ABSTRACT
For a long time, researchers have been aware of Indonesian migrations to the western Indian Ocean. The existence of the Malagasy people and their Austronesian language is evidence for such navigations (Dahl 1951, 1991; Simon 1988). Banana and coconut plants must have come from South-east Asia to Africa through human agency. It has been suggested that Austronesians were taken there as slaves - a difficult position to maintain, since Arab texts, such as the Marvels oj India, tell us that the Wakwak (Indonesians) came to fetch slaves from Africa, rather than being taken there already enslaved (Sauvaget 1954: 225). Arabs did take Austronesians as slaves to Arabia, but not to Africa, where slaves were already numerous. So the problem is rather to establish the date and logic of these migrations.
