In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale

The morning after Ghosh arrived in Bangalore in 1990, he went to meet with a scholar of Tulu folklore and philology named B.A. Viveka Rai. Ghosh hoped Rai would help him find out the name of the enslaved Indian man of MS H6. Goitein’s translation of an 1139 letter included his name, stating it was Bama. Goitein explained in a footnote that this was vernacular for “Brahma,” the name of a prominent Hindu God. Ghosh had not given it further thought until he began working on the Geniza material himself. He saw that the enslaved man’s name occurred in several documents, always written as B-M-H, following the Arabic tradition of leaving out vowels. Here, “H” acted not as a consonant but an open vowel, meaning it was best translated to English as B-M-A. Cleary, there was another vowel between the first two letters and Goitein had guessed “Bama.” However, Ghosh began to doubt this as he saw that many of the texts of the time included the word “Brahma” in full and “Bama” did not seem to be a natural shortening of the name.

Ghosh realized that finding the solution to the question of the name would be a key step in learning more about the man. Ghosh followed the assumption that the enslaved man was from the Mangalore area, and realized that in Judeo-Arabic, double letters were often represented by a single character, so B-M-A, could have been B-M-M-A.

Extrapolating from here, Ghosh surmised that the enslaved man’s name was likely to be “Bomma” or “Bamma,” common names in parts of India. He began to look through records of the time and found several references to people called “Bamma,” suggesting this was the answer. He wanted to find out more about the origins of this name with Viveka Rai.

Viveka Rai was fascinated by Ghosh’s account of tracking down the name but said that the name was likely “Bomma” instead of “Bamma.” Many Tulu people had been called Bomma until relatively recently, and the name had a long history. The Tulu were divided into a strict, matrilineal caste system but connected through communal worship of spirit-deities called “Bhutas.” These Bhuta-cults were very culturally important, but did not have a distinct separation from the traditions of Hinduism, and there came to be some crossover between the pantheons. A deity that connected to this interchange was the basis for Bomma’s name. Viveka Rai said that Ghosh would be able to see the deity that night.

Ghosh expected to visit a temple of some form but, to his surprise, Viveka Rai showed him a movie based on a Tulunad legend. In this film, two brothers struggled against their local ruler and prayed to their deity for protection. The brothers repeatedly sang “Brahma” but the camera revealed this was not the four-headed Brahma of Hinduism. Instead, Ghosh saw a wooden figure with moustaches and a sword. Viveka Rai explained that this deity was originally called “Berme” or “Bermeru,” and he had been a key member of the Tulu-Bhuta pantheon. His name had only later been assimilated by Brahma’s.

This name, and its unique origin, implied that Bomma had been born into one of the communities of Tulunad and, from there, became the enslaved man of Ben Yiju. With this discovery, Ghosh says that Bomma was finally able to “become a protagonist in his own story” (254).

Ghosh explains that there is only one incident in Bomma’s life that we have direct knowledge of. In an 1135 letter from Madmum to Ben Yiju, he describes a pirate raid on Aden but focuses on how Bomma had been acting. Bomma seems to have been on a business trip to Aden for Ben Yiju, who was having him purchase presents to bring back to Mangalore. While there, Bomma was given a personal allowance of two dinars a month, a modest salary. He was handling vast sums of money for the business, selling 685 dinars’ worth of goods, which was notably just one season’s worth of sales for one moderately-sized merchant.

With this volume of goods flowing through Aden, it became a target for pirates. The ruler of an island named Kish outfitted ships, which demanded protection money from the city. When he was refused, his ships unsuccessfully attacked the harbor and nearby ships until they were driven off.

Madmun briefly mentioned this incident in his letter but wrote in more detail to complain to Ben Yiju about Bomma. Bomma had apparently been repeatedly drunkenly appearing at Madmun’s office to demand money. Ghosh says that it is possible that the naval skirmish in the harbor was cheered from the shore by a drunken Bomma.

There are no hints in the Geniza documents about how Bomma came to be enslaved by Ben Yiju. However, Ghosh stresses that this form of enslavement was different from that of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Ghosh argues it should be viewed more as a patron-client or master-apprentice bond. Servitude was viewed as part of a flexible set of hierarchies and a enslaved person owned by a merchant would often take a share of his firm’s profits, eventually gaining manumission and being able to go into business themselves. The surrender of one’s freedom was viewed as part of the path into business.

Ghosh then mentions that enslavement had large religious connotations in India and within Islamic beliefs. Enslavement was often a metaphor for serving the divine, and poetry expressed the surrender of freedom to transcend earthly bonds. These beliefs, especially the Islamic Sufi beliefs, would have been known by Ben Yiju because Judaism was impacted by Sufi ideals.

While religious theories would likely not have been at the front of Bomma or Ben Yiju’s mind, Ghosh suggests that Bomma’s enslavement would not have been demeaning. He states it could even have been ennobling. A connection between religion and enslavement may have been a belief that Ben Yiju and Bomma shared, one of the few commonalities that a Tulu from a matrilineal culture and a Jew from a patriarchal one would have had.

While in Mangalore, Ghosh often had Bhutu shrines pointed out to him. They were all over the city and generally well-tended, but dismissed by city authorities as superstition or “devil worship” (264). Ghosh was able to visit one of the shrines by happenstance as his taxi driver pulled over to pray at one.

Inside, there was a simple image of a face with moustaches and a sword (just like the Tulu Brahma). The caretaker of the shrine explained that once a year there was a festival in which the Bhuta of the shrine possessed him, which he claimed was an extraordinary feeling. He also told them a story about how the government had planned to build a road through the shrine, ignoring the protests that this caused. However, when the engineers tried to demolish the shrine, they found that their machines were frozen. The government was forced to change their road plans.

Later, the amazed taxi-driver asked Ghosh if he had ever heard a story like that before. Ghosh replied that he had heard one like it in Egypt (the government trying to build a canal through the Nashawy Sidi’s tomb).

Despite his drunken antics, Ghosh shows that Bomma’s role in Ben Yiju’s business continued to grow. One of Ben Yiju’s correspondents even included the honorific Shaikh in front of his name in a letter. It appears that Ben Yiju placed a great deal of trust in Bomma from early in their relationship, having him bring merchandise to and from Aden.

Expensive fabrics, likely for clothes, were a key import of Ben Yiju’s. Ben Yiju, and the merchants like him in India, generally continued to wear the clothes that they had in the Middle East. Ben Yiju’s contemporaries would often write, in shocked tones, that both the men and the women of Malabar went topless, using jewelry and ornaments to show their rank. Another main import for Ben Yiju was paper, which he seemingly preferred to the palm leaf used in Malabar. Almost every shipment that there is a record of being sent to Ben Yiju included paper, with his friends emphasizing the quality of what they had sent. It is also observable that Ben Yiju had a sweet tooth, as his friends would often mention the candy they were shipping to him.

Ghosh states he had not been in Mangalore long when his studies of Bomma showed him something about the uses of history. Among the castes and religious communities of the Mangalore area, he singles the Magavira out as particularly interesting. They were mainly a fishing community, who had long-established links with the outside world. Their local “Bobbarriya-Bhuta” figure was even thought to be the spirit of a Muslim mariner who had died at sea. When Ghosh learned this, he had a friend take him to a Magavira village so he could see the shrine.

The village he visited was well-tended, notably different from Ghosh’s expectations of a fishing village of huts and shanties. The community had clearly recently been doing well for itself. Ghosh’s friend had two students who lived in the village, one of whom had a mother that Ghosh spoke to. He asked her if she knew anyone called Bomma, to which she responded that this was not a name they used anymore. It belonged to a time when the village was less well- respected, and the people had not been educated. Now, as she proved with a pamphlet sponsored by the village, the village was more respected.

Ghosh was then taken to see the shrine and, on the way, saw signs of a reactionary movement taking hold in the village. Young people were campaigning to shut down drinking institutions and posters of an anti-Muslim party had been put up. Ghosh says that this community, relegated to the peripheries of the Hindu order for so long, was now trying to break into relevance through reinventing itself as prosperous and devout.

Ghosh was told that the old shrine to the Bobbarriya-Bhuta had been taken down and that this was now a temple reserved for Hinduism. However, inside they saw the Bobbarriya-Bhuta figure was still there, just at a lower level than an image of Vishnu. Ghosh notes there was an irony in honoring a mythical Arabic Muslim trader within the Hindu pantheon.

During Bomma’s lifetime and near the Magavira villages, Ghosh says an egalitarian and pacifist movement was being formed by the Vachanakara saint-poets. They tried to defy the rigid caste structure. It is very possible that Bomma heard about this movement.

Ben-Yiju’s life in Mangalore is described by Ghosh as “extraordinarily rich in relationship” (275). His connection to Ashu, for example, brought an array of in-laws, though some of these relations appear to have been strained. Kardar, an agent of some form, was criticized in Ben Yiju and some of his friends’ letters as someone who had not delivered goods that he had promised, even after being paid. A scrap of paper from the Geniza reveals that this Kardar was a close relative of Nair, a person known to be the brother of Ashu. This means that it is likely Nair had induced his brother-in-law to take Kardar up on a deal, and Kardar had exploited this arrangement to scam his way into quick cash.

Ben Yiju’s social life also reveals a diverse group of associates, including Hindu Gujaratis of the “Vania” (a trading caste that were economically significant). Ben Yiju and his fellow traders seem to have all shared no compunction in dealing across social, religious and geographical boundaries. These bonds were not just based off his own initiative, but were holdovers from generations of merchants who had been involved in cross-cultural trade.

Ghosh tries to approach the mystery of what language these traders were using. He concludes that there was likely some “trading argot” (281), potentially a compound of Perso-Arabic with Northern Indian elements.

Ghosh then comments on Ben Yiju’s apparent dislike of travel from the Malabar Coast. He seems to have had a sketchy understanding of the geography of the Indian subcontinent. Regardless, Southern India was viewed as the center of the area. When Ben Yiju did travel, it was along clearly-defined trade routes down India, routes that have now largely vanished. However, Ghosh notes that some of the towns of these routes have started to become revitalized due to the oil trade with the Middle East. One of these is one that Ben Yiju certainly visited: Jurbattan in Arabic, Srikandapuram now. This place had spices to trade, a refreshing climate to visit, and Ashu’s relatives to see.

It is near here that the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama landed on May 17th, 1498, an event that Ghosh calls “the beginning of the end” of Bomma and Ben Yiju’s world. Just two years later, a Portuguese fleet arrived and demanded that the ruler of Calicut expel the Muslims from the area, then bombarded the city when he did not. From here, Portugal took the unprecedented step of trying to conquer the Indian Ocean trade route by naval power. Ghosh argues that the lack of militarization on the route was not, as some have said, ill-preparation from the trading states. Instead, he theorizes that this was a conscious choice from the state, influenced by the pacifist customs of the Indian Gujarati Jains and Vanias.

In 1509, at the Battle of Diu, the Portuguese defeated a combined fleet of Arabic, Egyptian, and Indian rulers, marking the end of serious naval challenges to Western power in the ocean and leading to the destruction of the trading civilizations.