Journey which Father Antonio Gomes Made to the Empire of Manomotapa (Viagem q' Fez o Padre Ant° Gomes… ao Imperio de Manomotapa) ed. by Malyn Newitt (review)

Reviewed by: Journey which Father Antonio Gomes Made to the Empire of Manomotapa (Viagem q' Fez o Padre Ant° Gomes… ao Imperio de Manomotapa) ed. by Malyn Newitt Hervé Pennec Journey which Father Antonio Gomes Made to the Empire of Manomotapa (Viagem q' Fez o Padre Ant° Gomes… ao Imperio de Manomotapa). Edited and translated by Malyn Newitt. [ Fontes Historiae Africanae, New Series Sources of African History, 19.] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. xlvii, 198. $85. ISBN 978-0-197-26679-3.) The critical edition of the text Antonio Gomez Viagem… was relatively unknown until 1959, when a transcript of it was published in the journal Studia. Since then, it has been used by a number of historians able to wrestle with its rather obscure language, spelling, and syntax, but there has been no published translation. Gomes, a Jesuit priest, wrote about the events in the kingdom of Monomotapa and in the Portuguese settlements on the Zambezi, mostly during the 1630s, but these do not form a consecutive narrative because, as he explains, he lost all his notes and memoranda in a shipwreck. He appears to have made use of other written accounts of the region, but most of his text derives from his own recollections. Its interest lies in the interactions he had with the African population, which he records in detail. He describes many instances when the Africans he encounters speak with their own voices. To these he adds his own observations on the daily life of the African population and stories that he has heard from other sources that he believed to be reliable. No other contemporary account, not even the famous Ethiopia Oriental, e varia historia de cousas notaveis do Oriente (1609) of the Dominican friar Joao dos Santos, gives such a lively and detailed account of the relations of [End Page 442] the Portuguese with the African people of the region. It will be a useful reference for the scholars and academics who work on East Africa during the Early Modern History and the Relationships between the Europeans and African people. Hervé Pennec CNRS-Institut des mondes africains (Aix-en-Provence)