By Patrick Beja
If an ambitious project to retrieve a ship that sunk 600 years ago off Lamu is successful, then Kenya and China could confirm links that date back many centuries.
The Chinese Government and the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) have embarked on an archaeological venture aimed at finding out if a group of shipwrecked early Chinese explorers settled on Lamu Island and intermarried with the local people.
A Pate Island resident walks into one of the ruins built by early, foreign, settlers. |
Mwanaisha Mohamed, right, and her sister Aluya Mohamed from a Pate Island family believed to have Chinese links. READ MOREAnxiety as Mombasa port is slapped with surcharges amid ship delays What international laws say about Museveni's Indian Ocean claims Shipowners lobby objects new container cleaning charges at Mombasa port |
Mwanaisha Badishee, the scion of the family, and her grandchildren. Photos: Marufu Mohammed/Standard |
The Chinese Government has been interested in proving the link since 2005 when some scientists from China were commissioned to take hair samples from the families for DNA testing that proved the connection.
A recent discovery that a Chinese merchant ship that sunk six centuries ago lies in the deep sea, off Pate Island, justified the commissioning of the archaeological mission.
Most members of a large family at Shanga village, Pate Island, locally nicknamed as ‘Chinese family’, whose scion is 70-year-old Ms Baraka Badishee, bear distinctive Asian features such as yellowness of the skin and almond eyes.
Badishee said members of her family have many porcelain utensils passed down for generations.
"This was passed over to me by my mother who inherited it from my grandmother," she explained, holding them up.
"A few years ago, Chinese scientists visited us and took our hair samples for tests," she adds.
Several Chinese ambassadors to Kenya have visited the family and offered help.
Badishee’s daughter Mwamaka Sharifa got a scholarship to study medicine in China five years ago. The NMK Director General Idle Farah confirmed the Chinese Government offered a girl from the area a scholarship about five years ago to study medicine in Beijing after discovering the families who bear Chinese features.
Mohamed Sharif, Badishee’s husband, says the family lineage have been proud of their Chinese link.
Apart from the Chinese history, Pate island bears NMK-protected archaeological ruins of Arab and Portuguese eras in the coast that date back over 500 years.
Dome-shaped tombs, grave pillars and ruins of ancient town walls are preserved as heritage sights.
Siyu, Shanga and Lamu islands are ancient Swahili settlements but have hosted Omani Arabs, Portuguese, British and Chinese settlers in the past.
Shanghai and Shanga
Though Shanghai is far away from Shanga, the village bears so much Chinese history that it is believed to have derived its name from Shanghai.
This year, archaeologists from China and NMK will camp at Shanga and Siyu to seek to unravel the Chinese connection.
Last month, China’s Ambassador to Kenya Veng Hogbo said his country was keen to have the shipwreck lifted off the Indian Ocean depths to be studied by archaeologists.
"We are interested to see the Chinese ship wreck retrieved from the sea bed in Lamu for purpose of heritage," Hogbo told Coast Provincial Commissioner Ernest Munyi when he paid him a courtesy call in his Mombasa office.
In June this year, Dr Farah says, museum experts from Kenya and China will embark on a three-year archaeological project, that will cost about Sh200 million, to re-float the ship.
Sailors from the lost ship were believed to have settled for some years on Pate Island and married local women.
The name of the sunken ship remains unknown. But history records show Chinese navigator, Zheng He, of the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644), commanded seven merchant expeditions to western Indian Ocean between 1405 and 1433.
He is believed to have commanded a flotilla of 50 ships on a single voyage and the ship that sank at Shanga is said to have been part of fleet.
Zheng’s fleet used to launch its voyages from Taicang city in East China’s Jiangsu Province.
According to Dr Farah, NMK officials from the two countries signed an agreement three weeks ago, in Beijing, to undertake the study.
"Two Kenyan archeologists will undergo training in China in underwater archaeology before the search begins in November," Farah explained.
The archaeologists from China and Kenya will work for two months every year and investigate sites both on land and under water.
Shipwreck
NMK Assistant Director in-charge of Museums and Monuments in Coast Province, says earlier assessments confirmed the Chinese shipwreck was imbedded off Shanga.
"Local divers have so far retrieved Chinese porcelain jugs from the wreck," he says.
Hussein, who is part of the Kenyan delegation that witnessed the signing of the agreement to explore the site, says Coast Province has many other underwater shipwrecks that bear rich history.
"We plan to establish a maritime museum in Lamu once the Chinese ship wreck is lifted from the sea bed," Hussein explains.
China has dispatched teams of experts since 2005 to the Lamu islands to investigate historical links with Kenya.
