Pre-Austronesian origins of seafaring in Insular Southeast Asia

Waruno Mahdi

Fritz Haber Institute • Berlin~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Cultural Transfers in Historical Maritime Asia: Austronesian-Indic Encounters”Conference:

Singapore, 2–3 December 2013

Early sailing routes attributed to Malay shipping

Bay ofBengalArabian

Sea

ISEAYavadvipa

Indian Ocean

China

India

Sofala

Taiwan

Pacific Ocean

Taruma

Dunsun

Sea crossings to and beyond Sahul, and high-sea fishing

28,000 BP

49,000 ÷ 43,000 BP

> 42,000 BP

Sunda

Sahul

> 35,000 BP

Pacific OceanSouthChinaSea

Indian Ocean

from Late Pleistocene through Middle Holocene The rising sea and inundation of Sunda-Sahul

Sunda

Sahul

Kuk•

Pacific OceanSouthChinaSea

Indian Ocean

14,000 – 7,000 BP (... 4,000 BP)

Primeval developments of watercraft constructionin ISEA and around the South China Sea

from a raft tapered raft

multiple canoewith dugout hulls

elements of a

five-part hull

double canoewith dugout hulls

double canoewith five-part hulls

Protoforms of words for ‘person’ in Austronesian languages

(1) Taiwan; (2) the Philippines; (3) Sulawesi & surroundings; (4) west of Sulawesi;(5) Nusa Tenggara; (6) Maluku; (7) West Papua & Papua-New Guinea; (8) Further Oceania

Development of the Chinese junk from a double canoezhōu ‘boat’ as reflected in the form of the character

770 – 250 BCE 1300 – 1046 BCEmodern bamboo raft

Modern & Eastern Zhou (770 – 250 BCE):

fǎng‘two boats lashed together’

chuán‘boats, ship’

(Karlgren 1940)

Words for ‘two boats lashed together’ in Chinese

Protoforms of words for ‘boat’ in Austronesian languages

(Blust 2009)

Derivations of the root *liu ~ *liw ‘change, exchange, return’

Secondary protoform *ba-liw > *beli ‘buy’

Distribution of reflexes of the Malayo-Polynesian protoform *beli “buy”

Bugotu voli

Fiji voli

Mota wolKwaio foli

Arosi horiM

otu hoiWandamen bori

Fordata veli

Yamdena béli-n

Asilulu heli

Wetan w

eli

Leti weli

Tetun foli-n

Roti be

li

Kambe

ra w

íli

W.-Cham play Rhade bley Ta

galog

bilí

Tirur

ay be

ley

Malay beli

Aceh blòè

Kadazan bohi

Bintulu beley

Iban beliKayan belé

Toba- Batak boli

Simalur feli

Nias õliRejang bley

Lampu

ng be

li

Sunda

nese

beuli

Old-Ja

vane

se a-

weli

Baline

se be

liSangir belli

Bolaang-Mongondou boli

Makassar balli

Mangg

arai w

eli

Taga

bili b

eli

Kelabit belih

Ngaju bali

Paiwan veli

© Waruno Mahdi

The Malayo-Polynesian dispersal (2500 – 1000 BCE) andISEA – South China Sea maritime communication (2100 BCE – 500 CE)

From‘boat’ to ‘coffin’ East of the straits:

West of the straits:

Ship-of-the-dead cult: (Steinmann 1937)

Toba Batak

Kroë Lampung

SE Kalimantan

West Papua

Alor

Ngoc-lu (on bronze drum)

Pacific-Ocean cultivar

Indian-Ocean cultivar

The coconut in Valmiki’s Ramayana:

Book 1 of the Mahabharata,the Adiparva

Ptolemaic atlas of the Indian “Sea”

naked people

anthropophági (cannibals)-

Nâga “sea pirates” in the Bay of Bengal submitted toemperor  Asoka after the latter adopted the Buddhistreligion (c. 260 BCE).´

(according to Ksemendra).

The Mons called these sea rovers Raksasa ‘cannibal demons’ .In Burmese tradition they were called Bilù ‘kind of

monster which eats human flesh and possessessuper-human eyes’

Bilù-gyùnisland

Moken(Mergui islands)

´

Hypothetical routes of pre-500 CE maritime communication by Malayo-Polynesian and Negrito shipping

)(

Arabia

Harappa

Mohenjo-daro

Azania

Persia

Sri Lanka

Cham

Sofala

Mal

agas

yViêt

YavaSri Vijaya

Barus

Khmer

Taruma

Saba

Kaling

a

Ophir Tamil-akam

TaiwanGuang-zhou

Luzon

MuaraKaman

Maluku

Regiocinnamomifera

Rmañ

Thank youTerima kasih