Pam and I have traveled to the Indian State of Kerala, almost to the southern tip of the Indian sub-continent. In fact, we landed at the city of Kochin at latitude 10° North, the Panama Canal is at 11° North latitude. I did not know that North America was discovered because Columbus was looking for a short-cut to Kerala, which in his day was called Malabar. I guess we’ll let the East Indies and Kerala fight that one out. The two images posted above show the pepper creeper vine and the clove tree. These two plants were major shapers of world history. Historians, Biblical scholars and archeologists tell us that the spices and wood from Malabar have been transported to Egypt, Palestine and the rest of the Middle East since 3000 BC. Spices to make perfume for the Pharoah’s sweethearts and spices to mummify the old boy himself. Moses used cinnamon and cardamom in Jerusalem for the rituals of the Tabernacle in 1490 BC. Malabar teak wood has been found in building ruins in Assyria which pre-dated Babylonia!!!
I have read that food tasted so ghastly that only spices could make it edible. Some spices were food preservatives. The Romans were great buyers of spices, in fact, in the first century AD Pliny wrote, “both pepper and ginger grow wild in Malabar, and yet here we buy them by weight like Gold and Silver. The subject is one well worthy of our notice since in no year does India drain us of less than 550,000,000 sesterces.” ($22 million)!! Can you imagine how the Roman businessmen kept their account books using Roman Numerals!! In fact, a Milanese named Fibonacci went to North Africa in 1200 AD and learned about the number system used by the Indian and Arab bookkeepers. He is the European who closely copied the Arab script and made up the shapes of the numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. Wow, the decimal system, and the rest is computational history.
So now if I haven’t put you to sleep, let’s fast-forward to the European Renaissance around 1400 AD. Do you know how Venice could afford to create such a gem of a city? Venice was a world power because they alone controlled the eastern Mediterranean. Lebanon was the eastern terminus of the Silk Route from Central Asia, and North Africa was the eastern terminus of the Spice Trade. The Spice Trade Arabs sailed from the Malabar coast of India, up the Red Sea to Egypt (no Suez Canal then) where they sold the spices to Venetians after an unbelievable mark-up in price. The Venetians again jumped the price astronomically and really stuck it to the rest of Europe. Well, that really pissed the other Europeans. They wanted to break the Venetian monopoly, especially Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal. He finally convinced Vasco Da Gama to suck it up and sail down the African west coast and make it around to India. The Dutch, British and French followed. The Venetians had enough money in the bank, so they partied for three hundred years until Napolean arrived around 1800. The Spanish figured they would try a new western route so they gave Chris three ships and the rest is American history.
Since the plantation owners of the Malabar coast were world renowned, it is only natural that one of Jesus’ disciples would be designated to go there and convert the natives to Christianity. The future St.Thomas of ‘doubting Thomas’ fame was chosen. St. Thomas is buried here somewhere, but it was not until the fourth century AD that a Syrian bishop came here and converted the future Keralinians to Christianity. Because of the long history of the spice trade, Kerala is the home of the oldest Muslim mosque, Jewish synagogue and Christian church in all of India. Kerala is prosperous and has the highest literacy rate of any state in India. They are well-educated, passionate about their politics, but not violent, actively developing sustainable agriculture (tea, coffee and spice) and creating parks for eco-tourism. The coast is hot and steamy when the monsoons are not drenching, but where we are is high enough in the Western Ghat mountains to be much more comfortable. Wish it was closer to Maine! So much to see, so little time.
