Hi Mark,
Allow me to go back in time, like the XVI century and a bit westwards in territory, like the Gulf of Oman.
The attached picture is a watercoulor from a set of seventy six, which belong to the Casanatense codice, the first illustrated work available on the discoveries route, belonging to an unnamed Portuguese author.
The legend inserted in the painting says:
NOUTAQUES. THEY ARE THIEVES THAT ARE ROBBING ON THE SEA..
The Noutaques ( or Nautaques or Naitaques) lived in the coast, between Ormuz and the Cape Jasque, in places like Guadel, near Muscat.
Despite the apparent fantasy put in the painting, the veracity of the situation is confirmed by several other chronists of the period, who considered these guys as "moor" corsairs. One of them, Gaspar Correia, wrote:
THESE NAUTAQUES SAIL AND ROW VERY FAST TERRADAS, AND EVEN THE ROWING MEN ARE ARCHERS THAT CARRY ON THEIR BACKS THE BOW AND THE ARROWS. AND AS THEY GO ROWING, THEY DROP THE OAR AND STAND UP WITH THE BOW, THROWING ARROWS WITH THREE CORNERED HEADS, TWO OR THREE AT A TIME, ONE BETWEEN EACH FINGER, WHICH LOOSE THEIR SHAFTS AS THEY HIT THE TARGET. THEY ARE VERY DEXTEROUS AND ACCURATE IN THE THROWING. .
Martim Afonso de Sousa and the Italian Balbi precise that:
THE (these)
MALABAR CORSAIRS USED BOWS AND ARROWS, AND THEIR BOATS WERE ARMED WITH FALCONETS AND ARQUEBUSES.
I thaught you might like to have this material for your piracy files
.
.