Abstract:
In different parts of the Indian Ocean, people learnt to travel over water and evolved craft
that fitted their specific environments and purposes. They were influenced, as time went
on, by parallel developments in neighbouring countries. As watercraft became more
sophisticated and overseas voyages became more extended, the maritime
neighbourhood became a vaster place and technologies that originated in the different
corners of the ocean met and interacted. So did those that had developed outside the
ocean but had found their way here. The technology of shipbuilding, and of sailing in
general, therefore evolved independently in different parts of the ocean, but
subsequently came to adopt, borrow and adapt elements that had originated in other
areas. In the Indian Ocean, several very specific technologies existed, of which some
were limited to the islands only. The resulting interaction produced mutated forms. Some
of these mutations, in time, developed into fully-fledged morphologies. These comments
cover the Indian Ocean in general. Specific to Sri Lanka is that the morphology of her
watercraft is characteristically different from the many types prevalent in mainland India.
This is because of the geographical location of the island and its position in relation to
the major sea-routes of the ocean; in the inshore environment of the coastal regions;
and the biological resources of the island. All of these led to the development of a base
form that underwent change through interaction. Hence, even after the arrival of
Portuguese ships, this process of evolution continued unchanged. Changing politicoeconomic
priorities caused the traditional forms to gradually decrease in importance.
However they did not disappear and continued to play a diminished but economically
significant role even in the post-Portuguese period.
