Mbachile

Who holds it

Title

Chief (bedja, in later tradition)

Since

Not pinned

Confidence

low

Lord in 1200

Its own chief, not known.

Charter

None known: Swahili towns had no written charters.

Council

Not recorded.

Communities

Villagers of Bantu and Austronesian descent.

Fairs and markets

No fairs; trade follows the monsoon season (ships arrive with the north-east kaskazi from about November and leave with the south-west kusi from about April).

Militia

Not recorded.

Walls and castle

None recorded.

Trade and crafts

Fishing and overseas trade.

Where the sources disagree

• The site's attribution to the Dembeni phase is from memory of Wright (1984) and was not checked; coordinates approximate.

Evidence: Archaeology cited from memory.

Primary sources for Comoros

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The coins of Kilwa and the early Swahili inscriptions (coins struck from about the eleventh century; dated inscriptions from 1107). The only contemporary writing from the coast around 1200.
• Mapungubwe, the Zimbabwe plateau, Toutswe and the Comoros: the archaeological record (no text; radiocarbon-dated sites). There is no written word from the interior south of the Zambezi or from the Comoros in 1200; all that is known is from excavation. Read online
• The East African Coast: Select Documents, Various (edited and translated by G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville) (the collection published 1962; second edition 1975). The standard English collection for the coast, and the one place to read together everything written about the Swahili towns near 1200: al-Masudi and Buzurg ibn Shahriyar (tenth century), al-Idrisi (1154), Yaqut (1220s), Ibn al-Mujawir (1220s), Ibn Said, the Chinese notices of Duan Chengshi and Zhao Rugua (1225), Ibn Battuta's visit of 1331, the Kilwa Chronicle in both versions, and the Portuguese.