Attractions in Lamu County
41. Nabahani Ruins, Pate Island
The highest population density in Lamu County is found in the islands of Lamu (Mkunumbi ward), Pate (Faza ward) and in the mainland region of Mpeketoni (Bahari and Hongwe wards). Pate Island, with three townships and a number of smaller settlements, is the largest island in Lamu archipelago. Pate, its busiest town, is situated to the southwest of the island. Historically, this was a city state of importance during the 17th and 18th Centuries. As the chronicles claim, Pate was a place of consequence as early as the 14th Century when the Nabahanis are supposed to have established their sultanate there. A poem written in Pate in 1652 suggests that by this time the town was a centre of literary activity. Over the 16th and 17th Century Pate’s relation with the Portuguese was of perpetual defiance. Among the Swahili city states it was the only one to dare face them in bloody street fighting, finally forcing them to flee in 1679. However, because of later strife with Omani Arabs, it helped to reinstate the Portuguese in 1728. Pate got down to a phase of rapid decline after losing the Battle of Shela in 1812. The Nabahanis were finally deposed and their last sultan, Ahmed bin Pamoluti, fled to the mainland circa 1840. He established himself in Witu and later received German protection against Zanzibar. From Witu the Sultan organized regular raids on the mainland plantations and the Lamu Archipelago. He died in 1888.
Part of the astounding ruins scattered around Pate Town, some thought to date back to as early as the 9th Century, are the crumbling Nabahani Ruins, which later merged with the early center’ buildings. Nabahani were a group of ousted prominent Arabs who settled into the existing settlement at Pate Island some time in the 9th Century. Also prominent on Pate Island are the ruins of the old Swahili towns of Shanga and Faza and the great Siyu Fort. At her prime, Pate was a prominent trade centre which dominated most trade in Lamu. During the 17th Century, Portuguese succeeded in asserting the ascendancy over the larger stretch of the Coast. Portuguese garrisons occupied several points at the Coast, and kept a customs house in Pate. Later that century, Portugal’s position in the Indian Ocean was deteriorating in the face of intense competition from Dutch and English. Swahili dissent was led by Pate, aided by the Omani, rising against the Portuguese five times during the 17th Century. Portugal’s end came with the capture of Fort Jesus by the Omani Arabs in 1669, after a siege of thirty months.
42. Shanga Ruins
Also notable among the relics of virtu at Pate are the 8th Century Shanga Ruins named after the Washanga, or the people of Shanga, a clan who still live in the nearby Swahili town of Siyu. Located at the southeast area of Pate Island, south of Siyu, Shanga contains coral walls, two palaces, three mosques and a cemetery outside the wall with hundreds of tombs. All in all, the site is thought to contain the ruins or foundations of about 130 houses and 300 tombs, well hidden by the overgrown shrubbery. It was excavated over eight years, starting in 1980. The earliest settlement was dated to the 8th century, and the conclusion drawn from the evidence (locally minted coins and burial sites) indicate that a small number of local inhabitants were Muslim, probably from the late 8th Century onwards, and at least from the early 9th Century. The excavations also reveal a key break in the development of Shanga in the mid-late 11th Century, with the destruction and rebuilding of the Friday Mosque. Due to over abstraction of ground water, sea water seeped in and the village was no longer habitable. A rarely roved site, Shanga Ruins are one of the oldest recorded along the Coast of Kenya. So much so, that it was a thriving trading post 400 years before Mombasa was founded, and was also thriving 100 years prior to Lamu’s accent as a major hub. Dating of Shanga Ruins was based on quantities of ceramic artefacts collected in 1980s.
43. Siyu Fort
This is found about 5 kms east of Pate Town, 9 kms east of Faza and just north of Shanga. The small settlement of Siyu is widely-known for the remains of Siyu Fort; an antique mid-19th Century fort. Oral traditions suggest that it was built by Siyu’s prominent leader Mohammed Ishaq bin Mbarak (or Bwana Mataka) “who also rebuilt much of the town including a fine stone mansion for himself, of which the remains are still to be seen”. Within the Fort is a Friday Mosque with an elegant minbar or lectern dated to about 1521 AD. Siyu is also famous for fine skills in furniture-making and leather-crafting. As this may suggest, Siyu’s prosperity continued much longer than that of Pate, and unlike many other ecclesiastical relic forts at Lamu, Siyu Fort is unique because it was built to protect the town from the advancing Omani Arabs domination. Siyu is the only town which built a fort of its own, unlike Mombasa and Lamu where the forts were put up by foreigners. One of the endearing features of Siyu Fort, on one of the towers, is a carronade still in its original position and still with remains of its wooden carriage around it. Siyu Fort was gazetted as a National Monument in 1958. It’s reached either by boat up Takwa creek and then by foot to Siyu, or by rounding Manda Island by boat to Shanga and a short walk north.
44. Atu Ruins
Atu Ruins are situated about half way between Siyu and Chundwa, but off the main trail to the east, almost at the edge (within about 100 metres) of the high water and mangrove line. At Atu are a mosque and an interesting grouping of tombs. The mosque had two rows of two piers, creating three aisles, with the ablution chamber to the south. The mihrab is curiously recessed into the walls, ana the apse is squared; next to the mihrab was a stepped masonry minbar. The musalla was entered through a single doorway in the east wall, or through the southern room; the western wall has fallen. About 150 metres or less south of the mosque are the tombs, labelled from the easternmost, set within thick bush.
45. Chundwa Ruins
The little-known Chundwa (or Tundwa) Mosque is located a little way out of the village on the Faza trail. It’s intriguing for its 18 shallow and narrow arch orders and recesses of over 50 bowls in the north wall. In the town is Chunawa pillar, a round tapering column about four metres high – A bench or base at the bottom has a diameter of 1.7 metres, while the base of the main body of the pillar is 1.1 metre across. Three masonry shafts with open spaces between them hold the top section above the body of the pillar, and on top is a conical finial. Just at the edge of the town along Faza trail, is a cemetery with step end tombs, some with long east facades. East of town on the Kizingitini trail are a mosque and tombs.
46. Faza Village
Originally known as Ampaza, at the northeastern corner of Pate Island, the 14th Century settlement of Faza has a deep-rooted history of tragedy and loss. More importantly, it also has a history of rebuilding itself from the blink of extinction, time and time again. Faza entered written history with its support of the Turk Mirale Ali Bey in 1586, for which action the town was destroyed by Portuguese the following year. Faza subsequently became an ally of the Portuguese, in an alliance mainly directed against Pate. In the 19th Century it served as a base of operations of the Zanzibaris against Siyu. There were a Portuguese chapel and a fort at Faza, but their remains are not known. The Swahili ruins include three mosques, some tombs, and the musalla of the Mosque of Shala Fatani. South of Shala Fatani Mosque is a second mosque, broken down, which used to have southern ablution facilities. North of this ruin is a cemetery, and east of this is another fine ruined mosque. Faza Village lies about 15 kms west of Pate Town. If the object of the journey is to tour Faza it is served by a working jetty. Due to its remoteness, the landscape around Faza has changed little over the decades. It is composed almost entirely of Bajuni-styled makuti (grass-thatched) houses.
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