Asia to Madagascar (‘The Cinnamon Route’)
Various lines of evidence point to the westward migration of Austronesian peoples to Madagascar in the first or second millennium BCE. Miller described the ‘Cinnamon Route’ as an early Indonesia–Madagascar trade.57 He referred to Pliny, who scoffed at the prevailing fanciful tales of the origin of cinnamon (e.g.
its occurrence in marshes protected by clawed bats and winged serpents) and said that African cinnamon was obtained from others who:carry it over vast tracts of sea, upon rafts, which are neither steered by rudder, nor drawn or impelled by oars or sails … in addition to which, they choose the winter season, about the time of the equinox, for their voyage, for then a south easterly wind is blowing; these winds guide them in a straight course from gulf to gulf …58
Pliny said that this journey took them to Ocilia (in Yemen) and that the round trip would take five years with many perishing during the journey – naturally, he didn’t specify Indonesia as it wasn’t known to the West at that time. Miller’s view was that the rafts referred to by Pliny were double outrigger Indonesian canoes and Pliny’s observations dated this practice to at least the first century CE, though it could have been much earlier (second millennium BCE). Cinnamon would have been transported to Rhapta on the mainland and then northwards by Arab coasting vessels towards the Gulf of Aden, Somalia and the Red Sea, where it would merge into established trade systems.
However, while Pliny (and Miller) described these journeys as trade, the five-year round trip in vessels of very limited capacity, and the enormous danger involved, suggest problems with the concept, with an alternative perhaps being a slow, trickling migration of Indonesian peoples bringing along their valued goods.