After our usual employments of school examination, conversation with the pastor and others, and renewed presents of food, on Friday morning we set off on our circuit round the plain to visit as many of the congregations, and see as much of the country and the position of the Sihànaka villages, as was possible in six days, as our time was limited to that period. Proceeding first westward, and skirting the edge of the level ground, we passed for some distance through swamp, with dense thickets of hèrana and zozòro, the first being, as already seen in Imèrina, a strong sedge extensively used for roofing, and the other, a species of papyrus, employed for a variety of purposes. This latter grows here to a great size, some ten or twelve feet high, with a triangular and exceedingly tough stem, about two and a half inches each way, nearly double the size it attains in the cooler Imèrina province.
We had to cross numerous little streams by rickety bridges of plank. From the level of the rice-fields the plain stretched northward like an immense green lake; the rotundity of the earth was as clearly seen from the perfect level as it is from the surface of the sea, for the distant low hills appeared like detached islands with nothing to connect their bases. Our course lay west by north-west, cutting diagonally across several of those promontories formed by the parallel lines of hills which run down each side of the Ankay valley. Every village of the Sihànaka has near its entrance a group of two or three tall straight trunks of trees fixed in the ground, varying from thirty to fifty feet in height; the top of these has the appearance of an enormous pair of horns, for the fork of a tree is fixed to the pole, and each branch is sharpened to a fine point. Besides these, there are generally half-a-dozen lower poles, on which are fixed a number of the skulls and horns of bullocks killed at the funeral of the people of whom these poles are the memorial. One thing struck us as curious: several of the higher poles had small tin trunks, generally painted oak colour, impaled on one point of the fork; and in several instances baskets and mats were also placed on a railing of wood close to the poles supporting the bullock horns. These various articles were the property of the deceased, and put near his grave with the hope of their being of some benefit to his spirit; or perhaps from the idea, common to most of the Malagasy tribes, of there being pollution attached to anything connected with the dead. In several cases, on the very highest point of the lofty poles, there was a small tin fixed, having a strong resemblance to those we import containing jam or preserved provisions.[17] As among many Eastern peoples, so in Madagascar, the horn is a symbol of power and protection; the native army was termed tàndroky ny fanjakàna—“horns of the kingdom.”
CATTLE
Some of the cattle we saw were magnificent animals, and it is not strange that the bull was used frequently in public speeches, as an emblem of strength, as it is the largest of all the animals known to the Malagasy. It frequently occurs in this sense in the formulæ and the songs connected with the circumcision ceremonial; for the observance of this native custom was a time of very great importance in the old native regime. Bull-fighting was a favourite amusement with the Malagasy sovereigns; and in digging the foundations for a new gateway to the palace yard at Antanànarìvo, the remains of a bull were discovered, wrapped up in a red silk làmba, the same style of burial as that employed for rich people. This was the honour paid to a famous fighting bull belonging to Queen Rànavàlona I. It seems pretty certain that anciently the killing of an ox was regarded as a semi-religious or sacrificial observance, and only the chief of a tribe was allowed to do this, as priest of his people. Robert Drury, an English lad who, with others, was wrecked on the south-west coast of Madagascar in 1702, and remained in the country as a slave for fifteen years, gives many particulars about this custom of the southern Sàkalàva people.
THE OX
An old Malagasy saying thus describes the various uses of the different portions of an ox when killed: “The ox is the chief of the animals kept by the people, and they are very beautiful in this country. Our forefathers here knew well how it should be used, and they said thus, when they invoked a blessing (at the circumcision): The ox’s horns go to the spoon-maker; its molar teeth to the mat-maker (for smoothing out the zozòro peel); its ears are for making medicine for nettle-rash; its hump for making ointment; its rump to the sovereign; its feet to the oil-maker; its spleen to the old man; its liver to the old woman; its lungs to the son-in-law; its intestines to those who brought the ropes; its neck to him who brought the axe; its haunch to the crier; its tail to the weaver; its suet to the soap-maker; its skin to the drummer; its head to the speech-maker; its eyes to be made into beads (used in the divination), and its hoofs to the gun-maker.”
Our next morning’s ride brought us to Ambòhidèhilàhy, a large village of a hundred and twenty or a hundred and thirty houses, occupying the northern end of one of the promontories.
For the first time since we had left Ambòhimànga we had a meal in an ordinary house, and could notice the arrangement of a Sihànaka dwelling. I immediately observed that instead of there being one post at each end and at the centre of the house to support the ridge, as in the Imèrina houses, this had three at each gable, just as the Bétsimisàraka have; another confirmation, by the way, of my belief, that the Sihànaka are connected with the coast tribes, and have come up from the sea and settled on the margin of the fertile plain. Instead of the one door and window on the west side, as in the Hova houses, the Sihànaka make two doors on that side, with high thresholds, dividing it into three equal parts, and a low door on the eastern side, coming where the fixed bedstead is placed in Imèrina. Here the bedstead was at the south-east instead of the north-east corner; and the hearth, with its framework above for supporting property of various kinds, at the south-east instead of the mid-west side of the house.
After dinner we set off over level ground for Manàkambahìny, a village nearly south from us, which we could see on a low hill forming the extremity of the high ridge bounding the Mangòro valley to the west. We found that the small rivers between the parallel ranges of hills spread out into many shallow streams over a wide surface, forming a swamp with luxuriant rushes and vegetation. The wild birds seemed plentiful here. In several places was a kind of snare for taking them on the wing, consisting of several stout bamboos fixed in the ground a few feet apart, with cords stretched between them, and loops of string suspended from these cords. We were only able to stay a short time at the village, and then pushed on, crossing the level ground at the southern extremity of the Antsihànaka plain and coming at sunset to Ambòdinònoka, a good-sized village on its western edge. Here we had reached our farthest south in our journey round the province.
SIHÀNAKA MATS