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An Epilogue for the Chinese
Mariners
Published:
05/05/2004
I came
across an article recently that made me decide to write one final and
short piece on the Chinese mariners who came so close to changing the
course of human history and pre-empting the European Age of Discovery.
This article, published in the South African papers also introduces
something I only stumbled upon recently.
A silk
replica of the The "Da Ming Hun Yi Tu", the
Amalgamated Map of the Great Ming Empire, was unveiled in South Africa's
parliament this last Monday (May 3rd). This ancient Chinese map had been
kept hidden away and safe from harm in Beijing since the end of the Empire in
1924 AD and only recently been made public. The map is about four metres (around 12 feet) high and more than four metres across. Apparently the map itself is a copy of
an even earlier map that was lost in 1320, so this pre-dates even the
voyages of the Great Treasure Fleets.
The map
includes a recognizable outline of Africa. (see picture) The Nile River and the South Africas Drakensberg mountain
range are clearly detailed.
This is
another confirmation what we already knew about the maritime efforts of
the Chinese, and that is taking into account the more conservative
accounts of the voyages. As early as the 1st century AD records have been
found in China
mentioning Africa. And there is more than
enough evidence to confirm that the Treasure Fleet or some prior effort
sailed the eastern and southern shores of Africa and traded with the coastal regions.
The map
also shows
"...a great lake, covering almost half the continents land
mass. Researchers suggest it may have been drawn on the basis of an Arab
legend that stated 'farther south from the Sahara Desert is a great lake, far greater than the
Caspian Sea'. "
At this point the article veers off into plain
silliness as the journalist incorrectly identifies this legendary body of
water as Lake Victoria - which is not
even one fifth the size of the Caspian. Even worse is the following quote
from South African senior researcher Heindri
Bailey who states "we have the world's best researchers working on it!
Until we are able to gain the knowledge we won't speculate."
Well,
I'm not the best researcher in the world and I am quite happy to speculate
- because I know exactly what that large body of water in the middle of
Africa once was.
The
Sahel is a vast savanna, with the rain forest of
the west coast of Africa on one side and the Sahara desert to the north. A central geographical
feature of the Sahel is the Lake Chad basin. The basin covers almost 8% of the
African continent and is present split among seven countries such as
Chad,
Niger,
Nigeria and
Cameroon.
Lake Chad is at least 20,000
years old and has quite a history of expansion and contraction over the
millenia. At one point it would have even
qualified as an inland sea (The Pale-chadian Sea
to be precise) and definitely was far greater in size than the Caspian for
most of it's existence. Even as late as the
1870's it was known to be much larger than maps show until the ergs
(sand dunes) of the Kanem region acted as a
natural dam and contained the lake within it's present boundaries. So Lake
Chad qualifies as our inland sea to the south of the Sahara.
In the
last century the lake has become a shallow puddle in danger of
disappearing forever due to two developments. The droughts of the late
1960's first shrunk the lake from 9,700 square miles to one-twentieth of
that size, and split it in two. Without the annual monsoon rains that fall
from June to August the region around the lake started to undergo
desertification.
The
countries around Lake Chad launched
massive irrigation projects that have only accelerated the shrinkage. Over
nine million people are at risk of with crop failures and other
detrimental effects expected if the decline of the lake isn't halted. At
this time it doesn't appear that any such foresight will be applied until
it is too late.
On a
final note I have to take exception to another statement in the South
African article that is more about perception and the whole controversy
over -centric history.
"The idea is to take us beyond what we have been ...
brainwashed into believing" declared Speaker Frene Ginwala at the opening
of the exhibition, which includes other maps and rock art.
I
pointed out in the first of the articles concerning the Chinese maritime
efforts that for an endeavor to succeed there must be feedback, and it
must be a continuing effort. The Chinese Age of Discovery was consciously
and deliberately aborted by the Ming court officials and most of the
records destroyed.
The West
didn't deliberately "brainwash" anyone into forgetting about the Chinese,
the Chinese themselves turned their back on the whole business! The
idiotic, but fashionable notion expressed by Mr. Ginwala is par for the course these days.
I
have enjoyed exploring beyond the conventional narrative of Western
Civilization and explaining and giving credit to those peoples we have
forgotten with the passage of time. But the present world has been shaped
and created by the West since that seminal date of 1492 AD, and to say
otherwise flies in the face of reality.
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