mtepe
Sign in to savethumb|right|Shungwaya: an inexact replica mtepe built in 2003 and displayed at the House of Wonders Museum in [[Stone Town, Zanzibar.]] The mtepe is a boat associated with the Swahili people (the word "boat" in the Bantu Swahili language being mtepe). The mtepe's planks are held together by wooden pegs and coir, so it is a sewn boat designed to be flexible in contrast to the rigid vessels of western technique.
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8 sectionsContents
- Extinction
- Preservation
- See also
- External links
- Further reading
- References
- Citations
- Notes
thumb|right|Shungwaya: an inexact replica mtepe built in 2003 and displayed at the House of Wonders Museum in [[Stone Town, Zanzibar.]] The mtepe is a boat associated with the Swahili people (the word "boat" in the Bantu Swahili language being mtepe). The mtepe's planks are held together by wooden pegs and coir, so it is a sewn boat designed to be flexible in contrast to the rigid vessels of western technique.
==Extinction== thumb|mtepe on the beach at Zanzibar, circa 1890. The cessation of the production of mtepe has been ascribed to the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean in the 15th century, leading to boat builders adopting alternative, western shipbuilding techniques.