4.7 Did Spice Island Mariners Follow Another Major Current from the WPWP
83
islands from indigenous owners, searching for refuges in some periods may have
become more important to some tribes than securing spice-trading opportunities
and advantages.
There is slight but intriguing evidence that Spice Island mariners involved in
sailing the Cinnamon Route may have followed the West Australian Current and
explored the length of the Western Australian coast. It should, however, be stated at
the outset that – with one exception – the evidence is tenuous in the extreme.
The first possible evidence lies with the presence on the northwestern coast of
Western Australia of boab trees. By the test of maximum genetic diversity, it seems
likely that Madagascar is the homeland of the boab tree: Madagascar has six species,
Africa one and Western Australia one. It is possible for boab seeds to have reached
Australia by ocean current (presuming that boab seeds can survive long immersion
in salt water). But boab seeds would have to float from Madagascar to east Africa
and then north along the African coast till the current turned and travelled back
across the Indian Ocean to Java. Near Java the seeds would have to change currents
so as to be drawn south along the Western Australian coast. It would have been
important for them to do so for no great distance because they would have to be
carried to a landfall on the northwest coast where a tropical climate could promote
their germination and survival.
Unless such oceanic diffusion is measured over millions of years, it is more likely
that voyaging Indian Ocean mariners sailing the Cinnamon Route carried boab seeds
with them from Madagascar. Indian Ocean mariners are indeed known to have carried boab seeds on long voyages. Perhaps they had found that boab seeds, which are
high in vitamin C, were an excellent preventer of scurvy. Given that spice traders had
a vested interest in recognizing and exploiting the medicinal properties of plants, it is
not improbable that Spice Island mariners may have brought boab seeds to Western
Australia from Madagascar as food or scurvy-preventers. Contradicting this possibility is the fact that the Western Australian trees represent a different species
of boab from those on Madagascar. Although species differentiation is accelerated
in a new environment, a maximum of 3,500 years is probably not long enough to
account for species differentiation. In the absence of adequate data we can only
weigh up probabilities. We have either an ancient event involving oceanic dispersal
(an event measured in millions of years) or a recent human dispersal of a species of
boab now extinct in Madagascar or a very rapid species differentiation in Western
Australia. We would need far clearer evidence than this to verify the possibility that
Spice Island mariners sailing the Cinnamon Route may have followed another fast
warm current flowing out of the West Pacific Warm Pool and explored along the
coast of Western Australia.
There is a second source of possible evidence that involves the same assessment
of probabilities for oceanic dispersal versus human dispersal, but in this second
case we have the advantage of a radiocarbon date that may support the possibility
of second-wave human dispersal.
In January 1993, a nine-year-old schoolboy, Jamie Andrich, found an egg of
the now extinct Madagascan elephant bird, Aepyornis Maximus, in sand dunes just
north of Cervantes, Western Australia, 250 km north of Perth. The egg was found a
83
islands from indigenous owners, searching for refuges in some periods may have
become more important to some tribes than securing spice-trading opportunities
and advantages.
There is slight but intriguing evidence that Spice Island mariners involved in
sailing the Cinnamon Route may have followed the West Australian Current and
explored the length of the Western Australian coast. It should, however, be stated at
the outset that – with one exception – the evidence is tenuous in the extreme.
The first possible evidence lies with the presence on the northwestern coast of
Western Australia of boab trees. By the test of maximum genetic diversity, it seems
likely that Madagascar is the homeland of the boab tree: Madagascar has six species,
Africa one and Western Australia one. It is possible for boab seeds to have reached
Australia by ocean current (presuming that boab seeds can survive long immersion
in salt water). But boab seeds would have to float from Madagascar to east Africa
and then north along the African coast till the current turned and travelled back
across the Indian Ocean to Java. Near Java the seeds would have to change currents
so as to be drawn south along the Western Australian coast. It would have been
important for them to do so for no great distance because they would have to be
carried to a landfall on the northwest coast where a tropical climate could promote
their germination and survival.
Unless such oceanic diffusion is measured over millions of years, it is more likely
that voyaging Indian Ocean mariners sailing the Cinnamon Route carried boab seeds
with them from Madagascar. Indian Ocean mariners are indeed known to have carried boab seeds on long voyages. Perhaps they had found that boab seeds, which are
high in vitamin C, were an excellent preventer of scurvy. Given that spice traders had
a vested interest in recognizing and exploiting the medicinal properties of plants, it is
not improbable that Spice Island mariners may have brought boab seeds to Western
Australia from Madagascar as food or scurvy-preventers. Contradicting this possibility is the fact that the Western Australian trees represent a different species
of boab from those on Madagascar. Although species differentiation is accelerated
in a new environment, a maximum of 3,500 years is probably not long enough to
account for species differentiation. In the absence of adequate data we can only
weigh up probabilities. We have either an ancient event involving oceanic dispersal
(an event measured in millions of years) or a recent human dispersal of a species of
boab now extinct in Madagascar or a very rapid species differentiation in Western
Australia. We would need far clearer evidence than this to verify the possibility that
Spice Island mariners sailing the Cinnamon Route may have followed another fast
warm current flowing out of the West Pacific Warm Pool and explored along the
coast of Western Australia.
There is a second source of possible evidence that involves the same assessment
of probabilities for oceanic dispersal versus human dispersal, but in this second
case we have the advantage of a radiocarbon date that may support the possibility
of second-wave human dispersal.
In January 1993, a nine-year-old schoolboy, Jamie Andrich, found an egg of
the now extinct Madagascan elephant bird, Aepyornis Maximus, in sand dunes just
north of Cervantes, Western Australia, 250 km north of Perth. The egg was found a