ORNAMENTAL PATTERNS

[27] My friend, Mr G. A. Shaw, who was connected for several years with the Bétsiléo Mission, made a number of “rubbings” of this peculiar ornamentation. On exhibiting many of these at the Folk-lore Society, when I read a paper on this subject, one of the members expressed a strong opinion that these patterns must have had originally some religious signification; and another member remarked that the patterns closely resembled those on articles from the Nicobar Islands.

[28] The word “Tanàla,” which simply means “forest dwellers” (àla = forest), is a name loosely given to a number of tribes of the south-east, who inhabit the wooded regions and the adjacent country. All, however, have their proper tribal names and divisions.

CHAPTER XIX
IVÒHITRÒSA

OUR Sunday at Ivòhitròsa was such a novel and interesting one that I shall depart for once from my rule of omitting in these chapters mention of our religious work. It was a wet morning, so that it was after eleven o’clock before the rain ceased and we could call the people together. A good many had come up from the country round on the previous day to see us, and we collected them on a long and pretty level piece of rock which forms one side of the little square around which the houses are built. When all had assembled, there must have been nearly three hundred present, including our own men, who grouped themselves near us. It was certainly the strangest congregation we had ever addressed, for the men had their weapons, while the women looked very heathenish. Some few had put some slight covering over the upper part of their bodies, but most were just as they ordinarily appeared, some with hair and necks dripping with castor oil, and with their conspicuous bead ornaments on head, neck, and arms. One could not but feel deeply moved to see these poor ignorant folks, the great majority of them joining for the first time in Christian worship, and hearing for the first time the news of salvation. And remembering our own ignorance of much of their language, the utter strangeness of the message we brought, and the darkness of their minds, we could not but feel how little we could in one brief service do to quicken their apprehension of things spiritual and eternal. We had some of our most hearty lively hymns and tunes, our men assisting us well in the singing; after Mr Street had spoken to the people from a part of the Sermon on the Mount, I also addressed them, trying in as simple a manner as was possible to tell them what we had come for, what that “glad tidings” was which we taught them. On account of the rain, work in the afternoon had to be confined to what could be done in our tent, which was crammed full, and in our house.[29]

That there was great need for enlightenment may be seen from what we heard from the people themselves—viz. that there are (or were) eight unlucky days in every month, and that children born on those days were killed by their being held with their faces immersed in water in the winnowing-fan. So that on an average, more than a quarter of the children born were destroyed! The Tanàla names for the months are all different from those used in Imèrina; they have no names for the weekdays, and indeed no division of time by sevens, but the days throughout each month (lunar) are known by twelve names, some applied to two days and others to three days consecutively, and these day names are nearly all identical with the Hova names for the months. Each of the days throughout the month has its fàdy, or food which must not be eaten when travelling on that day.

After our four days’ stay at Ivòhitròsa, we managed to get on our way towards the coast, not, however, without having considerable difficulty with our bearers, who were afraid of any new and hitherto untried route, for we were the first Europeans to travel in this direction. By tact and firmness we managed to secure our point; and on the Thursday afternoon we came down to the river Màtitànana, which is at this point a very fine broad stream, with a rapid and deep current. It flows here through a nearly straight valley for four or five miles in a southerly direction, with low bamboo-covered hills on either side, and its channel much broken by rocky islands. To cross this stream, about a hundred yards wide at this place, no canoes were available, but there was a bamboo raft called a zàhitra.

THE ZÀHITRA