This article on the Swahili economy details some of the manner of living of the Swahili culture society of the 11th through 16th centuries AD, when they were an important controlling part of the trade between Africa, India, Arabia and the far east.
Household Production
The elite classes lived in stone built houses and took an important, first hand role in the continuation of trade. Most of the non-elite Swahili culture people were influenced by the international connections, but primarily fished and farmed and kept chickens, cattle and sheep. Domestic dogs and cats, and, in the north, donkeys and camels, were important parts of non-elite Swahili economy. The northern parts of the coast had contact with nomadic pastoralists, and probably had a more nomadic lifestyle than the farmers of the south. In addition to providing subsistence, fish salting and drying served as part of the trade.
The production of cotton and the processing of crops was carried on within the interiors of homes; refuse is consistently deposited west of the doorways. Archaeological excavations within the houses recovered caches of crops and material goods below the floors of rooms in the backs of houses: these areas were also the focus of mundane cooking, small scale production and crop processing.
Open Public Spaces
The purpose of spaces or plazas in Swahili towns are today subject to interpretation. Archaeologists have interpreted open spaces in Swahili towns as open-air meeting places; markets; public space for festivals, weddings, feasts and game-playing; space planned for future growth; gardens or orchards; workshop areas; or where impermanent earth and thatch buildings once stood. Archaeological evidence suggests any or several of these purposes were the case in different places.
Often cemeteries were placed adjacent to public spaces, with imposing and decorative tombs occupying prominent positions in the landscape. Cemetery spaces are found within the town, and outside of it; in clusters or scattered throughout the settlement. Locations may indicate class rankings, or kinship connections. Single tombs were those of holy men, and they are located on the edges of the settlement and grouped at the mosque, where they were destinations for pilgrimages.
Burial practices were to bind the body with cloth before interment. Head and footstones, or walled tombs, were built often long after the death of the individual. Burial rituals included the presence of palm fronds (indicated by phytoliths) and burned plant material, perhaps incense or food offerings.
Causeways
Causeways, a focus of study by Edward Pollard and colleagues, were constructed on the seaward ends of several islands in the Kilwa archipelago, beginning in the late 13th to 16th century, and likely in support of sea trade. The purpose of the causeways, their grandness and their association with highly visible mosques and large stone houses indicates the causeway's importance as a port, or the beginning or end of a journey.
Most of the causeways were built at the height of the greatest wealth at Kilwa, when a virtual monopoly of the gold trade was secured. Causeways measure between 7 and 12 meters (23-40 feet) wide and up to 200 m (650 ft) long, and are built of loose coral cobbles placed along bedrock, some cemented together with sand and lime mortar. The causeways typically end in platforms at the seaward end, and these measure up to 70 m (230 ft) in diameter.
Feasting and Political Control
According to the records of the 14th century Morrocan scholar Ib'n Battuta, the court of Mogadishu gave a feast in the Sheikh's house, surrounded by his judges, religious leaders and other promininent men of the community. Fleisher (2010) reports that feasting was an important part of Swahili life, and increased particularly during the 12th and 13th centuries, when a number of small towns grew to prominence. By the 15th and 16th centuries, feasts were thrown by generous kings and chiefs for the people ('patron-role feasts').
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to the Swahili Culture, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Breen C, and Lane PJ. 2003. Archaeological Approaches to East Africa's Changing Seascapes. World Archaeology 35(3):469-489.
Fleisher J. 2010. Rituals of Consumption and the Politics of Feasting on the Eastern African Coast, AD 700–1500. Journal of World Prehistory 23(4):195-217.
Fleisher J, and Wynne-Jones S. 2012. Finding Meaning in Ancient Swahili Spatial Practices. African Archaeological Review 29(2):171-207.
LaViolette A. 2008. In: Editor-in-Chief: Deborah MP, editor. Encyclopedia of Archaeology. New York: Academic Press. p 19-21.
Pollard E. 2008. Inter-Tidal Causeways and Platforms of the 13th- to 16th-Century City-State of Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania. International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 37(1):98-114.
Pollard E. 2011. Safeguarding Swahili trade in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: a unique navigational complex in south-east Tanzania. World Archaeology 43(3):458-477.
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Wynne-Jones S, and Fleisher J. 2012. Coins in Context: Local Economy, Value and Practice on the East African Swahili Coast. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 22(1):19-36.
Zhao B. 2012. Global Trade and Swahili Cosmopolitan Material Culture: Chinese-Style Ceramic Shards from Sanje ya Kati and Songo Mnara (Kilwa, Tanzania). Journal of World History 23(1):41-85.
