A GRATIFYING CHANGE
But to return to our journey, we landed at the foot of the hill on which Ambòhitsòa, a village of about eighty houses, is built, and mounted to the top by a steep pathway. Here a most extensive and lovely view presented itself, I think the most beautiful of its kind I had ever seen in Madagascar. The lake lay before us, stretching far away to the southward in a great rounded curve, and with its indented bays and island fastness to the northward. The changing shades of purple and blue of the water; the green of the plain beyond; and the varied outline of hills and mountains in the far background to west and north—all lit up by bright sunshine—made as charming a picture as an artist could desire to transfer to canvas. But we had little time to spare, and so after hastily taking bearings we went to Màrosalàzana, the next village to the south, which we could see on a high hill at three or four miles’ distance. On entering the village, a place with about sixty houses, we found a crowd of about four hundred people waiting to receive us. These were not all inhabitants of the place, for many of them had come from Ambòhitsòa to meet us. After a formal reception by the authorities we found the school-children assembled on an open raised space in the centre of the village, a group of nearly a hundred altogether, dressed in their best. Many of the girls had a peculiar kind of collar to their dress, consisting of seven or eight massive silver chains of different patterns; they also wore armlets of silver. Many of these children and young people had most intelligent and pleasant faces. We heard them read, and then I was delighted to find they knew the smaller catechism well. I talked to them a little about it, and then addressed a few words to the numbers of people crowded round the children, speaking to them of the great love of God in sending His Son. It was an interesting scene, and one we did not soon forget: the bright intelligent group of children in the centre; the crowd of wondering Sihànaka on each side; the little knots of women in their dark blue dresses and silver ornaments; and the lovely scene around us—all made a picture attractive in its outward aspects, but still more interesting when one thought of these people as seemingly prepared to welcome a fuller teaching than they had yet received.
The pleasant scene at this village, as well as what we had witnessed at others, gave a cheering promise of what might be expected were the people more thoroughly instructed. In a short report supplied by Rabé, the native evangelist, he says that when he first went to Antsihànaka, “only a person could be found here and there who washed their clothes, for everyone’s dress was smeared with castor-oil, and they thought it would spoil their clothes to wash them, as they would soon be worn out; so that the clothing of the people was offensive to the last degree. For that reason the dark blue cotton was generally worn, as it was nearly black to begin with. But now there is hardly anyone who does not wash his clothes, and has not white dress. Not long ago, when it was evening, the young men in the villages used to form into two parties, and had violent boxing-matches all through the village, the women also often joining in the fray. But now no one practises this rough sport. Not long ago rum was what the people chiefly delighted in; and if any strangers who visited them were not made thoroughly drunk, the owner of the house was looked upon as inhospitable, although he gave them the best of everything to eat.”
EXPENSIVE FUNERALS
We left Màrosalàzana at one o’clock, and found outside the village something which gives the explanation of its name, “many poles”—viz. a group of more than twenty poles stuck in the ground close together, and holding ox skulls and horns. This was the largest group we had yet seen, and there also were many more lying mouldering on the ground. Besides these, there were several very high poles with forked tops, such as we had already seen at almost all the Sihànaka villages. These lofty poles are called jìro, a word which in Hova Malagasy signifies a “lamp.” We had already seen these on our journey northwards, but here was a larger number than we had hitherto met with. These jìro are only raised in memory of a male Sihànaka; to eulogise a woman, the rush mats and baskets which she made and possessed while living are arranged on poles by the wayside to meet the public gaze. These people spend a large amount of money and property on the funerals of their relatives. Mr Pearse gives the following account of what was expended at that of a man dying at a village called Màngalàza:—Thirty silk làmbas, to wrap up the corpse, value two hundred and sixty-nine dollars; a hundred oxen, value three hundred dollars; drink and food, principally the former, thirty-nine dollars’ worth; showing an expenditure of more than six hundred dollars on this particular funeral. (At that time a dollar was worth as much or more to the Malagasy as a pound would be to us.)
A WIDOW
After returning home from Antsihànaka, I heard many other particulars about the people and their habits, and among them the following curious, and cruel, custom with regard to widows; and as this is so utterly different from anything practised by any other Malagasy tribe, as far as I am aware, it is well to put it on record. It is much more like a Hindu custom than a Malagasy one, and is as follows:—When the corpse of the deceased husband is about to be buried, the widow is decorated profusely with all the ornaments she possesses, wearing a scarlet làmba, with beads and silver chains on her neck and wrists and ankles, long ear-rings depending from her ears to her shoulders, and silver ornaments on her head. Then she is placed in the house, so that it may be seen by everyone how her husband adorned her while he was yet living; and when the people go away to the funeral, she remains still in the house, and does not go to the grave. When the relatives and friends have returned home and seen the widow sitting in her grand clothing and ornaments, they rush upon her, tearing her dress and violently pulling off her ornaments, so as to hurt her, and say at the same time: “This is the cause of our losing our relative”; for they believe that the vìntana—i.e. fate or luck of the wife—is stronger than that of her husband and so has caused his death. Then they give her a coarse làmba, a spoon with a broken handle, and a round dish with the stand broken off; her hair is dishevelled, and she is covered up with a coarse mat; and under it she remains all day long, and can only leave it at night; and whoever goes into the house, the widow may not speak to them. She is not allowed to wash her face or her hands, but only the tips of her fingers. She endures all this sometimes for a year, or at least for eight months; and even then, her time of mourning is not ended, but endures for a considerable time afterwards. And she is not allowed to go home to her own relatives until she has been divorced first by the husband’s family.
The house in which people die is left by the survivors, and no one occupies it again; they do not pull it down, but let it fall to pieces of itself, but they do not leave the village as do the Sàkalàva in similar circumstances. Such houses are called tràno fòlaka (“broken houses”); but I am informed that this last custom is falling into disuse; and happily, the influence of Christian teaching has caused the treatment of widows to be greatly altered, so that it is now becoming a thing of the past.
After leaving the “village of many poles,” our afternoon journey was southward, first crossing several spurs of the higher hills with their intermediate valleys; and then down a long level tract of country between the lake and a bold wall-like line of hills, which here forms the eastern boundary of the plain. We passed several large villages, and stopped for the night at a place of forty or fifty houses, called Ambòhimànga.
UNLUCKY DAYS