Fish and dried fish
- British colonial
Ships from the Maldive Islands brought dried fish to Balasore and Dhamra every year. Many years later, fish caught in Chilika lake were sent out by train from the town of Balugaon.
Dried fish arrived on Maldive ships in the 1820s, and fresh Chilika fish left by train about a century later.
A British officer named Stirling wrote about ships from the Maldive Islands. They sailed to Balasore and Dhamra every year, in the 1820s. They carried a small load of dried fish, along with cowrie shells, coconuts and coral. [Stirling, 1825, p. 194]
About a century later, fish from Chilika lake moved a different way. A 1929 gazetteer says fish and grain left the lake town of Balugaon by train. The government’s own fishery officer had just moved there from Puri. [District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., O’Malley & Mansfield, Bihar and Orissa District Gazetteers: Puri (1929), pp. 204-205]
For scholars
These two records describe different things, a century apart. Stirling’s dried fish is a small import, carried by Maldive ships in the 1820s. The 1929 gazetteer’s fish is a lake catch, sent out by rail, with no stated overseas destination. They are combined here because both are verified records of fish moving as cargo through this coast. They do not describe the same trade route. [Stirling, 1825, p. 194; District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions, n.d., O’Malley & Mansfield, Bihar and Orissa District Gazetteers: Puri (1929), pp. 204-205]
Facts
- Category
- Foodstuff
- Direction
- Traded both ways
Scholar notes
The two records describe different things a century apart: Stirling's dried fish is a small import carried by Maldive ships in the 1820s; the 1929 Puri Gazetteer's fish is a lake catch sent out by rail from Chilika, with no stated overseas destination. They are combined here because both are page-verified records of fish moving as cargo through this coast, not because they describe the same trade route.
- Andrew Stirling. *An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of Orissa Proper or Cuttack*. in Asiatic Researches 15. 1825. public domain , p. 194 ('a small supply of couris, cocoanuts, coral, and dried fish is obtained from the few Maldive vessels, which resort annually to Balasore and Dhamra'.)
- *District Gazetteers (Cuttack, Puri, Ganjam, Balasore), British-era editions*. n.d. public domain , O'Malley & Mansfield, Bihar and Orissa District Gazetteers: Puri (1929), pp. 204-205 ('From Balugaon and Kalupara Ghat the greater part of the traffic is the export of fish and grain'; the District Fishery Officer's headquarters had recently moved from Puri to Balugaon on Chilika lake.)