“Hale!” “Halele!”
Above Djoiezi, as you climb through the fields, you eventually come across stones that are not there by chance: sections of ramparts, the foundations of houses, tombs. This is Mwali-Mdjini, “the town of Mwali”, the island's oldest city.
The elders tell that long ago, families who came from the sea, said to be Arab and Shirazi, lived there in stone houses. They traded with passing ships: shards of old pottery and pieces of Chinese porcelain can still be found in the soil.
Then, one day, the town emptied. Why? The stories do not agree: wars, diseases, quarrels between families, attacks from the sea… What is known, say the elders, is that some of the inhabitants set sail eastwards. They landed on Grande Comore, in the Washili region, and settled in the village of Itsinkudi. Their descendants formed a lineage that still carries the memory of its island of origin: the Inya Matswa Mwali.
In Itsinkudi, moreover, there are tombs similar to those of Mwali-Mdjini, as if the travellers had taken with them the building style of their lost town.
What we know about it
Mwali-Mdjini (or Mwalimdjini) is an archaeological site in the hills above Djoiezi. Ramparts, stone dwellings and burials can be seen there; shards of pottery from the early Swahili period and Chinese porcelain have been found there. Some date its earliest traces to the 9th century, a date that remains to be confirmed by excavation.
The story of the migration to Itsinkudi and of the Inya Matswa Mwali lineage is reported in particular by the Mohélian sociologist Salim Djabir. The abandoned site is deteriorating: for a long time, local people took stones from it for building. Read: First settlers.
Further reading
- Voices of the archipelago La Gazette des Comores, Mwalimdjini, un site archéologique en dégradation continue.
- Voices of the archipelago Muzdalifa House (entretien avec le sociologue Salim Djabir), Une histoire de Mwali, 2021.
- Outside view Pierre Vérin, Les Comores, 1994. Karthala.