interiewer: Catherine Calvet
translation: doxa-louise
Cyrille Coutansais: 'Well before the wheel, man inventedthe boat.'
Caught between fear, fascination and exploitation, the history of man is
stamped with his particuar relationship with the sea. Research Director for
the Strategic Research Center within the Navy, Cyrille Coutansais is of
the view that civilized societies still have a lot to learn from this relationship
taking Polynedians and Vikings as examples.
‘Well before the wheel, man invented the boat’
The Earth is blue but we have forgotten that we are aquatic beings before
terrestial ones, that all life comes from the oceans. Yet it is the terrestial
prism that is dominant. One could rewrite all of history from the point of view
of the sea. Cyrille Countansais, after works of political and economic analysis
wanted finally to try to understand all these men who took to the seas without
maps, without GPS, in dugout canoes...What could have attracted them to such
perillous adventure? The thread running through his latest book, les Hommes
et la Mer (CNRS éditions, 2017), is this relationship between man and the sea
and its evolution throughout various civilizations.
You make a distinction between seafaring peoples and terrestial ones?
There are landlovers and seafarers. Every civilization has an imaginary dimension
which tells of its relationship with the sea. In Europe, our Judeo-Christan heritage
makes the sea a menacing place, the Beast of the Apocalypse must, for example,
emanate from the sea. In the Middle Ages, dying at sea meant passing without burial
thus ending up in Hell. Polynisian civilization, quite to the contrary, has a very positive
view of the ocean. For Polynisians, Heaven is under water.
Fishermen societies thus had a positive view of sharks, whales...
Sharks were even often times their totem animal. They were like the positive
view we have of the dolphin (heir apparent). They were considered very intelligent
animals. In certain stories, human vessels at risk were brought back safely to port
thanks to sharks. They were seen as good omens indicating the best fishing emplacements.
Whales could be viewed as divinities.
The weight of memory from seafaring peoples is less than that of terrestial ones.
History is the work of terrestials. It is widely assumed that the colonization
of continents was accomplished on foot, yet many lands were discovered by
the sea. Islands were more often than not populated by seafarers. And often earlier
than we thought. In order to reach Australia, heading out without seeing land was
necessary. The discovery made in 2003, that the island of Flores ( in Indonesia)
occured trough a maritime route forced us to rethink all of history. The first means of
transport invented by man was the boat, well before the wheel. Mankind has been
seafaring since its inception.
Historical accounts are very Eurocentric, and this has blinded us to the seafarer
perspective of other peoples. The encounter of James Cook with Polynesians is a case
in point. In effect, the latter had populated the whole of the Pacific Islands: Easter
Island around 900, well before the crowning of Hugh Capet in 987! They had advanced
means of navigation: catamarans, but also canoes with rockers which allowed them to
embark on long voyages. They had no maps but knew the skies and navigated
by the stars. When Cook arrives in the Pacific in the XVIIIth Century, he hires
a Polynesian pilote to go from island to island. His pilote takes him everywhere,
while Cook doens’t even know what latitude he is on. Rather than be surprised by this
science he doesn’t share and try to learn more, he camps on the idea of the noble savage
navigating by instinct. Yey America was discovered by Polynesians then the Vikings, well
before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.
Perhaps seafarer culture left fewer traces?
Sea and salt erase everything. The wood of the boats never resisted. We do not find at
sea any equivalent to cave paintings. Moreover, seafarer culture is by nature silent.
Sailors tend not to be loquatious. They don’t share easily their experiences of the sea.
Or if they do, it is among themselves. It is understandable that they would be secretive
about fishing finds or the fastest sea routes. The Phenicians, for example kept recors of their
itineraries, specifically those with which they had found gold along the coasts of Africa...
Sailors share a secretive culture but also of a silence that comes from monotony,
even the boredom of a trip. There is little to say. Or, on the contrary, viewing this
blue immensity remains an enigma, an unapprehendable universe. The only real event
is seeing land. A few have enriched their accounts. By imagining monsters. Perhaps to
discourage terrestials that might be tempted to follow suite. Thus it is a culture
with little transmission, that has not given rise to a profound historiography.
Nonetheless understanding our origins, and even those of all life lies at the bottom
of the sea.
With respect to our prehistory, 85% of the most ancient prehistorical sites are today
under water. We have had, in the course of our history, a glacial period, during which
water was very far from our current coasts. Those lands, then inhabited, are
then submerged due to rising sea levels. They were seaside societies, often quite
advanced.
Between terrestials and seafarers, communications aren’t always easy.
It is noteworthy, here in France, that there is a disconnect between seaside populations
and those established inland. Sailors were, for example, not much appreciated by the
Church. They didn’t fit in. They had seen other lands and could make comparisons
and eventually call into question the established order. They often had a culturethat
was a bit anarchist, dissident, even heretical.
You mention two great seafaring civilizations: the Polynesian and the Vikings..
The Polynesians developed an extremely noteworthy civilization on more than
45 000 square kilometers between the islands of Fidji, Wallis-and-Futuna, New Caledonia
and Australia: the Lapita culture. And this only with canoes. The
Polybesian adventure was all about sea migration. They were well organized.
They would first send out a few scouts on canoes with rockers and then the population
would follow in catamarans made up of hollowed out tree trunks and juxtaposed in which
they could carry small cattle, food supplies, and crop plants so they could survive on arrival.
They even reached America in the year 900 and essblished trading relations with that continent.
The potato, typically South-American, was for example being cultivated on Cook Islands
as early as the year 1 000. And there is, in the other direction, a Polynesian chicken available
in South America.
In Europe, the equivalent to the Polynesians were the Vikings?
They were forced into developing a true maritime culture. They would often leave desolate
and inhospitable Scandanavian lands to explore the coasts of Russia,
all of whose rivers they descended, of Europe ( they arrive in the north of France
around 900 AD) or more to the West: toward Iceland and Groenland, which as
indicated by its name was verdant and fertile at the time. A bit further one could
reach Canada. Which they merely discovered, but did not populate, contrary to the
Europeans later. Ye it is an Icelander who discovered North America, by accident,
having gone adrift, in 935, thus well before 1492. these lands seem very interesting
because contrary to Iceland, they are covered in forests. Some Icelanders try to settle
but give up after confrontations with Native Peoples.
The entire Viking imaginary dimension is of the sea. It is inhabited. There are cities
as brilliant as Paradis, but there are also monsters. Sea serpents, for example, who
can with the flick of their tails create a devastating tide. Sirens are bur minor creatures
in a large and varied bestiary... Then a climatic cooling progressively cut off Groenland
from the original lands of the Vikings.
From a political perspective, seafaring peoples created true thalassocraties.
the first would be the Minoenan civilization of Crete. It is the first laboratory for marine
empires that will later form. Their seafaring knowhow will allow them to control all of
the Oriental Mediteranean and specifically the commercial exchanges that are developing
there. Thanks to this maritime domination they accumulate riches and develop their fleet
all the more. This will also bring them peace and security.
It is not until the Venitians that we find defensive military constructions.
The Portuguese will repeat this model and take over the Indian Ocean from Arab
navigators. They will thus control the spice trade. But those who will push this maritime
capitalism the furthest will be the Dutch, for they will be present on all continents at once
as early as the XVIIth century. They will set the world price for certain staples, such as sugar.
Yet the great advantage to these thalassocraties will be their exchanges with others.
They will enrich themselves by discovering other civilizations... The Cretans experienced
an artistic awakening by briging back fromtheir travels new pigments,
thus new colors.
The sea is an almost virginal terrain: we know of more than one million earthbound
species but a mere 250 000 maritme ones.
This is an important question. The sea can seem an immensense reservoir of resources.
Mineral resources for example in Papua New Guinea, where an immense
opencast field is about to open. The first underwater mine at Solwara, off the coast
of that country, will begin extracting gold, copper and silver early 2019, according to
the Canadian firm Nautilus Minerals. If this turns out profitable, it risks setting off a race
to underwater resources and an overexplotation of the grounds. The impact on fauna
and flora will be negative.
The worst is that we risk making species disappear before having discovered them.
These species could be crucial to the future survival of humanity. We are currently
finding under the sea certain molecules that treat otherwise incurable illnesses, such as
certain cancers. And it is only the beginning. Maritime genetic variety is greater than
what we already know on earth. The greater part of the abyss has yet to be discovered.
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