mtepen.
/(ə)mˈteɪpeɪ/, /(ə)mˈtɛpi/, U.S. /(ə)mˈteɪpeɪ/, /(ə)mˈtɛpi/ Now historical.
A sailing vessel characterized by a square matting sail, used on the east coast of Africa. Cf. chelingo n.The timbers of the boat (built by the Bajuni people of the northern Swahili-speaking area) are sewn together with ropes and wooden pegs, and it is typically constructed without the use of metal nails.
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society > travel > travel by water > vessel, ship, or boat > vessel propelled by sail > [noun] > with specific rig > square-rigged > African, with matting sail
mtepe1826
1826 J. Emery Jrnl. 26 Mar. (P.R.O.: ADM/52/3940) Arrived two mitepe from Ozi.
1826 J. Emery Jrnl. 1 Apr. (P.R.O.: ADM/52/3940) Arrived a mtepe from Siu.
1872 R. F. Burton Zanzibar I. iv. 73 Various native craft..anchor close in shore... The quaintest and freshest local build is to us the Mtepe, which the Arabs call Muntafiyah.
1938 Jrnl. Royal Anthropol. Inst. 68 343 It is only when the Swahili coast is reached that the oculus is again encountered. In this region the only sea-going craft that can be classed as indigenous is the mtepe.
1942 E. Afr. Ann. 1941–2 27/1 His ‘M'tepe’ squatted, with many others, on the deep waters beyond the jetty. The tapering mast, raking forwards, was now devoid of its lateen sail.
1981 Internat. Jrnl. Afr. Hist. Stud. 14 325 The mtepe or sewn boat which was one of the commonest of Swahili sea craft in past centuries (and has only disappeared from the Lamu Archipelago within living memory) was too large and heavy and much too vulnerable to be hauled up onto the beach and exposed to this monsoon.
1993 J. de V. Allen Swahili Origins viii. 168 Voeltzkow, who visited the Lamu Archipelago in 1903, and Pearce, writing from Zanzibar some time before 1920, both mentioned cattle first in their lists of mtepe cargoes, and they were surely carried in earlier times too.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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