widespread species is known to have been kept as a pet in Zanzibar (Pakenham 1984) and could have been carried either deliberately or accidentally to Pemba and neighbouring islets where it is also found.

Vervet monkey, Chlorocebus aethiops

The taxonomic status of the Pemba vervet is uncertain. Pakenham (1984) considered the local race, C. a. nesiotes, to be the same as that found on Mafi a. Vervets are also known to be kept as a pets (Aders 1920, Halsted 1979, Pakenham 1984).

Zanzibar red colobus, Colobus kirkii

Introduced to Ngezi Forest on Pemba in 1974 as part of an government programme to help conserve this Unguja endemic (Struhsaker and Siex 1998a).


Martin T. Walsh 87

Mammal species Evidence for introduction / translocation

Marsh mongoose,Atilax paludinosus

The local form, A. p. rubescens, is also found on the nearby mainland and could have been brought either intentionally or otherwise to Pemba from there. Pakenham (1984) reports examples of this mongoose being kept in captivity on the island.

Small Indian civet, Viverricula indica

A known introduction, widely kept in the past for its musk. Pocock (cited in Pakenham 1984: 45) found the form occurring in the Zanzibar archipelago, V. i. rasse, “to be indistinguishable from Javan and Madagascan specimens”.

East African tree hyrax, Dendrohyrax validus

The Zanzibar tree hyrax, D. v. neumanni, is endemic to both Pemba and Unguja. Its presence on some of the smaller islets, like Njao and Fundo, suggest that this edible species might have been translocated.

Wild boar (feral domestic pig),Sus scrofa domesticus

Historical documents indicate that domestic pigs were introduced on Pemba by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, and at one time were even bred by Pembans for sale to their Christian conquerors. These pigs subsequently became feral on the island and something of a nuisance to local farmers (Gray 1962).

Blue duiker,Cephalophus monticola

The Pemba blue duiker, C. m. pembae, is thought by some authorities to be identical with the form found on Mafi a (Pakenham 1984), and may well have been carried between islands for its value as a food species.

Common house mouse,Mus musculus

A known ship-borne introduction, widespread in the region.

Black rat, Rattus rattus Another ship-borne introduction, also widespread.

At present we lack both the genetic or palaeozoological evidence that could support or disprove the hypothesis that all of these mammals have been introduced to the island. Likewise we have little evidence to indicate when and why and by whom species were introduced, though we can guess that the shrews and rodents were not brought to the island deliberately.

Archaeologists working on Pemba have yet to excavate any sites other than those associated with the Swahili diaspora in the second half of the fi rst millennium (LaViolette 2004). The existence of early fi shing and foraging groups on both Unguja and Mafi a makes it likely that they were also present on Pemba in the centuries and perhaps millennia before the current era. The settlement of Pemba by East African hunter-gatherers required no more than a simple sea-crossing by raft or canoe. At present we can only speculate on the impacts such early settlement might have had on the fauna of Pemba. Oral traditions are not much help here, unless stories about mythical inhabitants called the Magenge preserve a folk memory of aboriginal cave-dwellers and foragers who traded with other visitors and settlers (Ingrams 1931).

It is also likely that by the time of the Periplus (c.50 AD) both Pemba and Unguja



had been settled by farmers speaking one or more East African Bantu languages. In the case of Pemba these may have been speakers of early Northeast Coast Bantu dialects from the mainland opposite. Because this is the group from which the Sabaki languages and Swahili derive, and also because of the possibility of later contacts across the Pemba Channel, it is diffi cult to immediately discern this infl uence in the surviving Pemba dialects of Swahili, at least in the little material on these that has been published (Nurse and Hinnebusch 1993; Whiteley 1958).

The political unifi cation of Zanzibar under Omani Arab rule and the spread of plantation agriculture in the nineteenth century saw the development of a common language and culture in the archipelago, especially in the towns and fertile lands on the west of both islands (Bennett 1978). In most of Pemba the original varieties of Swahili have been replaced by the Unguja dialect originating in and around Zanzibar town, though some distinctive Pemban vocabulary is still in use. This is evident in some differences in the local Swahili names for plants and animals, as can be seen by comparing the names of mammals that are in common use in Pemba and Unguja (see Tables A2 and A3).

Many of the recorded traditional hunting practices on the two islands are broadly similar, allowing for local differences in fauna and variations in technique. These practices refl ect both farmers’ need to control animals (‘vermin’) that are harmful to their crops and livestock, and the availability of game meat as an occasional supplement to local diet.1 Organised hunting also serves a social purpose, and on Pemba this was, until recently, most evident in collective pig hunts, using trained dogs and (originally) knives and spears. The history of pigs and of pig hunting on Pemba also serves as a reminder that the exploitation of domestic stock and wildlife on islands can be a dynamic process, and consequently can be diffi cult to reconstruct from knowledge of contemporary practice alone.

Table 2: Hunting and trapping on Pemba Island

Species Known hunting and other practices

Wild boar (feral domestic pig),Sus scrofa domesticus

Formerly hunted by groups of men using hunting dogs and bearing hunting knives and/or spears. Craster (1913) describes a collective pig-hunt in the Ngwachani area; organised hunting clubs as well as the use of poison and guns were later encouraged by the British (Wilson 1939). It is now doubtful whether there are any wild boar left in their fi nal refuge in Ngezi Forest. Pork is not eaten by the Muslim inhabitants of the island.

Blue duiker,Cephalophus monticola

Known to have been hunted opportunistically during pig-hunts and their meat eaten. This small antelope has been largely hunted out: there are said to be relatively few left now on the east coast of Pemba.

1 The principal source of protein on both islands is fi sh - when it is available and affordable, fresh or dried. Meat from livestock including poultry is most likely to be eaten by villagers on festive and other special occasions (cf. Abdurahman 1939).


Martin T. Walsh 89


Vervet monkey, Chlorocebus aethiops

Craster (1913) describes a troop of vervets being driven into an isolated tree and then chased down and killed with dogs. Ingrams (1931) illustrates a wicker cage monkey-trap. Also known to have been hunted opportunistically during pig-hunts; and shot and poisoned by farmers with government help. Vervets are a serious crop pest on Pemba but are not eaten by Muslims.


Formerly domesticated for the commercial value of its civet or perineal gland secretion,2 which was sold as an ingredient in perfume and is still used in traditional medicines. Clubs that hunted feral civets as a competitive sport were still active in the 1990s.


Only common in the northwest of Pemba and on the offshore islets of Fundo and Njao, where it is reported to be hunted for its meat.

Bat spp.

The Pemba fl ying fox (Pteropus voeltzkowi) and straw-coloured fruit bat (Eidolon helvum) are hunted by boys and men, as are some of the smaller insectivorous bats on the island.3 In addition to the use of shotguns, a variety of means are employed to hunt bats (Entwistle and Corp 1995, 1997). The most common method is to shoot them with a catapult; they can also be hunted with throwing-sticks or trapped by baiting tangles of thorn branches (from Scutia myrtina or Uncaria africana) with ripe fruit and hoisting these up into the trees in which they are feeding. On the east coast groups of men sometimes chop down a whole borassus palm (Borassus aethiopum) in order to get at a roosting colony of straw-coloured fruit bats (Walsh 1995).

Bird spp.

Wild birds are hunted and trapped by children and youths, but the most important East African game bird, the helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris, Swahili kanga), is only known on the island as a domesticate, presumably introduced from Unguja or the mainland.

Yellow-bellied hinged terrapin,Pelusios castanoides

The island’s only terrestrial chelonian, common in the small freshwater lakes and ponds of eastern Pemba (Pakenham 1983, Spawls et al. 2002), where it is caught and eaten.

Perhaps the most unusual items in the traditional Pemban diet are bats and terrapins. Despite sometimes classifying bats as birds (Heine and Legère 1995), Swahili speakers generally consider bat meat to be haramu or taboo on religious grounds. But many Pembans have no such qualms. The cultural signifi cance of bats and bat hunting on Pemba is mirrored in the large number of local names for the edible fruit bats and other species. The brown or yellow-bellied hinged terrapin is far less culturally salient and its consumption not as widespread. Pembans call the terrapin kobe, the generic Swahili

2 The Swahili term for the musk, zabadi, is a loanword from Arabic, likewise the common Malagasy name for the rasse, jabady or jaboady (Garbutt 1999).3 Some colonies of bats are protected by traditional beliefs in guardian spirits (Pakenham 1984).



name for tortoises and terrapins. Like bats, these reptiles are not usually consumed by Swahili speakers because their meat is considered haramu by religious authorities. The same prohibition is often extended to marine turtles, though this is more widely ignored on Pemba and in other Swahili fi shing communities. But the Pemban taste for terrapin meat is a marked anomaly.

In an earlier article (1995) I outlined a number of historical hypotheses to account for the consumption of bats and terrapins on Pemba. The principal hypotheses can be restated as follows:

Consumption of bats and/or terrapins are inherited Swahili or Sabaki practices 1. which have been abandoned elsewhere, perhaps under pressure of religious conformity.These are local innovations, prompted perhaps by the lack of other sources of meat 2. on Pemba. The same zoological fact also encouraged the deliberate translocation of game animals to the island.They are practices that have been borrowed from other communities in the 3. past. Candidates include: (a) a hunter-gatherer substratum; (b) earlier Northeast Coast Bantu settlers on the island; and (c) proto-Malagasy or other Austronesian settlers on Pemba.

The different possibilities outlined above are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and need not apply equally to bats and terrapins. Unlike some hunting and foraging groups, Sabaki and other East African Bantu farmers are not known for the catholicity of their diets, and the inclusion of unusual items like reptile meat can sometimes be interpreted as a consequence of their incorporation of earlier non-agricultural populations (cf. Walsh 2003).

Bats and terrapins are also widely hunted and eaten in Madagascar, though in some places their fl esh is taboo. The consumption of bats and terrapins on both Pemba and Madagascar might be no more than a coincidence. There are, however, linguistic and other grounds for assuming a past Austronesian presence in Zanzibar and on the mainland coast opposite the archipelago (Simon 1988, Blench in press). One of the most striking pieces of evidence is the presence of a wild banana (Musa acuminata) on Pemba that must have originated on the other side of the Indian Ocean (Simmonds and Shepherd 1952). It is a possibility – but only one of many – that Pemban consumption of bats and/or terrapins is another legacy of the same set of contacts.

Unguja Island

Unguja is a low-lying island with a surface area of approximately 1,600 km2, located about 50 km south of Pemba and 30-40 km off the coast of mainland Tanzania (Pakenham 1979). A number of smaller islets are associated with Unguja, the most signifi cant historically being Tumbatu. Unguja is a recent continental island: the Zanzibar channel is relatively shallow (35-50 m) and formed a bridge to the mainland until sea levels rose at the end of the last Ice Age, 10,000 or more years ago (Kingdon 1989). This recent connection to the African continent is refl ected in Unguja’s possession of a relatively rich terrestrial fauna (Moreau and Pakenham 1940, 1942; Pakenham 1979, 1983, 1984).

The pattern of endemism on Unguja is consistent with this history: the island hosts a number of species and subspecies which are evidently the descendants of animals stranded on the island when its link to the mainland was broken. These include the endemic


Martin T. Walsh 91

Zanzibar red colobus (Colobus kirkii), Zanzibar leopard (Panthera pardus adersi) and Zanzibar servaline genet (Genetta servalina archeri), and the near-endemic Ader’s duiker (Cephalophus adersi) (Goldman and Walsh 2002, 2003; Goldman and Winther-Hansen 2003; Goldman et al. 2004; Struhsaker and Siex 1998b; Williams et al. 1996). The list of known introductions is proportionally smaller, and includes shrews and rodents that have been introduced accidentally and other mammal species that have been brought by people as domestic animals or pets. New archaeological and osteological evidence, however, also suggests that a number of indigenous mammal species have been lost on the island since its isolation from the mainland (Ekman 2007).

Until recently our archaeological knowledge of the pre-Swahili past of Unguja was on a par with that of Pemba. This has changed with the discovery and preliminary excavation of two cave sites on the island, Machaga and Kuumbi (Chami and Wafula 1999, Chami 2001, 2006, Sinclair et al. 2006). Initial claims about the presence of Neolithic faunal and other material at both sites have been questioned (Sinclair 2006), but careful research at Kuumbi has provided good evidence of intermittent occupation by hunter-gatherers dating back more than 22,000 years, to a time when Unguja was part of the African continent and supported a fauna typical of a savannah environment. The most recent series of occupations by foragers has so far yielded dates of between c.5300 and 1800 BP, in the period following Unguja’s last post-glacial separation from the mainland (Sinclair et al. 2006). It remains to be established whether these were people stranded on Unguja by rising sea levels, or whether they had settled later by crossing the Zanzibar channel. It is possible, of course, that different populations were involved, and that sea travel was no great obstacle to any of them.

We can only guess at the identity of these early foragers, and whether they spoke a language or languages related to one of the East African click languages (Sandawe, Hadza, or the unknown source of the click substratum in Dahalo). The latest date (c.200 AD) suggests that they interacted with the fi rst Bantu speaking settlers on the island, whether these were Northeast Coast Bantu or members of another group. The linguistic evidence for such contacts, if any, has yet to be teased out. Most of the local mammal names have transparent Bantu etymologies.

The only local practice which hints at a hunting (as well as a fi shing and shell-fi sh collecting) past is the occasional consumption of Nile monitor lizards (Varanus niloticus) in some parts of northern Unguja. Again, there are different possible sources for this apparent anomaly. Monitors are not otherwise known to be eaten by Swahili or Sabaki speakers, though Pokomo in the Tana valley were once expert hunters of the Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) and keen consumers of its meat (Werner 1913), an equally unusual practice that may have been learned from Dahalo hunter-gatherers or their antecedents (cf. Nurse 1986). Crocodiles are not normally found on Unguja, but have been recorded as vagrants on the island (Pakenham 1983). Bats and terrapins are not known to be eaten on Unguja; there are fruit bats but no fl ying foxes on the island, and the yellow-bellied hinged terrapin (Pelusios castanoides) is uncommon. The only African tortoise for which there are records on Unguja is Bell’s hinged tortoise (Kinixys belliana) (Pakenham 1983; Spawls et al. 2002). Moreau and Pakenham (1940) thought that both chelonians were introduced. The lack of indigenous terrapins and tortoises on the island is puzzling, and raises the possibility that past populations of these reptiles have been hunted out.



Table 3: Hunting and trapping on Unguja Island


Suid spp. Bush pigs (Potamochoerus larvatus) and feral domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) are hunted, usually at night, with dogs, hunting knives, spears, and (now) shotguns. Pig-hunting is a collective activity (Abdurahman 1939; Ingrams 1931; Martin 1978) and has developed from the colonial period as an organised sport that targets ‘vermin’. Ingrams (1931) also mentions the use of pitfalls and provides an illustrated description of a traditional spring trap for pigs.

Antelope spp. The principal game animals on Unguja are the three species of small antelope: Ader’s duiker (Cephalophus adersi), blue duiker (Cephalophus monticola), and suni (Neotragus moschatus). A wide variety of hunting methods have been recorded, including the use of snares, traps and pitfalls (Ingrams 1931; Williams et al. 1996). The most common methods now in use are shooting and netting.

Monkey spp. Monkeys, especially blue monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis), are also killed during pig-hunts. Ingrams (1931) illustrates a monkey trap from Tumbatu island that comprises a baited noose inside a wicker funnel; when sprung the noose tightens on the monkey’s hand. This is similar in design and construction to a kind of small mammal trap made by the Giryama of coastal Kenya (Champion 1967; Mogaka 1991, 1992). Monkeys are not eaten by indigenous Zanzibaris and the meat of the Zanzibar red colobus (Colobus kirkii) is said to be unpalatable even to dogs. Captive vervets (Chlorocebus aethiops) can sometimes be seen in Zanzibar town.

Leopard,Panthera pardus

Wooden cage traps, made with stakes, were once used for catching the endemic Zanzibar leopard (P. p. adersi) (Pakenham 1947). Traps sometimes had a small separate compartment at the end in which live bait such as a rooster or monkey was placed; others were equipped with a gin-trap rather than a drop door. Once caught inside the cage a leopard was traditionally dispatched by the trapper with a spear (Burton 1872) or by searing its eyes and other vulnerable parts of the head and body with a red-hot crowbar (Aders 1920). When shotguns were available captured leopards were shot in the head. Leopards are also reported to have been hunted with spears and many have been killed during pig- and antelope-hunts. The belief that some leopards are controlled by witches fuelled a series of moral panics during the colonial period, culminating in a national witch-fi nding and leopard-killing campaign after the Zanzibar Revolution (Goldman and Walsh 1997, 2002, 2003; Walsh and Goldman 2003, in press).

Civet spp. Unguja has two civets, the African civet (Civettictis civetta) and the introduced small Indian civet (Viverricula indica). Burton (1872) reported that both species were kept in captivity and scraped once a week for their valuable secretion. Civets are no longer kept in captivity, but small quantities of musk are harvested from known civetries and trails and used as an ingredient in local medicines, including perfumed ointments that are sold in the town.


Martin T. Walsh 93


Small carnivore spp.

None of the local carnivores is considered edible, though they are killed as potential predators of poultry and other stock. Ingrams (1931) illustrates a ‘genet and lemur’ trap, a wooden cage trap with a suspended door that drops shut when it is released by an animal taking the bait at the far end of the cage. Different species of mongoose are known to have been kept as pets, and past records of the banded mongoose (Mungos mungo) in Zanzibar are thought to be of escaped individuals originally brought from the mainland (Aders 1920; Pakenham 1984).

Galago spp. Galagos or bushbabies are also readily captured and tamed. According to Aders (1920) galagos in Zanzibar town were tempted to the ground by bowls of coconut palm-wine and captured once intoxicated. Younghusband (1910) was brought galagos and captive animals can still be found.


Ingrams (1931) reported that the fl esh of these small animals, which were abundant on Tumbatu island, was much sought after by men who wanted to have children. Pakenham (1984) notes that they are also found in the south of Unguja, and that only some villagers like the meat, which is said to be tough and strong-tasting (cf. Rolleston 1939).

Rodent spp. Rats and other small mammals are trapped as pests but not normally eaten on Unguja (Ingrams 1931).

Bird spp. Simple bird traps are often made by children, who also prepare birdlime using the sap of the jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllusi), an introduced tree (Abdurahman 1939; Ingrams 1931; Johnson 1939; Williams 1949). The most important game bird is the helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris), which is wild on Unguja. The less common Kenya crested guineafowl (Guttera pucherani) is also hunted (Ingrams 1931; Pakenham 1979). A number of exotic bird species have become naturalised in Zanzibar, some of them introduced deliberately but others probably escaped from captivity (Aders 1920; Pakenham 1979). Caged birds still hang outside houses in both the town and countryside (cf. Abdurahman 1939; Ingrams 1931).

Nile monitor lizard,Varanus niloticus

Occasionally killed and eaten in the north of Unguja island.

Snake spp. Captive rock pythons (Python sebae) and other snakes are sometimes seen, especially in the hands of traditional doctors/diviners and other performers, both Zanzibari and from the mainland.

In many other respects hunting and trapping on Unguja follow a pattern that is recognisably similar to that found along the East African coast and on other continental and Swahili-speaking islands. Most village hunters are also farmers (and sometimes fi shermen) and do not hunt full-time. Villagers are much exercised by the need to control animals that are perceived to threaten their livelihoods. As on Pemba, the principal target of this activity is a suid; in this case the bush pig, Potamochoerus larvatus, a species



indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa (Kingdon 1997). Bush pigs are also found on Mafi a island and, more surprisingly, Madagascar, where they must have been introduced from Africa or one of the continental islands. The precise taxonomic status of the bush pigs on Madagascar is unclear (two subspecies have been recognised), likewise their geographical origin and other circumstances of their translocation (Andrianjakarivelo 2003; Garbutt 1999, 2007). The existence of a Malagasy name (antsanga) that may be related to the Unguja dialect term for a solitary male bush pig (kitanga) and derive from an earlier Swahili or Sabaki form (*ncanga), suggests the possibility of a historical connection with the bush pigs of the East African coast and islands.

The Mafi a Archipelago

The Mafi a archipelago lies more than 130 km south of Unguja. The main island, Mafi a, is low-lying like Unguja and has a surface area of about 600 km2. It is adjoined by a number of smaller islands and reefs, including Chole, Juani, and Jibondo islands on its southern side. Other islets lie in the channel between Mafi a and the Rufi ji delta on the mainland coast of Tanzania The Mafi a channel is only about 20 km wide and 30 m or less deep, suggesting that Mafi a is a recent continental island with a similar history to Unguja, perhaps separated from the mainland later. The sea-crossing to Mafi a is made easier by the presence of a series of island stepping stones and the fl ow of the current from the Rufi ji. This may have facilitated the colonisation of Mafi a by some species after the post-glacial rise in sea level (Moreau and Pakenham 1940). However, the contemporary mammalian fauna of Mafi a is much poorer than that of Unguja and notably lacking in endemics. This might be explained in part by the comparatively small size of Mafi a. It is also possible that greater faunal diversity in the past has been reduced by human activity, including hunting and the clearing of most of Mafi a’s original forest cover.

The early occupation of Mafi a and other islands in the archipelago by hunter-gatherers / fi sher-foragers seems very likely. Chami (2000, 2004, 2006) reports Late Stone Age microliths and other material from Ukunju cave on Juani island, dated 800-400 BC, though some of the claims about this site have been doubted because of its confused stratigraphy (Sinclair 2006). Evidence for Early Iron Age settlement (c.fi rst-sixth centuries AD) has been found in relative abundance on Mafi a and other islands, but there is a puzzling absence of Tana Tradition / Triangular Incised Ware and related material dating from the period before the eleventh century (Chami 1999, 2000). This gap in the record suggests desertion of the island and/or the late arrival (or minimal infl uence of ) Sabaki / Swahili speakers. However, much of Mafi a is unsurveyed, and it is equally likely that this evidential gap will be fi lled by further survey and excavation. The later occupation of Mafi a from the eleventh century onwards by (presumed) Swahili speakers is rather better known from excavations at Kisimani Mafi a (Chittick 1961).

Recent research by Kipacha (2004) has clarifi ed the geography of the Swahili dialects spoken in the Mafi a archipelago, though a lot of work remains to be done. In the south of Mafi a island the predominant dialect is a variety of Standard Swahili infl uenced by the Rufi ji-Ruvuma languages of the nearby mainland. The older Mafi a dialects of Swahili are still spoken in villages in the north of Mafi a island and on Chole, Juani, Bwejuu and Jibondo islets. Kipacha’s (2004, 2005) work has focused on the dialect of northern Mafi a, variously called Ngome (Kingome), Pokomo (Kipokomo), and Mbwera (Kimbwera) in


Martin T. Walsh 95

some of the older literature (e.g. Moreau 1940, 1941). Some of the mammal names are not inherited Swahili terms but derive from Bantu languages spoken on the mainland, including at least one Rufi ji-Ruvuma idiom. At present it is not possible to say whether this is as a result of early interactions (leaving loanwords or a pre-Swahili substratum in Ngome) or whether it refl ects more recent movements of people across the Mafi a channel from Kilwa and/or the Rufi ji delta.

Relatively little has been written about hunting and trapping in the Mafi a archipelago; available information suggests a range of practices broadly comparable to those found elsewhere on the Tanzanian coast and islands.4 In the 1940s and 1950s British colonial offi cials debated whether the hippos of Mafi a should be classifi ed as ‘game’ or ‘vermin’, and whether the hunting of blue duiker and suni should be restricted by game regulations (Walley 2004). In the end the economic needs of local farmers were given priority by the district administration and the hunting of ‘vermin’ was allowed to continue without restriction. Farmers still devote considerable energy to ensuring that their rice and other crops are not destroyed by wild animals during the growing season (cf. Caplan 1975, 1997). There is little information in the published sources on the methods used to hunt and trap animals on Mafi a, though Kipacha (2004) records some related vocabulary in the Ngome dialect. Few of the vertebrate animals on Mafi a are treated as edible by the Muslim majority, whose diet includes none of the unusual items reported from Pemba and Unguja.

Table 4: Hunting and trapping on Mafi a and nearby islands


Hippopotamus,Hippopotamus amphibious

Guns are now used to kill hippos on Mafi a: traditional hunting methods are not recorded. Hippopotamus meat is spurned by Muslims, though it might be eaten by non-Muslims in the south of the island.

Suid spp. Bush pigs (Potamochoerus larvatus) and feral domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) are serious crop pests on Mafi a and to prevent their depredations fi elds are often protected with wooden hedges. As well as being shot, bush pigs are caught in traps and hunted with dogs and nets. Barbour (2002) was told that on Juani island there was a professional pig hunter who hunted there with a bow and arrow and several dogs. The non-Muslim Makonde who live in some of the northern villages will eat the meat of bush pigs as well as wild rats.

Antelope spp. The principal game animals are the two species of small antelope found on Mafi a, the blue duiker (Cephalophus monticola) and suni (Neotragus moschatus). Like bush pigs, they are caught in traps and hunted with dogs and nets, as well as shot. Walley (2004) noted that the blue duiker of Juani were hunted during the 1997 drought on the island, when the dehydrated animals were easier to catch.

4 I am very grateful to Pat Caplan, Chris Walley and Ahmad Kipacha for providing additional data from their notes and other unpublished sources on wildlife and its utilisation in the archipelago (e.g. Iles and Walley 2003).




Feral cattle There is a population of feral cattle in the north of Mafi a island (cf. Baumann 1896). Kipacha (pers. comm.) reports that special traps are made to catch them, and they are also sometimes hunted at night.

Forest pouched rat, Cricetomys gambianus

Kipacha (pers. comm.) reports that some people on Mafi a eat the meat of this large rodent.

Bat spp. Like Pemba, Mafi a has a fl ying fox, in this case a subspecies of the Seychelles fl ying fox, the Comorian fl ying fox (Pteropus seychellensis comorensis). These have been targeted in the past as agricultural vermin (Clark 1994). They are also reported to have been eaten by visiting Pembans (Walsh 1995), though the local inhabitants consider the meat of bats to be unclean (haramu).

Bird spp. As Baumann (1896) noted, guineafowl (the helmeted guineafowl, Numida meleagris) and wild pigeon (various species) are found on Mafi a (Moreau and Pakenham 1940) and are presumably trapped and eaten together with smaller birds. Barbour (2002) mentions the presence of domesticated guineafowl on Chole island. Baumann also observed that feral domestic chickens were to be found on a number of the smaller islets in the archipelago, where they were protected from harm by their association with local spirits. Moreau (1939) found evidence to suggest that yellowbills (Ceuthmochares aereus) and white-browed coucals (Centropus superciliosus) were protected on islets that no longer supported feral poultry. On Bwejuu island, in the Mafi a channel, a wild population of Hildebrandt’s francolin (Francolinus hildebrandti) is said to derive from a pair of these birds brought from Kilwa by an early settler who also introduced a pair of guineafowl that did not survive (cf. Britton 1980).

Nile monitor lizard,Varanus niloticus

Barbour (2002) reports that on Chole island monitor lizards are chased and killed with rocks and sticks. They are disliked because they prey on the eggs of domesticated birds and sometimes chicks. Their meat is not eaten, but the dead animals are just left to rot.

The literature on Mafi a is also largely silent on the keeping of wild animals in captivity. Two of the small carnivores present on Mafi a, the Javan mongoose (Herpestes javanicus) and the small Indian civet (Viverricula indica), are evidently introduced, but we can only speculate as to how this might have happened. The Javan mongoose, found in the wild throughout South and South-East Asia, has been introduced to many tropical islands in the belief that it will help to control rat populations. It listed as present on Mafi a by Moreau and Pakenham (1940), and is also found on Grand Comore, where it is said to have been deliberately introduced during the colonial period (Louette 2004b). The small Indian civet is found on islands throughout the region, and was presumably originally introduced for its valuable secretion.


Martin T. Walsh 97

The Comoro Archipelago

The Comoros are oceanic islands located in the Mozambique channel, about 300 km from the African continent and a similar distance from the northern tip of Madagascar. There are four main islands in the archipelago, which is volcanic in origin. Grand Comore is the largest (1,148 km2), roughly comparable in size to Pemba, but rising to an altitude of 2,361 m at the summit of Mount Karthala, which is the highest peak in the archipelago. Moheli (211 km2), Anjouan (424 km2) and Mayotte (374 km2) are all smaller than Mafi a, though with peaks of 790 m, 1,595 m, and 660 m respectively. The four islands are separated by deep sea (c. 400 m in depth) and the distance between them varies between 50 km and 90 km (Louette 2004a). The archipelago has a depauperate terrestrial fauna consistent with its oceanic characteristics and distance from both Africa and Madagascar (Louette 1988, 1999; Louette et al. 2004). Only 18 wild or feral mammal species are confi rmed as present in the archipelago (see Tables A5-A7), and only the seven recorded bat species colonised the island unaided (Louette 2004b).

At present there is no fi rm archaeological evidence for the settlement of the Comoros prior to the second half of the fi rst millennium AD (Allibert and Vérin 1996), though Early Iron Age dates have been claimed (Chami 2006). Dembeni phase sites of the ninth and tenth centuries AD are found throughout the archipelago and provide the most reliable early dates (Sinclair 2006; Wright 1984, 1992). These are consistent with the linguistic hypothesis that Comorian, the Bantu language that is spoken on all of the islands, is a Sabaki language that evolved separately from Swahili but was subsequently infl uenced by its northern and then southern dialects (Nurse 1989; Nurse and Hinnebusch 1993). The available evidence implies that immediately before leaving for the Comoros the proto-Comorian community was settled somewhere between the south Kenya coast and central Tanzania – a location that is also supported by oral traditions of origin on the Mrima coast. When Comorian speakers settled on different islands their language diversifi ed into separate dialects (see Table 5 below). Recent research suggests that the primary branches were Ngazidja, Mwali, Kombani, and the common ancestor of both Ndzuwani and Maore (Full 2006).

On Mayotte two dialects of the Austronesian language Malagasy are spoken in addition to Comorian. These two dialects appear to been brought to Mayotte at different times from different areas in northern Madagascar. The Antalaotsy dialect, which is only spoken in a few villages and seems to be the older of the two, is close to the speech of the Majunga region in northwest Madagascar (Gueunier 1986), where the Antalaotse, ‘People of the Sea’, are Muslim coastal traders (Wright et al. 1996). The common Malagasy of Mayotte (kiboshy kimaore) is closer to the dialect of Nosy Be and Sambirano, and acknowledged to have been brought to the island in recent centuries (Gueunier 1986). The Malagasy speakers of Mayotte have since established close relations and intermarried with their Comorian-speaking hosts and other immigrants. As Lambek (1981, 1993) emphasises, the island communities share a common religion and more cultural practices than a simple statement of dialect geography reveals.



Table 5: Languages and dialects of the Comoro islands

IslandLanguages Dialects

Grand Comore / Ngazidja Comorian (shikomoro) Ngazidja (shingazidja)

Moheli / MwaliMwali (shimwali)

Anjouan / Ndzuani Ndzuani (shindzuani)

Mayotte / MaoreMaore (shimaore)

Kombani (shikombani)

Malagasy (kiboshy) Maore (kiboshy kimaore)

Antalaotsy (kiantalaotsy, kiboshy kiantalaotsy)

The arrival of the Malagasy on Madagascar is dated to the middle of the fi rst millennium AD, and linguists have argued that the proto-Malagasy must have had close contact with Sabaki speakers on the East African coast and/or in the Comoros before settling there (Adelaar 1991; Allibert and Vérin 1996; Simon 1988).

The fi rst visitors to the Comoros encountered a limited terrestrial vertebrate fauna that offered them relatively little in the way of supplementary food resources apart from bats and birds. A vagrant Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) has been recorded, but there is no indication of the past presence of other large reptiles apart from the marine turtles (Meirte 2004). There are now no wild tortoises or terrapins in the archipelago, though the fi rst specimen of the ploughshare tortoise (Geochelone yniphora), endemic to Madagascar, was recorded in the Comoros. According to historical sources these now-endangered tortoises were once collected in the Soalala area of Madagascar using trained dogs; they were then exported in large numbers by ‘Arab’ traders to the Comoros, where they were used as a source of food (UICN/PNUE/WWF 1990). This trade is known to have been conducted from at least the seventeenth century, and extended into the nineteenth, though there seems to be no trace of it now. There are, however, older traces of it in the archaeological record: G. yniphora bones have been identifi ed in human middens dating from the eleventh to the fourteenth centuries in both north-west Madagascar and the Comoros (Allibert 1989; Rakotozafy 1996; both cited in Pedrono and Smith 2003).

The helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris) has been recorded on three of the islands: Grande Comore, Anjouan and Mayotte. It was presumably introduced as a domesticated bird but has since also become feral and is now hunted as a game bird (Louette 2004c). It is not known whether these birds were brought directly from East Africa or via Madagascar, where both domestic and feral birds are also found (Hawkins and Goodman 2003). Another possibility is that they were originally taken to Madagascar via the Comoros: one of the Malagasy names for guineafowl, akanga, is probably an early borrowing from a Sabaki language (Blench in press).

A number of wild mammals in the Comoros have certainly been translocated from Madagascar. One of these is the common tenrec (Tenrec ecaudatus), a hedgehog-like


Martin T. Walsh 99

animal which is present on all of the islands and naturally endemic to Madagascar, where different genera of tenrecs fi ll many of the niches that small mammals occupy elsewhere (Garbutt 2007). Tenrecs are eaten by a number of ethnic groups in Madagascar, including hunters and foragers among the Tanala (Linton 1933) and Mikea (Stiles 1991), and it was probably for this reason that the common tenrec was fi rst carried to the Comoros. In recent times the common tenrec has also been introduced to other islands in the western Indian Ocean: it was taken to Réunion and Mauritius to provide food for plantation workers, and carried from Réunion to the Seychelles around 1880 for the same reason (Nicoll 2003). Tenrecs remain a signifi cant source of protein for some people in the Mascarene islands, and they are even farmed in Réunion (Tatayah and Driver 2000).

There are indications that the tenrec was an early introduction to the Comoros. Common tenrec remains have been recovered from archaeological sites in the archipelago (Allibert and Vérin 1996), including a tenth-twelfth century midden at Sima and a thirteenth century one at Domoni, both on Anjouan (Redding 1992; Redding and Goodman 1984). The Comorian name for the tenrec, land(r)a, is much closer to the generic Malay term for porcupines, landak (Winstedt undated), than the Malagasy refl ex (t(r)andraka) of the same Austronesian root, suggesting that it may have been borrowed directly from Malay, or perhaps from a very early form of Malagasy.

Table 6: Hunting and Trapping on the Comoro islands


Wild boar (feral domestic pig), Sus scrofa domesticus

The pigs of Grand Comore are said to have been decimated by hunters; while those of Mayotte, which are also hunted, have been observed more recently (Louette 2004b).

Lemur spp. Despite legal protection, the two kinds of lemur found in the archipelago (the mongoose lemur, Eulemur mongoz, and the common brown lemur, Eulemur fulvus) are now targeted by farmers for the alleged damage they cause to fruit crops. Their young are sought as pets, sometimes for sale to tourists (Louette 2004b), a trade reported to be conducted by boys who use catapults to kill the adult lemurs in a troop (Thorpe 1990).

Common tenrec,Tenrec ecaudatus

Tenrecs are occasionally hunted and killed with sticks and spears or other weapons. Lambek (1992) reports that although tenrec meat is taboo (fady) among the Malagasy speakers of Mayotte, it is accepted that young men hunt and eat tenrecs in the bush (cf. Gueunier 1986). Recipes for cooking tenrec can be found on the internet, together with an interview with a tenrec hunter in the Malagasy-speaking village of M’tsangamouji, describing in detail how he hunts at night with dogs and prepares the fl esh with a large knife (Collège de M’tsangamouji 2006).


These introduced animals are no longer kept in captivity but their musk is still harvested and used in traditional pharmacy (Louette 2004b).




Bat spp. The two largest fruit bats in the archipelago are eaten by some people, especially by Malagasy speakers and others willing to ignore the orthodox Muslim prohibition on eating clawed creatures (Action Comores 2003). The Comorian subspecies of the Seychelles fl ying fox (Pteropus seychellensis comorensis), found throughout the archipelago, is also hunted because of its reputation for damaging fruit crops (Louette 2004b). The largest bat in the Comoros, Livingstone’s fl ying fox (Pteropus livingstonii), is reported to be catapulted by young boys for sport and food. This fruit bat is endemic to Moheli and Anjouan islands, and at one former roost on Anjouan it is said to have been protected by local beliefs (Mickleburgh et al. 1992). Recent reports do not record whether other bats are eaten and the literature is also silent on the range of methods used to hunt bats.

Two species of true lemur (Eulemur) have also been imported from Madagascar. The mongoose lemur, Eulemur mongoz, has a restricted distribution in north-west Madagascar (Garbutt 2007), but is found wild on two of the Comoro islands: Moheli and Anjouan. A feral population has also been reported from Grand Comore, close to a village (Hambou) in which mongoose lemurs are kept in captivity, but its current status is uncertain (Louette 2004b). The common brown lemur, Eulemur fulvus, is indigenous to northern Madagascar including the north-western region facing Mayotte, where it has been introduced (Garbutt 2007). The Mayotte lemur is more varied in colour than its closest relatives in north-west Madagascar (E. f. fulvus) and is sometimes described as a distinct subspecies, E. f. mayottensis (Harpet 2002, Louette 2004b). The apparent divergence of the Mayotte form may refl ect the relative antiquity of its introduction to the island and/or descent of the modern population from a small number of individuals.

Archaeological evidence from Dembeni suggests that in the 9th century AD one or more unidentifi ed species of lemur was being carried as food on ships from Madagascar and/or being kept or hunted on Mayotte itself (Harpet 2002). A widespread Malagasy name for this and other species (akomba, ankomba) (Garbutt 1999, Harpet 2000) is related to the Comorian dialect names for lemurs (komba, nkomba), and both are ultimately derived from an earlier Sabaki name (reconstructed *nkomba) for galagos on the East African coast (see Tables A2-A7). It is unlikely that the Malagasy term is the source of the Comorian (cf. Harpet 2002), but probable that early Malagasy borrowed this from proto-Comorian or another early Sabaki language, together with other names for wild and domesticated animals (Blench in press).

The ubiquitous rasse or small Indian civet (Viverricula indica) is present throughout the archipelago. The immediate origin of these island populations is not known. The use of two inherited Sabaki names for this animal in Comorian implies an unbroken knowledge of civets and the secretion for which they are famous. These linguistic observations argue against the translocation of civets from Madagascar to the Comoros, and suggest that they may well have been brought from one of the East African islands, where they had been taken by earlier transoceanic traders.

The terrestrial list of the Comoros also includes small mammals that were probably brought to the island accidentally (the Madagascar pygmy shrew and at least two species of Eurasian rats and mice), together with a mongoose (the Javan mongoose) that was


Martin T. Walsh 101

introduced in the colonial period in the mistaken belief that it would help to control (introduced) rodents and other small vermin (Louette 2004b). The islands also host feral populations of domesticated cats and dogs, as do most of the islands in the western Indian Ocean (see Tables A2-A7). Feral domestic pigs (wild boar) have been reported on two of the islands, Grand Comore and Mayotte (Louette 2004b). As in Zanzibar, these pigs were presumably introduced by the Portuguese, hence the common Comorian name for them (puruku), a Portuguese loanword (Blench in press).

Bush pigs (Potamochoerus larvatus) have also been listed as introduced on Mayotte (Andrianjakarivelo 2003; Haltenorth and Diller 1984), though Louette (2004b) and other members of recent Belgian zoological expeditions have not found any evidence of their presence. Louette suggests that at least one report (from 1958) may have confused feral pig signs for bush pig. There is also no unequivocal archaeological evidence for the presence of suids on Mayotte and other islands before the appearance of the Portuguese (cf. Redding and Goodman 1984). Nonetheless, it is possible that bush pigs were taken to Mayotte before they were carried to Madagascar, or as part of the same process.

Discussion and conclusions

In this fi nal and concluding section I will (a) explore in more detail different historical hypotheses about island settlement and wildlife use, and (b) make some general and comparative observations about the relationship between island biogeography and human impacts on their sometimes fragile environments. Given the many gaps in our knowledge that this survey has highlighted, I should emphasise that my conclusions are no more than provisional, but are presented here in the hope that they will help to stimulate further research and debate, with particular reference to the history of the East African coast and islands of the Western Indian Ocean.

Untangling island settlement and wildlife use

There is ample evidence in this survey to show that many aspects of island wildlife use by Swahili and Comorian speakers are practices dating back to the time when their linguistic ancestors lived on the East African coast. The shift to the exploitation of marine resources and development of a maritime culture by these two Sabaki groups were remarkable innovations, but did not entail their abandoning the Eastern Bantu heritage of mixed farming combined with the strategic exploitation of wild plant and animal resources. The archaeological evidence from Shanga and other sites indicates that hunting and other forms of natural resource use can fl uctuate over time, but there is little to suggest that the meat of wild game has ever dominated the diet of Sabaki-speaking island communities for more than limited periods of plenty and/or when other food resources have been in short supply. Still, like coastal history itself, this is not a conclusion written in stone, and the archaeological record may one day prove otherwise. Polynesian seafarers are thought to have eaten their way through the fl ightless bird populations of more than one newly settled oceanic home, helped by the rodents and other alien invasive species that they brought with them. It is an intriguing possibility that something like this could have happened on one or more of the small islands occupied by Sabaki speakers or their predecessors.



In this paper I have focused on possible historical explanations for some dietary anomalies. I have already outlined different hypotheses that might account for the consumption of bats and terrapins on Pemba, and monitor lizards on Unguja. The source of each of these practices, if not inherited or innovated, might be any one of a number of peoples that could have settled in the archipelago before the advent of Swahili speakers in the second half of the fi rst millennium AD. Unfortunately we only have a hazy idea of who these different peoples might have been.

Linguistic and bio-cultural data currently also provide the best evidence that people from southeast Asia were visiting the East African coast from an early date. They also indicate that the proto-Malagasy interacted intensively with Sabaki speakers before they settled on Madagascar, a fi nding that is not contradicted by recent human genetic research. Given these and other clues to the history of Austronesian settlement and migration in the Western Indian Ocean, we might wonder whether we can discern their ecological footprint on all or most of the islands in the region. Can some of the empirical facts about wildlife distribution and use noted in this paper, including various hints of South-East Asian infl uence, be integrated into a more comprehensive account of Austronesian impacts on island culture and biodiversity in the Western Indian Ocean? If so, the following observations are all candidates for inclusion:

Reptiles:(1) The consumption of terrapins on Pemba and the (past) consumption of tortoises in the Comoro archipelago. Tortoises and terrapins are also eaten on Madagascar, and the African species found on Pemba, the yellow-bellied hinged terrapin (Pelusios castanoides), is one of them (Kuchling and Garcia 2003).

(2) The absence of terrestrial chelonians on Unguja, apart from occasional records of the yellow-bellied hinged terrapin (P. castanoides) and Bell’s hinged tortoise (Kinixys belliana), both thought to be introductions. P. castanoides is also found on Madagascar (see above) and K. belliana is believed to have been taken there from Africa during the second half of the fi rst millennium AD (Raselimanana and Vences 2003).

Birds:(3) The distribution of the helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris) throughout the Western Indian Ocean and its domestication or semi-domestication on some of the islands (e.g. Pemba, Chole, Madagascar). Archaeological and linguistic evidence indicate that guineafowl were probably taken from Africa to Madagascar by the earliest Malagasy settlers, together with other domesticated animals (Blench, in press; Hawkins and Goodman 2003).

Mammals:(4) The presence of the Asian house shrew (Suncus murinus) on (at least) Pemba and Unguja.5 This south and south-east Asian species is also reported from the Arabian peninsula, north-east Africa and the East African coast, as well as Madagascar, the Mascarene islands, and the Maldives. Hutterer and Tranier (1990) speculate that this

5 Specimens are said to have been collected in the Comoros in the nineteenth century but there is no reliable recent evidence of its presence (Louette 2004b).


Martin T. Walsh 103

shrew could have been spread around the Western Indian Ocean by the dhow trade. Earlier introduction by Austronesian seafarers is another possibility that remains to be tested by genetic research.

(5) The consumption of bats on Pemba and in the Comoros. Fruit bats are also eaten and hunted on Madagascar, a practice that is widespread among Austronesian speakers in South-East Asia, including the Barito-speaking Ma’anyan of Indonesian Borneo (Hudson 1972). This might be a relatively recent introduction to the Comoros by Malagasy speakers – the evidence is equivocal – but bat-eating on Pemba cannot be similarly explained away.

(6) The presence of the mongoose lemur (Eulemur mongoz) on Moheli and Anjouan, and the common brown lemur (Eulemur fulvus) on Mayotte, together with archaeological evidence for the consumption of lemurs in the past. As is well known, lemurs are endemic to Madagascar, and hunted by some Malagasy for their meat. They are also kept as pets in both Madagascar and the Comoros, much as bushbabies and some monkey species are in Zanzibar and elsewhere in East Africa. One of the common Malagasy names for various lemur species is taken from the coastal Bantu term for galagos, suggesting that the proto-Malagasy knew the latter (which are present in East Africa and the continental archipelagos, but not the Comoros) before they encountered similar animals in Madagascar. This linguistic observation supports the thesis that the early Malagasy lived on the East African coast and/or nearby islands before they settled on Madagascar.

(7) The presence of the small Indian or Javan mongoose (Herpestes javanicus) on Mafi a and Grand Comore. This is a widely distributed species (also found on Mauritius) that is said to have been introduced to Grand Comore sometime between 1958 and 1981, in the mistaken belief that it would eat troublesome rats and snakes (Louette 2004b). It has been present on Mafi a for longer, though it is not known for how long. Moreau and Pakenham (1940) guessed that it was deliberately introduced to the island to control vermin. When and by whom are open questions.

(8) The presence of the small Indian civet or rasse (Viverricula indica) on all of the larger islands covered in this survey: Unguja, Pemba, Mafi a, Grand Comore, Moheli, Anjouan and Mayotte. It is also found in the wild in Madagascar, as well as on the island of Socotra between the Horn of Africa and the Arabian peninsula (Garbutt 2007). On Unguja this small civet coexists with the larger African civet (Civettictis civetta), and in the nineteenth century both species were caught and kept in cages so that their valuable secretion could be harvested and sold. This is an ancient ingredient in perfumes (cf. Von Endt 1978), and it is possible that the small Indian civet, a South and South-East Asian species, was taken to the Western Indian Ocean at an early date. The Zanzibar form, V. i. rasse, has been described as identical to specimens from Madagascar and Java.

(9) The presence of bush pigs (Potamochoerus larvatus) on Madagascar, and their possible past presence on Mayotte. Bush pigs are also found on Unguja and Mafi a, where they are generally assumed to form part of the natural fauna, though introduction from the nearby mainland cannot be ruled out. The bush pigs of Madagascar are certainly


Martin T. Walsh 104

introduced, and must have been at least semi-domesticated or captured and released for this to have happened. Although it is generally assumed that they were transported direct to Madagascar across the Mozambique channel, it is also possible that they were brought from the East African coast by the proto-Malagasy and/or early Comorians via one or more island stepping-stones, including the Comoros.

I have already discussed the possibility (see above) that all of the four-legged mammals of Pemba have been introduced. It would be rash to claim that these or other possible translocations were all the work of Austronesians – or indeed of any single group of people. The zoological and ethnozoological evidence does, however, implicate the proto-Malagasy (at least) in a number of historical changes to the island fauna of the region and its exploitation by island-dwelling Bantu speakers. Combined with other cultural and biological evidence, including evidence for the translocation of domesticated plants and animals (Blench 1996, in press), a new picture of intensive interaction in the past between East Africans and Austronesians is beginning to emerge. Needless to say, a full account and assessment of the Austronesian hypothesis is beyond the scope of this paper, and must await the outcome and publication of further research.

Island biogeography and human interventions

The data presented in this paper also invite comment from a more general and comparative perspective. Debate about human impacts on island environments has focused on both (1) the role and signifi cance of ‘transported landscapes’, including the translocation of domesticated and other animals (Kirch 1982, 1984; Nunn 2003; Rainbird 2004; Spriggs 1997), and (2) the reasons for the loss of island biodiversity, including the possible role of hunting in driving indigenous animal species into extinction (Goodman and Patterson 1997; MacPhee 1999; Martin and Klein 1984, Steadman 1995). Simple versions of the ‘overkill hypothesis’ have been challenged, and it is now widely accepted that the intended and unintended consequences of modifying the existing landscape and importing alien plants, animals, and pathogens can also have drastic effects on local animal populations. Although Madagascar has been drawn into this debate, little attempt has been made to consider its relevance to other islands in the Western Indian Ocean, in particular the island archipelagos examined in this paper. There is clearly plenty of scope to do so, including the possibility of drawing direct comparisons between the impacts of Austronesian settlement in the Pacifi c and the parallel phenomenon in the Indian Ocean.

Here I will make no more than a few preliminary observations about the links between island biogeography and human interventions. Table 7 shows the number of wild mammal species (excluding bats and feral populations of contemporary domesticates) known to occur on each of the main islands included in this study, together with estimates of the number and proportion of these that have been introduced with human assistance. As is well known, the number of mammal species on islands (bats included) decreases with distance from continental land masses and larger islands – taking into account other factors including surface area. In the case of remote oceanic islands natural colonisation rarely occurs except by fl ying animals (like bats and birds), semi-aquatic animals (like hippos and crocodiles), and small creatures (like lizards and some invertebrates) that can fl oat on vegetation and survive a long journey at sea. This generalisation also appears


Martin T. Walsh 105

to apply to the islands in our study, with perhaps one exception that has already been noted. The number of species known to occur on Mafi a seems to be relatively small, even when the size of the island and probable gaps in our knowledge of the island’s fauna are taken into account. The loss of species through hunting and other human activities may be one explanation for this, and it will be interesting to see what future archaeological research tells us about the history of Mafi a’s mammalian fauna.

Table 7: Island biogeography and the translocation of mammals

Island (listed by biogeographical category and increasing distance from the East African coast)

Approx. area (km2)

No. of wild mammal species known(excluding bats)

No. of introduced species (based on publishedsources)

% of four-legged mammal species introduced

Recent continental islands

Mafi a 600 21 3 14%

Unguja 1,600 29 7 24%

Older continental islands

Pemba 1,000 11 6 55%

Oceanic islands

Grand Comore 1,150 6 6 100%

Moheli 210 5 5 100%

Anjouan 425 5 5 100%

Mayotte 375 7 7 100%

The relationship between island biogeography and translocation is clearer. All of

the four-legged mammals in the Comoro archipelago have been introduced, whether by accident or design. There are proportionately fewer translocated mammal species on the recent continental islands, though the absolute numbers of introduced species are not much different. Pemba, the only older continental island in the sample, is in an intermediate position. However, if it is the case that even species thought to indigenous are in fact introduced, then the situation on this island will more closely resemble that of the Comoros. The translocation of mammals to remote oceanic islands has greater


Martin T. Walsh 106

potential biological and cultural impacts than it does on continental islands with a more robust indigenous fauna, though it can also have signifi cant impacts on the latter. The deliberate introduction of edible domesticated and semi-domesticated animals to small islands with few alternative sources of meat serves an obvious purpose, whatever other social and economic signifi cance it may have. This may, for example, help us to understand the apparent signifi cance of African livestock in the economy of the early Malagasy, especially if they had settled in the species-poor Comoros before moving on to the richer pickings of Madagascar. Recent history suggests that translocations are not usually undertaken with the intention of releasing animals into the wild and hunting them. A variety of circumstances can lead to the establishment of feral populations, which may then require control and/or offer opportunities for hunting for other reasons. The changing fortunes of the feral pigs of Pemba is a particularly well-documented historical example, only sketched briefl y in this paper. Transported landscapes do not always develop as expected, and the people and animals in them can behave in unanticipated ways. This has no doubt happened many times in the Western Indian Ocean, especially on islands which have experienced multiple episodes of settlement and translocation.

Acknowledgements

This paper is an expanded version of a presentation about hunting in Zanzibar that was given to the conference on The Maritime Heritage and Cultures of the Western Indian Ocean in Comparative Perspective, held in Zanzibar in July 2006. I am grateful to Stephanie Wynne-Jones for inviting me to write this paper, and to everyone who has contributed to the research on which it is based, including Bill Adams, Sander Adelaar, Claude Allibert, Tony Archer, Tom Butynski, Pat Caplan, Felix Chami, Axel Ducourneau, Abigail Entwistle, John Fanshawe, Derek Finnie, Mark Horton, Asha Fakhi Khamis, Ahmad Kipacha, Tuula Kurikka, Peter Mitchell, Derek Nurse, Abdallah Shamte Omari, Paul Sinclair, Salim Abdallah Subeit, Christine Walley, and Andrew Williams. Special thanks are due to Roger Blench and Helle Goldman for their multiple inputs to this and related research, and to all of the East African islanders who have also freely shared their knowledge and ideas.

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Island subsistence: hunting, trapping and the translocation of wildlife in the western Indian Ocean

Appendix: Island mammal lists and local names

Martin T. Walsh

Contents Introductory note Mammal lists and local names

Key to mammal lists Table A1. Principal sources for island mammal lists and linguistics Table A2. Pemba island mammals Table A3. Unguja island mammals Table A4. Mafia island mammals Table A5. Grand Comore island mammals Table A6. Anjouan island mammals Table A7. Mayotte island mammals

References

Introductory note This online appendix accompanies the paper ‘Island subsistence: hunting, trapping and the translocation of wildlife’, published in Azania XLII (2007), pp. 83-113. It comprises lists of mammals and known local names for them on six of the Indian Ocean islands that are considered in the paper. I have also provided a list of principal sources and full references for these.

Mammal lists and local names Key to mammal lists Column headings: I = Introduced or not (+/-) E = Eaten or not (+/-) Etymologies: < = derived from ?< = possibly derived from lit. = literally SW = Swahili COM = Comorian NEC = Northeast Coast Bantu EB = Eastern Bantu

Table A1. Principal sources for island mammal lists and linguistics ISLAND

PRINCIPAL SOURCES

ZANZIBAR ARCHIPELAGO

Fauna: Pakenham (1984), Burgess and Clarke (2000), references in text

Pemba Swahili / Pemba dialects: Pakenham (1959; 1984), Entwistle and Corp (1995), own field notes (1994-96)

Unguja Swahili / Unguja dialects: Pakenham (1959; 1984), Goldman and Walsh (1997), Helle Goldman field notes (1996, 2003), own field notes (1994-)

MAFIA ARCHIPELAGO Fauna: Moreau and Pakenham (1940), Cockle et al. (1998), Burgess and Clarke (2000)

Mafia Swahili / Mafia dialects: Kipacha (2004), Pat Caplan pers comm. (2007), Ahmad Kipacha pers. comm. (2007)

COMORO ARCHIPELAGO Fauna: Louette et al. (2004)

Grand Comore Comorian / Ngazidja dialect: Ahmed-Chamanga and Gueunier (1979), Lafon (1991)

Anjouan Comorian / Ndzuwani dialect: Ahmed-Chamanga (1992, 1997)

Mayotte Comorian / Maore dialect: Blanchy (1996)

Malagasy / Kiboshy dialect: Gueunier (1986)

GENERAL Etymologies: Nurse and Hinnebusch (1993), Goldman and Walsh (1997), own field notes (1980-) and library research

Table A2. Pemba island mammals PEMBA MAMMAL SPECIES

I E LOCAL NAMES (Swahili dialects)

Order INSECTIVORA Family SORICIDAE - Shrews panya-(m)nyunga < Sabaki Tiny musk shrew, Crocidura fuscomurina - - kiruka-njia lit. ‘path-jumper’ Asian house shrew, Suncus murinus + - Order CHIROPTERA popo < Sabaki Suborder MACROCHIROPTERA Family PTEROPODIDAE - Fruit bats Straw-coloured fruit-bat, Eidolon helvum - + popo-mvumo lit. ‘borassus-palm bat’ sp. often treated as an immature form of the

Pemba flying fox (see names below) Wahlberg’s epauletted fruit-bat, Epomophorus wahlbergi

- ?

PEMBA MAMMAL SPECIES


Pemba flying fox, Pteropus voeltzkowi - + popo-maembe lit. ‘mango-fruit bat’ popo-mava lit. ‘burial grove bat’ popo-minazi lit. ‘coconut-palm bat’ popo-mnyama lit. ‘meat bat’ popo-mkubwa lit. ‘large bat’ donondo < Sabaki geuka ‘infant flying fox’, lit. ‘changer’ kizingo lit. ‘twister’ mbagu ?< NEC, EB nangwa ?< EB nyungo < ? cf. panya (m)nyunga ‘shrew

sp.’ (see above) (ma)zondo < ? cf. nyonda ‘small bat sp.’

(see below) Egyptian rousette, Rousettus aegyptiacus - ? popo-mgomba lit. ‘banana-palm bat’ Suborder MICROCHIROPTERA popo-mgomba ‘small bat sp.’ (generic) Family EMBALLONURIDAE - Sheath-tailed bats

African sheath-tailed bat, Coleura afra - ? Family NYCTERIDAE - Slit-faced bats Large slit-faced bat, Nycteris grandis - ? Family RHINOLOPHIDAE - Horseshoe & Leaf-nosed bats

Sundevall’s leaf-nosed bat, Hipposideros caffer

- ?

Giant African leaf-nosed bat, Hipposideros commersoni

- ?

Decken’s horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus deckenii

- ?

Family VESPERTILIONIDAE - Vesper bats

Banana pipistrelle, Pipistrellus nanus - ? popo-mgomba lit. ‘banana-palm bat’ ? African giant house bat, Scotophilus nigrita

Family MOLOSSIDAE - Free-tailed bats

?Mozambique free-tailed bat, Mops brachypterus

- ?

Little free-tailed bat, Tadarida (Chaerephon) pumila

- ?

- + dosari ~ kidosari ~ popo kidosari ‘small bat sp.’ lit. ‘blemish(ed bat)’ [slit-faced bat?]

- - donya ~ kidonya ~ ndonya ~ popo-ndonya ‘small bat sp.’ lit. ‘lip-plug bat’ [horseshoe / leaf-nosed bat?]

- + ndorinya ‘small bat sp.’ lit. ‘lip-plug (bat)’ [horseshoe / leaf-nosed bat?]

- ? nyonda ‘small bat sp.’ ?< ndonya (metathesis) or ?< Sabaki, EB

- + twira ‘small bat sp.’ = ndorinya’ ?< EB [horseshoe / leaf-nosed bat?]

- ? putiputi ‘small bat sp.’ < EB

PEMBA MAMMAL SPECIES


Order PRIMATES Family GALAGONIDAE - Bushbabies Small-eared greater galago, Otolemur garnetti

- - komba < Sabaki

Family CERCOPITHECIDAE - Cheek-pouch monkeys

Vervet monkey, Chlorocebus aethiops - - tumbili < Sabaki ko(o)gwe ‘mature male’ ?< Zanzibar red colobus, Colobus kirkii + - (recent introduction) Order CARNIVORA Family HERPESTIDAE Marsh mongoose, Atilax paludinosus - - chonjwe ?< Sabaki ?Slender mongoose, Herpestes sanguineus - - ?Banded mongoose, Mungos mungo + - Family VIVERRIDAE - Genets & civets Small Indian civet, Viverricula indica + - ngawa < Sabaki ? - ramb(w)e ‘unidentified carnivore sp.’ ?<

Sabaki or EB Order HYRACOIDEA Family PROCAVIIDAE - Hyraxes East African tree hyrax, Dendrohyrax validus

- + pelele < SW < NEC, EB

Order ARTIODACTYLA Family SUIDAE - Pigs Domestic pig (feral), Sus scrofa domesticus + - nguruwe < Sabaki Family BOVIDAE - Horned ungulates Blue duiker, Cephalophus monticola - + paa < Sabaki chesi < Sabaki Order RODENTIA Family MURIDAE - Murid rats & mice panya < Sabaki Common house mouse, Mus musculus + - ?Norway Rat, Rattus norvegicus + - Black rat, Rattus rattus + - ? - kocho ‘house rat’ ?< NEC, EB ? - buku ‘large house rat’ < Sabaki Table A3. Unguja island mammals UNGUJA MAMMAL SPECIES


Order INSECTIVORA Family SORICIDAE - Shrews panya-nyunga

< Sabaki Greater musk shrew, Crocidura flavescens - - Tiny musk shrew, Crocidura fuscomurina - - Jackson’s musk shrew, Crocidura jacksoni - - Northern savanna musk shrew, Crocidura viaria

- -

Asian house shrew, Suncus murinus + - Order CHIROPTERA popo < Sabaki

UNGUJA MAMMAL SPECIES


Suborder MACROCHIROPTERA Family PTEROPODIDAE - Fruit bats Straw-coloured fruit-bat, Eidolon helvum - - Little epauletted fruit-bat, Epomophorus labiatus

- -

Wahlberg’s epauletted fruit-bat, Epomophorus wahlbergi

- - popo-uma lit. ‘biting-bat’

Egyptian rousette, Rousettus aegyptiacus - - Suborder MICROCHIROPTERA Family EMBALLONURIDAE - Sheath-tailed bats

Hildegarde’s tomb bat, Taphozous hildegardeae

- -

Mauritian tomb bat, Taphozous mauritianus

- -

Family NYCTERIDAE - Slit-faced bats Large slit-faced bat, Nycteris grandis - - Hairy slit-faced bat, Nycteris hispida - - Large-eared slit-faced bat, Nycteris macrotis

- -

Egyptian slit-faced bat, Nycteris thebaica - - Family MEGADERMATIDAE - Large-winged bats

Heart-nosed bat, Cardioderma cor - - Yellow-winged bat, Lavia frons - - Family RHINOLOPHIDAE - Horseshoe & Leaf-nosed bats

Sundevall’s leaf-nosed bat, Hipposideros caffer

- -

Giant African leaf-nosed bat, Hipposideros commersoni

- -

Noack’s leaf-nosed bat, Hipposideros ruber

- -

Decken’s horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus deckenii

- -

Swinny’s horseshoe bat, Rhinolophus swinnyi

- -

Family VESPERTILIONIDAE - Vesper bats

Cape serotine, Eptesicus capensis - - Woolly bat sp., Kerivoula sp. - - Banana pipistrelle, Pipistrellus nanus - - popo-mgomba

lit. ‘banana-palm bat’ African giant house bat, Scotophilus nigrita - - popo-mgomba Southern lesser house bat, Scotophilus viridis

- -

Family MOLOSSIDAE - Free-tailed bats

Mozambique free-tailed bat, Mops brachypterus

- -

Little free-tailed bat, Tadarida (Chaerephon) pumila

- -

Order PRIMATES



Family GALAGONIDAE - Bushbabies komba < Sabaki Zanzibar galago, Galagoides zanzibaricus - - ndere < EB Small-eared greater galago, Otolemur garnetti

- -

kihodi ‘unidentified sp.’ < SW Family CERCOPITHECIDAE - Cheek-pouch monkeys

Blue monkey, Cercopithecus mitis - - kima < Sabaki kima mweusi lit. ‘black or dark-coloured

monkey’ korwa ~ kolwa ‘mature male’ < EB ?Vervet monkey, Chlorocebus aethiops + - Zanzibar red colobus, Colobus kirkii - - punju ~ kima-punju ?lit. ‘poison-monkey’

or < EB ? - cheta ‘small monkey sp.’ (Makunduchi) <

EB. cf. Comorian / Ngazidja shita ‘monkey sp.’

Order CARNIVORA Family FELIDAE - Cats Zanzibar leopard, Panthera pardus adersi - - chui < Sabaki nyolopa < EB chui-asili variety, lit. ‘original leopard’ bete ~ kibete variety, lit. ‘dwarf’ bungala variety, ?lit. ‘Bengali’ or ?< Malay

(also the name of varieties of banana, rice and cassava)

futizi variety ?< SW kariuki variety ?< SW kichigi variety, lit. ‘mannikin’ (or a similar

small bird sp.) koko variety, lit. ‘wild (leopard)’ konge ~ mkonge ~ konga variety, lit. ‘ mwanzi ~ chui-mwanzi variety, lit.

‘bamboo (leopard)’ ngawa variety, lit. ‘African civet’ sutu ~ kisutu variety ?< SW or EB unyasi ~ chui unyasi variety, lit. ‘grass

(leopard)’ uwanda ~ chui uwanda variety, lit.

‘bushland (leopard)’ bange euphemism, bwana mkubwa euphemism, lit. ‘big-man’ chuma euphemism, lit. ‘iron (i.e. strong)’ dume euphemism, lit. ‘male’ keke euphemism, ?lit. ‘alarm’ masharubu euphemism, lit. ‘whiskers’ (mi)rime euphemism, ?lit. ‘magicial power’ shambi-shambi ?< SW shwambu euphemism < ? twiga euphemism, lit. ‘giraffe’ Family HERPESTIDAE Bushy-tailed mongoose, Bdeogale crassicauda

- - kitu < Sabaki



Slender mongoose, Herpestes (Galerella) sanguineus

- - cheche < SW < EB

Banded mongoose, Mungos mungo + - nguchiro < SW < Rufiji-Ruvuma, EB ? - ukwiri ‘mongoose sp.’ < Sabaki Family VIVERRIDAE - Genets & civets African civet, Civettictis civetta - - ngawa < Sabaki Servaline genet, Genetta servalina ushund(w)i < SW <EB uchui lit. ‘slender leopard’ uchui-umwangu lit. ‘thin slender leopard’ uhange (identification uncertain) < ? African palm civet, Nandinia binotata - - Small Indian civet, Viverricula indica + - fungo < Sabaki ? - ramb(w)e ‘unidentified carnivore sp.’ ?<

EB Order HYRACOIDEA Family PROCAVIIDAE - Hyraxes East African tree hyrax, Dendrohyrax validus

- + pelele < SW < EB

Order ARTIODACTYLA Family SUIDAE - Pigs nguruwe < Sabaki Bushpig, Potamochoerus larvatus kitanga ~ nguruwe-kitanga ‘solitary male’

< ? cf. Malagasy antsanga ‘bushpig’ jendaheka ‘solitary male’ ?lit. ‘roams

alone’ mkonge ‘large male or female bushpig’ bungala ‘large male or female bushpigs’

?lit. ‘Bengali’ (also the name of crop varieties)

kichigi ‘small bushpig’ lit. ‘mannikin’ (or a similar small bird sp.)

masuruali ‘hairy bushpig’ lit. ‘trousers’ Domestic pig (feral), Sus scrofa domesticus + - Family BOVIDAE - Horned ungulates paa ‘mini-antelope, duiker & suni’ < Sabaki Ader’s duiker, Cephalophus adersi - + paa-nunga < Sabaki Blue duiker, Cephalophus monticola - + paa-chesi < Sabaki Suni, Neotragus moschatus - + paa-mwekundu lit. ‘red mini-antelope’ paa-kazi ‘female suni’ (sometimes used for

both sexes) lit. ‘female mini-antelope’ chongoume ~ paa-chongome ‘male suni’

lit. ‘horned male (mini-antelope)’ Order RODENTIA Family SCIURIDAE - Squirrels Red-legged sun squirrel, Heliosciurus rufobrachium

- - furuma < Sabaki

furuma-mweupe ‘light form’ lit. ‘light-coloured sun squirrel’

furuma-mweusi ‘dark form’ lit. ‘dark-coloured sun squirrel’

Red bush squirrel, Paraxerus palliatus - - chindi ~ kindi < Sabaki ? - chindi-mweupe lit. ‘light-coloured (red

bush) squirrel’ ? chindi-mwekundu lit. ‘reddish-coloured

(red bush) squirrel’



Family MURIDAE - Murid rats & mice panya < Sabaki Forest pouched rat, Cricetomys gambianus - - buku < Sabaki Common house mouse, Mus musculus + - Norway Rat, Rattus norvegicus + - Black rat, Rattus rattus + - Order MACROSCELIDAE Family MACROSCELIDIDAE - Elephant-shrews

kigombo ~ ngombo ~ njombo < EB

Four-toed elephant shrew, Petrodomus tetradactylus

- - ngombo-panya lit. ‘rat-like elephant shrew’

Black-and-rufous elephant shrew, Rhynchocyon petersi

- - ngombo-nunga lit. ‘shrew-like elephant shrew’

kirodo ?< Rufiji-Ruvuma Table A4. Mafia island mammals MAFIA MAMMAL SPECIES


Order INSECTIVORA Family SORICIDAE - Shrews Jackson’s musk shrew, Crocidura jacksoni - - Order CHIROPTERA popo < Sabaki Suborder MACROCHIROPTERA Family PTEROPODIDAE - Fruit bats popo-kubwa lit. ‘large bat’ Little epauletted fruit bat, Epomophorus labiatus - - Wahlberg’s epauletted fruit-bat, Epomophorus wahlbergi

- -

Seychelles flying fox, Pteropus seychellensis - - Egyptian rousette, Rousettus aegyptiacus - - Suborder MICROCHIROPTERA Family RHINOLOPHIDAE - Horseshoe & Leaf-nosed bats

Short-eared trident bat, Cloeotis percivali - - Commerson’s leaf-nosed bat, Hipposideros commersoni

- -

Noack’s leaf-nosed bat, Hipposideros ruber - - Family VESPERTILIONIDAE - Vesper bats Southern lesser house bat, Scotophilus viridis - - Order PRIMATES Family GALAGONIDAE - Bushbabies Large-eared greater galago, Otolemur crassicaudatus

- - komba < Sabaki

Family CERCOPITHECIDAE - Cheek-pouch monkeys

kima < Sabaki

Blue monkey, Cercopithecus mitis - - Vervet monkey, Chlorocebus aethiops - - Order CARNIVORA Family HERPESTIDAE Egyptian mongoose, Herpestes ichneumon - - Javan mongoose, Herpestes javanicus + -

MAFIA MAMMAL SPECIES


Family VIVERRIDAE - Genets & civets Small Indian civet, Viverricula indica + - Order HYRACOIDEA Family PROCAVIIDAE - Hyraxes East African tree hyrax, Dendrohyrax validus - - Order ARTIODACTYLA Family SUIDAE - Pigs nguruwe < Sabaki Bush pig, Potamochoerus larvatus - - tunbi < East Ruvu, NEC Domestic pig (feral), Sus scrofa domesticus - - Family HIPPOPOTAMIDAE - Hipppopotamuses

Hippopotamus, Hippopotamus amphibious - + bonko ~ kiboko < SW < NEC Family BOVIDAE - Horned ungulates Blue duiker, Cephalophus monticola - + chesi < Sabaki Suni, Neotragus moschatus - + nbara < Rufiji-Ruvuma Order RODENTIA Family SCIURIDAE - Squirrels kichindi < Sabaki Red-legged sun squirrel, Heliosciurus rufobrachium

- -

?Southern sun squirrel, Heliosciurus mutabilis - - Red bush squirrel, Paraxerus palliatus - - Family MURIDAE - Murid rats & mice panya < Sabaki Natal multimammate rat, Mastomys natalensis - - Forest pouched rat, Cricetomys gambianus - - kupe < Sabaki Black rat, Rattus rattus + - buku< SW ?< Sabaki, NEC Family HYSTRICIDAE - Porcupines Porcupine sp., Hystrix sp. (not identified) ? - Order MACROSCELIDAE Family MACROSCELIDIDAE - Elephant-shrews

Four-toed elephant shrew, Petrodomus tetradactylus

- -

Black-and-rufous elephant shrew, Rhynchocyon petersi

- - ntoro < Rufiji-Ruvuma

Table A5. Grand Comore island mammals GRAND COMORE MAMMAL SPECIES

I E LOCAL NAMES (Comorian / Ngazidja dialect)

Order INSECTIVORA Family TENRECIDAE - Tenrecs and Otter-shrews

Common tenrec, Tenrec ecaudatus + + landa < Malay Order CHIROPTERA ndema < Sabaki Suborder MACROCHIROPTERA Family PTEROPODIDAE - Fruit bats Seychelles flying fox, Pteropus seychellensis - Comoro rousette, Rousettus obliviosus - Suborder MICROCHIROPTERA Family VESPERTILIONIDAE - Vesper bats

GRAND COMORE MAMMAL SPECIES

I E LOCAL NAMES (Comorian / Ngazidja dialect)

Malagasy mouse-eared bat, Myotis goudoti - Least long-fingered bat, Miniopterus minor - Family MOLOSSIDAE - Free-tailed bats Little free-tailed bat, Tadarida (Chaerephon) pumila

-

- ndrara-susu ~ ngara-susu ‘small bat sp.’ ?< Corridor, EB

- na(n)tutu ‘unidentified sp.’ < Makua, Nyanja

Order PRIMATES Family LEMURIDAE - ‘True’ Lemurs ?Lemur sp. (domesticated and possibly feral?) + komba < Sabaki Family CERCOPITHECIDAE - Cheek-pouch monkeys

?Monkey sp. (imported pets or referring to monkeys elsewhere?)

+ - (n)kima < Sabaki

shita cf. SW / Kae cheta ‘small monkey sp.’ < EB

Order CARNIVORA Family HERPESTIDAE Javan mongoose, Herpestes javanicus auropunctatus

+ - mtulu < Makua cf. COM / Ndzuwani mtuli ‘mongoose sp.’

Family VIVERRIDAE - Genets & civets Small Indian civet, Viverricula indica + - Order ARTIODACTYLA Family SUIDAE - Pigs Domestic pig (feral), Sus scrofa domesticus + - purunku ?< Malagasy dialect ?<

Portuguese Order RODENTIA Family MURIDAE - Murid rats & mice panya < Sabaki puhu < Sabaki Common house mouse, Mus musculus + - Black rat, Rattus rattus + - ? - mtsentse-mtsentse ~ mtsentsentse

‘unidentified sp.’ ?< Sabaki Table A6. Anjouan island mammals ANJOUAN MAMMAL SPECIES

I E LOCAL NAMES (Comorian / Ndzuwani dialect)

Order INSECTIVORA Family TENRECIDAE - Tenrecs and Otter-shrews

Common tenrec, Tenrec ecaudatus + + landra < Malay Order CHIROPTERA ndrema < Sabaki Suborder MACROCHIROPTERA Family PTEROPODIDAE - Fruit bats mla-manga lit. ‘mango-eater’ Seychelles flying fox, Pteropus seychellensis - Livingstone’s flying fox, Pteropus livingstonii - Comoro rousette, Rousettus obliviosus -

ANJOUAN MAMMAL SPECIES

I E LOCAL NAMES (Comorian / Ndzuwani dialect)

Suborder MICROCHIROPTERA Family VESPERTILIONIDAE - Vesper bats Malagasy mouse-eared bat, Myotis goudoti - Least long-fingered bat, Miniopterus minor - Family MOLOSSIDAE - Free-tailed bats Little free-tailed bat, Tadarida (Chaerephon) pumila

-

- shivwirivwiri ‘small bat sp.’ < Sabaki

Order PRIMATES Family LEMURIDAE - ‘True’ Lemurs Mongoose lemur, Eulemur mongoz + nkomba < Sabaki Order CARNIVORA Family HERPESTIDAE ?Mongoose sp. (imported pets or referring to monkeys elsewhere?)

+ - mtuli < Makua cf. Ngazidja mtulu ‘Javan mongoose’

Family VIVERRIDAE - Genets & civets Small Indian civet, Viverricula indica + - funga ~ mpaha-funga < Sabaki Order RODENTIA Family MURIDAE - Murid rats & mice puhu ~ mpuhu ?< Sabaki, NEC Common house mouse, Mus musculus + - shikwetse ‘mouse sp.’ ?< Makua Black rat, Rattus rattus + - pukuli ‘large rat’ ?< *mpuhu-kuli

?< Makua ? - pu-mtsutsu ‘unidentified sp. with

thin and pointed snout’ < *mpuhu-mtsutsu ?lit. ‘tiny mouse’

Table A7. Mayotte island mammals MAYOTTE MAMMAL SPECIES

I E LOCAL NAMES (Comorian / Maore dialect & Malagasy / Kiboshy dialect)

Order INSECTIVORA Family SORICIDAE - Shrews Madagascar pygmy shrew, Suncus madagascariensis

+ -

Family TENRECIDAE - Tenrecs and Otter-shrews

Common tenrec, Tenrec ecaudatus + + Maore: landra < Malay Kiboshy: trandraka <

Austronesian Order CHIROPTERA Maore: nd(r)ema ~ dema ~

dremela < Sabaki Maore: fani < Malagasy Suborder MACROCHIROPTERA Family PTEROPODIDAE - Fruit bats Seychelles flying fox, Pteropus seychellensis - Maore: mla-manga lit. ‘mango-

eater’ Maore: dema-katsa ?lit. ‘turtle-bat’ Kiboshy: fanihy < Austronesian

MAYOTTE MAMMAL SPECIES

I E LOCAL NAMES (Comorian / Maore dialect & Malagasy / Kiboshy dialect)

Kiboshy: voromalahèlo lit. ‘sad-bird’

Suborder MICROCHIROPTERA Maore: ndremawili < Sabaki. cf. Ndzuwani shivwirivwiri ‘small bat sp.’

Family EMBALLONURIDAE - Sheath-tailed bats

Mauritian tomb bat, Taphozous mauritianus - Family MOLOSSIDAE - Free-tailed bats Little free-tailed bat, Tadarida (Chaerephon) pumila

-

Order PRIMATES Family LEMURIDAE - ‘True’ Lemurs Common brown lemur, Eulemur fulvus fulvus + Maore: komba < Sabaki Kiboshy: ankomba ~ akomba <

Sabaki Order CARNIVORA Family VIVERRIDAE - Genets & civets Small Indian civet, Viverricula indica + - Maore: funga < Sabaki Maore: ngava < Sabaki Order ARTIODACTYLA Family SUIDAE - Pigs Domestic pig (feral), Sus scrofa domesticus + - Maore: puruku nyeha lit. ‘wild

pig’ (puruku ?< Malagasy dialect ?< Portuguese)

Order RODENTIA Family MURIDAE - Murid rats & mice Maore: puhu ?< Sabaki, NEC Kiboshy: voalàvo ~ valàvo <

Austronesian Common house mouse, Mus musculus + - Maore: shikwetse < ? also

Ndzuwani Black rat, Rattus rattus + - Maore: trutri < ?

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Island Subsistence: Hunting, Trapping and the Translocation of Wildlife in the Western Indian Ocean

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