Mafia

Essay by Fredo28University, Bachelor'sA+, April 2004

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The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written in approximately AD50 , describes a well established trade route, linking Arabia with Azania, as the east coast of Africa was known in the Graeco-Roman era. The principal port of trade was Mocha (or Merku and Mark'a) in present day Yemen, and the last port in Azania was Rhapta, lying some two courses from the island of Menouthesias, itself 300 stadia - a measure of distance equivalent to about 50 km - from the coast. Menouthesias was "...a low island covered with trees in which are rivers..." according to the Periplus. And Rhapta lay to the south "...beside and to the east of a cape with a river..." according to a separate source, Ptolemy , in his famous Geographia. The locations of both Menouthesias and Rhapta have confounded scholars since the Periplus was first translated in 1912. Some scholars argue that Zanzibar or Pemba may be the fabled Menouthesias with Rhapta somewhere between Bagamoyo and Dar es Salaam.

The trade links to Mocha indicate that the Sabaeans, ancestors of the Yemenis, claimed ancient right to over-lordship of the Azania coast, although this is believed to have been an arrangement to reduce trade competition rather than the result of conquest. Rhapta and its hinterland were governed, undoubtedly tenuously, by these people, believed to be the Ma'afir, a tribe of Himyaritic stock. The control from the Ma'afir may explain the name of "Mafia".

It is not too fanciful to suggest that Mafia is the Menouthesias of the ancients and Rhapta was in the area of Kilwa. Ptolemy located Rhapta at 8o South (where the Delta lies) and "...near a big river..." these geographical descriptions and the mention of many crocodiles in the old writings certainly support the possibility of the Rufiji Delta as...