Pepper and the Mappilas: A Tale Entwined.

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October 16, 2023

Trade is not only about the exchange of commodities. Rather, trade is a way by which distantsocieties exchange commodities, ideas, cultural practices through quasi-cultural trading diasporas. It might seem paradoxical to begin the story of a quintessential Indian spice like pepper with that thought in mind, but the (his)tory of pepper and, consequently, that of the Mappilas is just that — a tale of trade, diaspora, and cultural give-and-take.

Black pepper (Piper nigrum), as well as long pepper (Piper longum), are native to South Asia. Kerala, being part of the Western Ghats-Sri Lanka biodiversity hotspot, has been home to many such spices, especially pepper, since ancient times. According to a report, as much as 216.71 hectares of land was under black pepper cultivation in Kerala during 2006-2007. Historically,Vedic texts like the Atharvaveda and the Shatapatha Brahmana mention long pepper as usana.However, Sanskrit vocabulary begins to use pippali (long pepper) as opposed tomaricha (black pepper) only around 4th century BCE— indicating a later introduction of black pepper to North India.In Ancient Indian medical literature, black pepper is classified as a ‘hot’ food, and a mixture made out of ginger, long pepper, and black pepper is recommended as a remedy for kapha-related imbalances. So ubiquitous is pepper in Indian history that a Tamil synonym for pepper, kari— the etymological root for the English word “curry”— also refers to meat dishes seasoned with pepper!

Trade as the mover and the shaker

This central role of pepper was not only limited to South Asia. Ever since the 3rd millennium BCE, Indian spices and other goods which travelled along the Indian Ocean found a market along the Mediterranean Sea.To imagine the ever-changing social, political, and even fiscal networks of such a trade, one has to forego the comfort of swiftness facilitated by modern inventions like the internet, and the mechanical engine. This was a trade contingent on many natural forces, dealt with different political institutions, and depended on many different groups of people to move goods from one port to another. Even though, many political institutions tried to exercise control over this trade, any such political control was varied before the second millennium.In these vast, complicated networks—spread across lands and waters—moved not only luxury goods, but also ideas, cultural mores, knowledge, and, more importantly, people themselves.

With the emergence of the Roman maritime trade in the first century C.E., these trade networks expanded from Malacca in the east to Alexandria in the west with Rome as the final market for the expensive cargo.In this interwoven web of social and economic networks, early Kerala emerged as a multicultural, somewhat urbane hub.*So important was this region in world geography that early canonical and non-canonical Christian texts record the mythical missions of St. Thomas to Kerala c. 1st century C.E. while Pliny the Elder talks about many Indian plants, animals, and minerals in his Naturalis Historia.

Spices of Life, Life of Spices

Black pepper was one of the major goods of this maritime trade. So profitable was black pepper as a commodity that it was exchanged for gold— leading historian Romila Thapar to deem it as “black gold.”Archaeologists have found hoards of Roman gold coins from South India. Thapar argues that Roman gold coins acted not only as bullion but as prestige goods for Indian elites as well.

The role of Indian spices in Roman patrician society did not diminish after the decline of the Roman maritime trade in Indian Ocean after the second century C.E.. Not only did Indian spices, including pepper, find a market in Rome, they took on fetishist, magical, or even ritualistic dimensions in Roman elite psyche.The trade in spices, for all that matters, did not cease from the South Asian end despite the breakdown of Roman maritime networks.

Arabs had been involved in the Malabar spice trade even before the emergence of the Roman trade.They took over the maritime trade with Muziris after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Pre-Islamicate Arab traders had deep socioeconomic relations with Early coastal Kerala; the advent of Islam did not disrupt either these waves of migrations or the socioeconomic relations between Southern Arabia and Kerala. Au contraire, these newly converted Muslim migrants to the Malabar intermarried with local women and formed one of the oldest Muslim communities in South Asia. They were calledMappila.

Mappilas : the great children of Indian history

Mappilais a curious term. It is derived from two Malayali words: mahameaning “great” and pillameaning “child.” Literally, the “great child”— an honorific for men who intermarried with local women. This term in itself is a testament to Early Medieval Coastal Kerala’s cosmopolitan nature, and the role of trade in it.Beforebeing used for the Arab-Malayali Muslims,“Mappila”referred to the Syrian Christian community who traced their spiritual lineage back to St. Thomas.This cosmopolitan and diverse nature of Early Medieval South Asiahas to be understood to better understand history of the Mappilas.

Epigraphic record not only attests to the sheer diversity of socioeconomic groups present in early medieval Kerala but also to their relations with the Indian power elite. In the light of the Chera-Pandya conflict, and the subsequent expansion of the Cholas, the Chera-Perumal state found it wise to tap into the profits of this expansive overseas trade.

The state actively encouraged the migrant trading communities to live in its territorythrough various, to use a somewhat-modern-term, incentives. Such state-sanctioned incentives to migrant communities can be seen in the third injunction of Jewish Copper-plates of Cochin(c.10^th century C.E.) : “Moreover, according to this copper-plate grant, he [Joseph Rabban, of the Anjuvannam—Jewish trading guild] shall be exempted from payments due to the king from settlers in the town, but he shall enjoy what they enjoy.”

Jewish Copper Plates of Cochin, dated c.1000 CE, in the vernacular language of premodern Kerala, Script: Vatteluttu. Impression printed in Epigraphica Indica Vol III, p-72, 1895.

The Mappilas traded, married, and lived in such a society where multiculturalism was both encouraged and beneficial. It is telling that both the Shaiva community’s myth as well as that of the Mappilas claim the last Chera king to be a convert to their respective faiths.The Mappilas were a new Muslim community when Islam itself was in its intial stage,in a Malayali society that was in formation as well. They were, what Miller calls, “proto-believers.”In many ways, the history of the Mappilas is a history of becoming Malayali as well as the history of becoming Muslim.

All these socio-political and even cultural symbiosis was held together by common fiscal interests.But, an equally important binding force, according to Miller, was the Malayali concept of maryada— chivalry, etiquette, tolerance, respect, decency.At the end of the day, though, it was still trade and Indian spices which turned the wheels of the day.

The Mappilas spoke Malayali, wrote in a hybrid Malayali-Arabic script, they followed both a patrilineal inheritance and a Malayalimarumakkathayam(matrilineal) inheritance,and they traded in Indianspices.

All things fall apart under the Colonial Sun

By the early modern times, the European mercantile powers looked to tap into the Indian Ocean spice trade without having to deal with the Arab-controlled West Asian trade routes. Black pepper was, once again, a coveted commodityto the European elites. They wanted to find a direct searoute to India and find they did. When Vasco da Gama reached ashore Kappad, nearCalicut, in 1498, he brought with him crops of the New World, and wanted Indian spices to take back home.

Page from Thambiran Vanakkam, a Catholic text translated by Henrique Henriques and published on 20 October 1578 at Quilon, Venad. It is the first printed work in an Indian language and script.

Public domain

Pepper, paradoxically, brought about an end to the Old World. The Europeans, first the Portuguese, and everyone else who succeeded them, displaced the Mappilas from thespice trade.Vasco da Gama’s immediate successor, Albuquerque, murdered the Zamorin of Calicut in 1510 for favouring the Arab traders. The Europeans had altered the socioeconomic and cultural fabric of Malabar. In this new volatile environment, old social and financial ties between different factions of Malayali society had to be reconfigured vis-à-vis the new powerplayer on the scene. Mappilas were not the only group at a disadvantage, however, they were one of the most harmed groups.They found themselves without their sociocultural andeconomic capital. On the other hand, their attempts at political resistance to these foreigncolonial powers had failed. The Mappilas were impoverished; without access to land, they had to take up petty, labouring jobs for survival

*10 rs. Note to be inserted here

A Note of Ten Rupees, issued by the Reserve Bank of India, depicting a seafaring Indian dhow called the Patamar, in circulation from 01-07-1937 to 17-02-1943. Issuer : Reserve Bank of India. Public Domain.

The multicultural social fabric of Kerala had been tainted by strife due to colonialism.A need to preserve a cultural identity during a period of rapid deterioration, argues Miller, turned the Mappilas inward.With the independence of India, and various socioeconomic and spiritual reforms, the community is recovering from the brunt of colonialism. It is a testament to the strong roots of multiculturalism in Malayali societies that various factions come together today to live together in peace and harmony.

Food as History, Pepper as History

Today, the Mappila cuisine is laced with New World ingredients like chillies, tapioca, potatoes, cashews, on one hand, while being flavoured by spices like fennel, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger on the other hand.Khamarunnisa K.K argues that chillies have increasingly displaced pepper in the Malabar kitchen.So, I search for Mrs. Abdullah’s YouTube channel. She is the doyen of modern Mappila cuisine. Her culinary journey began with a small pickling business. She then went on to collect and publish her family recipes.On her Youtube channel, therecipe video for Athishaya Pathiri— a layered pancake dish stuffed with chilli powder-laced-mince chicken and topped with cashews—pops up. Pepper is missing from the ingredients. She tells me it makes a great tea-time snack. I exclaim to myself, ‘it’s covered in ghee!’

*The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a first century C.E. text, mentions no urban centre along the Malabar coastapart from Muziris and Nelkynda.

References

[i]Romila Thapar, “Black Pepper : South Asia and the Roman Maritime Trade” in Cultural Pasts Essays in Early Indian History (New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 2003), 556.

[ii]N.M. Nayar, “Agrobiodiversity in a biodiversity hotspot: Kerala State, India. Its origin and status” Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 58, (2011) : 59.

[iii]K.T. Acharya, A Historical Dictionary of India Food (New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 1998), 182-184

[iv]K.T. Acharya, Indian Food Tradition A Historical Companion ( Delhi : Oxford University Press, 1994), 214.

[v]Ibid. 80.

[vi] Elizabeth Ann Pollard, “The Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean” in A Companion to Mediterranean History, ed. Peregrine Horden and Sharon Kinoshita (West Sussex, UK : Willey Blackwell, 2014), 457-474.

[vii]Romila Thapar, “Black Pepper : South Asia and the Roman Maritime Trade” in Cultural Pasts Essays in Early Indian History (New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 2003), 558.

[viii]Elizabeth Ann Pollard, “The Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean” in A Companion to Mediterranean History, ed. Peregrine Horden and Sharon Kinoshita (West Sussex, UK : Willey Blackwell, 2014), 460.

[ix]Romila Thapar, “Black Pepper : South Asia and the Roman Maritime Trade” in Cultural Pasts Essays in Early Indian History (New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 2003), 567.

[x]Elizabeth Ann Pollard, “Indian Spices and Roman ‘Magic’ in Imperial and Late Antique Indomediterranea.” Journal of World History 24, no. 1 (2013): 1–23.

[xi]Roland E. Miller, “The Emergence of the Mappila People and Their Culture” in Mappila Muslim Culture How A Historic Muslim Community in India Has Blended Tradition and Modernity (Albany : State University of New York Press, 2015), 43.

[xii]Ibid.,26.

[xiii] Ibid., 28.

[xiv]M.G.S. Narayanan,“Jewish Copper-plates of Cochin,” inCultural Symbiosis in Kerala (Trivandrum : Kerala Historical Society, 1972),29.

[xv]Roland E. Miller, “The Emergence of the Mappila People and Their Culture” in Mappila Muslim Culture How A Historic Muslim Community in India Has Blended Tradition and Modernity (Albany : State University of New York Press, 2015), 28.

[xvi]Ibid.,27.

[xvii] Ibid., 29.

[xviii]Roland E. Miller, Mappila Muslim Culture How A Historic Muslim Community in India Has Blended Tradition and Modernity (Albany : State University of New York Press, 2015), 177.

[xix] Ibid.,31.

[xx]Ibid., 350

[xxi]Khamarunnisa K.K, “ACCULTURATION THROUGH COLONIALISM: EXCHANGE OF FOOD HABITS IN MALABAR.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 77 (2016): 727–34.

xxi Ummi Abdullah,“In Conversation with Ummi Abdullah : Malabar Food”interviewed by Azeez Tharuvana, Sahapedia, July, 2020.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abdullah, Ummi. “Athishaya Pathiri.” YouTube, October 30, 2017. https://youtu.be/WZL1xAXY7o
Abdullah, Ummi. “In Conversation with Ummi Abdullah : Malabar Food.” By Azeez Tharuvana, Sahapedia, July, 2020.https://www.sahapedia.org/malabar-food-conversation-ummi-abdullah
Abdullah, Ummi. “Ummi’s Moplah Biryani Tips.” YouTube, September6, 2017. https://youtu.be/M-NyvmuedbU
Acharya, K.T. A Historical Dictionary of India Food (New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 1998)
Acharya, K.T. Indian Food Tradition A Historical Companion ( Delhi : Oxford University Press, 1994).
K, Khamarunnisa. “ACCULTURATION THROUGH COLONIALISM: EXCHANGE OF FOOD HABITS IN MALABAR.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 77 (2016): 727–34.
Pollard, Elizabeth Ann. “Indian Spices and Roman ‘Magic’ in Imperial and Late Antique Indomediterranea.” Journal of World History 24, no. 1 (2013): 1–23.
Pollard, Elizabeth Ann. “The Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean” in A Companion to Mediterranean History. Edited by Peregrine Horden and Sharon Kinoshita (West Sussex, UK : Willey Blackwell, 2014), 457-474.
Miller, Roland E. Mappila Muslim Culture How A Historic Muslim Community in India Has Blended Tradition and Modernity (Albany : State University of New York Press, 2015).
Narayanam, M.G.S. “Jewish Copper-plates of Cochin,” in Cultural Symbiosis in Kerala (Trivandrum : Kerala Historical Society, 1972), 29.
Nayar, N.M. “Agrobiodiversity in a biodiversity hotspot: Kerala State, India. Its origin and status” Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution 58, (2011) : 55-82
Thapar, Romila. “Black Pepper : South Asia and the Roman Maritime Trade” in Cultural Pasts Essays in Early Indian History (New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 2003), 556-582