Silent Trade is a method by which people with no common language could barter goods. Group A would leave trade goods in a prominent position and signal, by gong, fire, or drum for example, that they had done so. Group B would then arrive at the spot, examine the goods and deposit their trade goods that they wanted to exchange.
The practice was certainly well established between tribes in Africa in their trade with India. Cosmas Indicopleustes describes this practiced in Azania, where officials from Axum bartered for gold with beef1. Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal recorded this practice when he occupied Ceuta in 1415.
Notes
1. Cited in J. Innes Miller, The Spice Trade of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Univeristy Press, 1969), pp. 167f. Although Miller offers an extensive passage in translation, he does not provide the source for his quotation.
Another episode in Sarah Tuft's Mother-Daughter series, SilentTrade features a narrative in which a mother makes breakfast and serves it to her little girl.
They are in an archetypal, squeaky clean kitchen from childhoods of past and present.
SilentTrade reveals the bonding, nurturing and comfort, as well as the indebtedness and control that create associations between being fed and being loved.
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