Twelve months in Madagascar

by Joseph Mullens

In the first instance we worked on Mr. Cameron’s lines. We went over a great portion of his work; revised it from our own observations; and extended it in all directions. To the north-west we laid down Vonizongo as far as the population extends. West and south-west we carried the survey to Ambohiveloma; over all Imamo, to Lake Itásy and the districts of Mándridráno and Menabé. Thence we passed it through Betáfo and Sirabé: enclosed the Ankárat mountains within it and measured their height. With Mr. Cameron himself, as I have already shown, we continued the survey down the Betsileo Province to its southern end. Eastward we laid down Angávo, the moors of Ambátoména, the plain of Ankay, and the Sihánaka Lakes. And finally by a route lying west of that taken by M. Grandidier, we went down to the sea at Mojangá. The work proved most enjoyable. We followed up the country step by step, greatly aided by the numerous conspicuous hills, with whose names and appearance we soon grew perfectly familiar. The Map which accompanies this little volume is one result of our work: and the red lines which mark our routes upon it will show how fully we traversed the country and how much of it we saw with our own eyes.

Much of the information acquired in our journeys will be found in the several chapters which describe them, and which the various sections of the map are intended to illustrate. It will suffice therefore here to indicate the general structure and character of the island. The navy-surveys show that the island of Madagascar has a length of 818 geographical miles, measuring from Cape Ambro on the north to Cape St. Mary’s on the south. The position of the former is in lat. 12° 2′ S.: that of the latter is lat. 25° 40′ S. The greatest breadth of the island from Cape St. Andrew to Tamatave is 354 miles: the longitudes of these two points being, long. 44° 30′ E. and long. 49° 28′ 30″ E. respectively. These longitudes have been fixed by reference to the Observatory in Cape Town. The island is a long oval, pointed at the northern end; and its major axis lies in the direction of N. 16° E. While a crevasse and channel of great depth separate it from the continent of Africa, the Farquhar Islands, at its north end, the Séchelles with their red clay, and the coral reefs in the Indian Ocean seem to me to connect its granite hills with the Laccadive and Maldive Islands and with the mighty forces which in Southern India threw into their present position the Nilgiri and Kunda hills. The island was probably the noblest portion of some great continent which stretched away from Hindustan to the south-west; and which shared in the tropical flora and fauna of India in an early stage of the earth’s history, and was separated from it while both were still young.

The chief physical feature of Madagascar is the central mountain mass, which commences with lofty mountains at the north end of the island, and retains them till within a moderate distance of its southern cape. The entire central line is high ground and only its two sides are level plains along the east and west sea-coasts. The central mass is by no means uniform in its appearance. We have already shown how, on ascending to the interior from the east coast, the traveller meets and successively mounts three lofty mountain walls, each supporting a broad terrace behind it. The first of these, west of Ampásimbé, rises 900 feet: beyond Befórona, the second terrace is 1400 feet higher: the third ascent at Angávo carried us up 1620 feet on to the highest part of the Imerina plain. The central plateau has a general height of 4000 feet: at its widest part it is ninety miles in width; in the narrowest it is about thirty miles. This plateau is somewhat over two hundred geographical miles in length. It abounds in ridges and detached hills of gneiss and granite, which give wonderful variety to the scenery; and at several points these rocks spread out in wide, lofty and barren moors. The rugged ridges enclose broad basins of the sedimentary clay, and the numerous streams of pure water furnish abundant sustenance for the rice crops, which form the principal food of the people. As this central level is reached by great terraces from the east, so on the north, south and west, the traveller descends from it on to other terraces, going gradually lower and lower, until he reaches the level of the sea. It was a matter of deep interest to Mr. Pillans and myself that we descended on to the first terrace at several points; at Ambohimandroso, beyond Lake Itasy, and in the valley of Ankay, before we finally followed down the entire series of steps on our way to Mojangá. The fact that to so large an extent the island consists of red clay, and appears to have been at some time perfectly buried in it, accounts for the peculiar form of its terraces and of the basins which they sustain. The enormous volcanic forces hereafter to be described may have been required to break the granite rocks and render them available for the use of men: but water has exerted a mighty agency likewise on the island: and whether by rains or streams or waterspouts, in the bursting of lakes or by gentle showers, during long, long ages it has been ploughing and moulding and shaping the land, and it is moulding and shaping and beautifying it still.

The Malagasy people who inhabit the island appear to be a single race, notwithstanding some tradition about “dwarfs.” Nowhere do we find any tribe or clan or race in any secluded corner of the land, (such as we meet with in the hill districts of India, of Sumatra and Borneo), totally different from the inhabitants of the plains or open provinces. Nor do we meet with any portion of the people specially degraded below their fellows as a conquered and despised race. So far as known the people of the entire island are in most respects similar to one another; and sixty years ago they stood more on a common level than they do now. The main differences at present existing between one portion and another are the result of Christian education and of compact, just and settled government.

There is undoubtedly one distinction which may be drawn among the Malagasy; they may be divided into the dark and fair tribes. From the first writers on Madagascar have referred to this difference between them. But in the face of important points of agreement I think too much has been made of it. It is well known to residents in India, that low, hot, saline and malarious districts tend to darken the olive complexion; while dry, open, cooler plains, tend to bleach it and render it fair. Now it is the coast tribes of Madagascar, inhabiting the hot, feverish provinces, which have the dark skin: while those which occupy the central plateau with its bracing air, are, in general, fair. Other considerations must be looked to: and I find them in the dialects spoken; and in the course taken by the movements and migration of the tribes as they gradually occupied the island. In regard to these matters several mistakes have been made by various writers.

Judging from the movements of the tribes and from their present relations to one another, it seems to me that the Malagasy are divided into three tribes, starting from different centres, and inhabiting separate districts. The Betsimisaraka tribe and its offshoots occupy the east coast and its two lower terraces. The Sakalavas hold the broad plains of the west coast in all its length, and overlap the upper extremity of the north-east coast. The Hovas and their branches inhabit the entire central plateau, and the flanks of its southern extremity.

The Betsimisárakas include the Sihánakas, the people of Ankáy, and (I think also) the Tanálas, all on the higher terrace between the lines of forest. These upper divisions of the tribe have separate names; but they are merely expressive of the localities to which the people have migrated. The Betániménas are those who occupy the “districts of red clay.” The Tanálas are the people of “the forest districts.” The Tankays live “in Ankay,” the “open land”; not concealed by or broken by long hills. The Sihánakas are (as we shall see) “the people of the lakes.” In no part of the country occupied by this tribe is the population concentrated and numerous: all their districts are thinly peopled. Important mistakes have been made in regard to these subdivisions. Both the Sihánakas and the Bezánozáno of Ankay have been described as Sákalávas. But a visit to the districts which they inhabit shows at once that with the Sakalavas they have nothing to do. They are shut off from the latter by all but impassable mountains. They are Betsimisárakas in their houses, their dialects, and the dressing of their hair: and an examination of the country plainly indicates the points on the east coast, from which their people started. In regard to the still greater error of regarding the entire Betsimisáraka people as half-breed Arabs, there is even less to be said. The statement must have originated in some mistake. It might apply to a few people in and around the Arab colony of St. Mary’s; but it is wholly inapplicable to the entire people of the east coast.

The Sákalávas are also divided into tribes: but there is little cohesion amongst them; they live separate from one another, and have frequent petty wars. Their numbers cannot be great, though they occupy a large tract of rich tropical country, which under a settled government and in diligent hands would yield vast quantities of produce. They have for ages been at feud with their Hova neighbours, ever ready to carry off their cattle and plunder their farmsteads and fields. The name they bear, “the tall cats,” is a complimentary title given by their Hova foes, who have found them as fierce and formidable with the ancient weapons as any wild cat to be met with in the woods. The Sakalávas have not been slow to return the compliment; and they contemptuously style the Hovas ambóalámbo, a mixture of the dog and the boar, “a set of vagabonds.”

The Hovas proper now occupy all the northern portion of the central plateau, whether Vonizongo, Imámo or other districts. And though at one time it was usual to describe their province as Ankova, in recent days the tendency has been to drop this term altogether, and to call the entire Hova country, Imerina. The Betsileo tribe are without doubt of the same blood as the Hovas. The Ibára tribe, who live south and west of the Betsileo, are (as I have shown) kindred to the Betsileo. Each of these sections of the central population has grown numerous, has had its separate interests, and has been at feud with its fellows. Nevertheless many similarities of language, dress, customs and manners exist between them. And the differences are no greater than those which divide them from the other tribes of the island. Politically these tribes are drawing nearer to each other under Hova rule; and these similarities will be increased and developed rather than repressed.

In the important inquiry whence the Malagasy have come and with what other branches of the human race they are connected, the evidence supplied by their language is of the first importance. Naturally it might have been expected that living so near to the continent of Africa, they would be connected with the African tribes; or at least that some of their settlements would have been founded by African colonists. And among scholars there have not been wanting those who have argued warmly that they are substantially an African people. The views of the late Mr. Crawford on this point are well known. He argued that the Malagasy are substantially a negrillo race; with woolly hair, African blood and an inability to form an alphabet: that Malay pirates, blown away from the eastward, had mingled with them and left their mark upon the language; and so on. He has been followed by Mr. Wake and others in recent days.