Acting On The Advice Of Aristotle, Alexander
Removed The Inhabitants From Their Island, And Established In Their Place
A Colony Of Ionians, To Whom He Entrusted The Care Of Cultivating Aloes.
These Greeks Were Converted When The Christian Religion Was Preached To
Them, And Their Descendants Have Remained Christians.
- H.C.]
In the list of the metropolitan Sees of the Nestorian Church we find one
called Kotrobah, which is supposed to stand for Socotra. According to
Edrisi, Kotrobah was an island inhabited by Christians; he speaks of
Socotra separately, but no island suits his description of Kotrobah but
Socotra itself; and I suspect that we have here geography in duplicate, no
uncommon circumstance. There is an epistle extant from the Nestorian
Patriarch Jesujabus (A.D. 650-660), ad Episcopos Catarensium, which
Assemani interprets of the Christians in Socotra and the adjacent coasts
of Arabia (III. 133).[1] Abulfeda says the people of Socotra were
Nestorian Christians and pirates. Nicolo Conti, in the first half of the
15th century, spent two months on the island (Sechutera). He says it was
for the most part inhabited by Nestorian Christians.
[Professor W.R. Smith, in a letter to Sir H. Yule, dated Cambridge, 15th
June, 1886, writes: "The authorities for Kotrobah seem to be (1) Edrisi,
(2) the list of Nestorian Bishops in Assemani. There is no trace of such a
name anywhere else that I can find. But there is a place called Katar
about which most of the Arab Geographers know very little, but which is
mentioned in poetry. Bekri, who seems best informed, says that it lay
between Bahrain and Oman.... Istakhri and Ibn Haukal speak of the Katar
pirates. Their collective name is the Katariya."]
Some indications point rather to a connection of the island's Christianity
with the Jacobite or Abyssinian Church. Thus they practised circumcision,
as mentioned by Maffei in noticing the proceedings of Alboquerque at
Socotra. De Barros calls them Jacobite Christians of the Abyssinian stock.
Barbosa speaks of them as an olive-coloured people, Christian only in
name, having neither baptism nor Christian knowledge, and having for many
years lost all acquaintance with the Gospel. Andrea Corsali calls them
Christian shepherds of Ethiopian race, like Abyssinians. They lived on
dates, milk, and butter; some rice was imported. They had churches like
mosques, but with altars in Christian fashion.
When Francis Xavier visited the island there were still distinct traces of
the Church. The people reverenced the cross, placing it on their altars,
and hanging it round their necks. Every village had its minister, whom
they called Kashis (Ar. for a Christian Presbyter), to whom they paid
tithe. No man could read. The Kashis repeated prayers antiphonetically in
a forgotten tongue, which De Barros calls Chaldee, frequently scattering
incense; a word like Alleluia often recurred. For bells they used wooden
rattles. They assembled in their churches four times a day, and held St.
Thomas in great veneration. The Kashises married, but were very
abstemious. They had two Lents, and then fasted strictly from meat, milk,
and fish.
The last vestiges of Christianity in Socotra, so far as we know, are those
traced by P. Vincenzo, the Carmelite, who visited the island after the
middle of the 17th century. The people still retained a profession of
Christianity, but without any knowledge, and with a strange jumble of
rites; sacrificing to the moon; circumcising; abominating wine and pork.
They had churches which they called Moquame (Ar. Makam, "Locus,
Statio"?), dark, low, and dirty, daily anointed with butter. On the altar
was a cross and a candle. The cross was regarded with ignorant reverence,
and carried in processions. They assembled in their churches three times
in the day, and three times in the night, and in their worship burned much
incense, etc. The priests were called Odambo, elected and consecrated by
the people, and changed every year. Of baptism and other sacraments they
had no knowledge.
There were two races: one, black with crisp hair; the other, less black,
of better aspect, and with straight hair. Each family had a cave in which
they deposited their dead. They cultivated a few palms, and kept flocks;
had no money, no writing, and kept tale of their flocks by bags of stones.
They often committed suicide in age, sickness, or defeat. When rain failed
they selected a victim by lot, and placing him within a circle, addressed
prayers to the moon. If without success they cut off the poor wretch's
hands. They had many who practised sorcery. The women were all called
Maria, which the author regarded as a relic of Christianity; this De
Barros also notices a century earlier.
Now, not a trace of former Christianity can be discovered - unless it be in
the name of one of the villages on the coast, Colesseeah, which looks as
if it faintly commemorated both the ancient religion and the ancient
language ([Greek: ekklaesia]). The remains of one building, traditionally
a place of worship, were shown to Wellsted; he could find nothing to
connect it with Christianity.
The social state of the people is much as Father Vincenzo described it;
lower it could scarcely be. Mahomedanism is now the universal profession.
The people of the interior are still of distinct race, with curly hair,
Indian complexion, regular features. The coast people are a mongrel body,
of Arab and other descent. Probably in old times the case was similar, and
the civilisation and Greek may have been confined to the littoral
foreigners. (Mueller's Geog. Gr. Minores, I. pp. 280-281; Relations, I.
139-140; Cathay, clxxi., ccxlv. 169; Conti, 20; Maffei, lib. III.;
Buesching, IV. 278; Faria, I. 117-118; Ram. I. f. 181 v. and 292;
Jarric, Thes. Rer. Indic. I. 108-109; P. Vinc. 132, 442; J.R.G.S.
V. 129 seqq.)
NOTE 3. - As far back as the 10th century Socotra was a noted haunt of
pirates. Mas'udi says: "Socotra is one of the stations frequented by the
Indian corsairs called Bawarij, which chase the Arab ships bound for
India and China, just as the Greek galleys chase the Mussulmans in the sea
of Rum along the coasts of Syria and Egypt" (III.
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