Thirty years in Madagascar

by Thomas T. Matthews

‘Although visited by Europeans only within the last 400 years, Madagascar has been known to the Arabs for many centuries, probably a thousand years at least, and also, although perhaps not for so long a time, to the Indian traders of Cutch and Bombay.’ Moreover, some of the great classical writers of Greece and Rome, such as Aristotle, Pliny (the elder), and Ptolemy, seem to have heard of Madagascar; though until a few years ago this had escaped notice, owing to the fact that the island was known to them by different names.

There is perhaps some ground for supposing that the Jews may have known of Madagascar, and that the sailors of Solomon, in their voyages in the ‘ships of Tarshish,’ may have visited that island. ‘Ages before the Arabian intercourse with Madagascar, it is highly probable that the bold Phoenician traders’ ventured as far to the south, or at least obtained information about this great island.

The fact that the Ophir of Scripture, from which came the famous ‘gold,’ is now believed by most high authorities to have been on the east coast of Africa, renders it highly probable that these ‘ships of Tarshish,’ with Solomon’s sailors on board, may have visited Madagascar. If so, it is easy to account for the close resemblance between certain Malagasy and Jewish customs, such as the scape-goat and the sprinkling of blood, or rather their practice of soaking a piece of bulrush in the blood of the bullock killed at the annual festival of the Fàndròana, i. e. ‘the bath,’ and placing it above the lintel of the door of the hut for its sanctification and protection from evil influences. The killing of a bullock at the annual festival of the Fàndròana seems to suggest some slight connexion with the Jewish sacrifice of a bullock on the day of Atonement. Quarrels were made up, and binding engagements entered into, over the body of a slain animal. The Jewish forms of marriage, the practice of levirate marriage, the Jewish law as to bankruptcy, under which the bankrupt and his wife and family were sold into slavery for the behoof of his creditors—there is a Malagasy proverb which says: ‘Pretentious, like a slave of Hova parentage’—and other usages seem all to point in the direction of Jewish influences.

There are fifteen different tribes in Madagascar, but the Hova tribe—that occupies the central province of Imèrina, Ankòva (the land of the Hova)—was for about a century the dominant one. The Hovas were not the aborigines of Central Madagascar; these were a tribe or people called the Vazìmba, who were dislodged by the ancestors of the Hovas, and who have been extinct for ages. In their heathen state the Hovas worshipped at the tombs of the Vazìmba, and offered sacrifices to their shades to propitiate them, as they believed they could harm them or do them good. The Hovas might be called the Anglo-Saxons of Madagascar, a race of foreigners who entered the island 1,000, perhaps 2,000, years ago, and who, strange to say, belong to the Malay portion of the human family, and are thus allied to the South Sea Islanders.

How the ancestors of the Hovas came to Madagascar is a mystery, as the nearest point from which it is believed they could have come is the neighbourhood of Singapore, upwards of 3,000 miles away. Hova tradition states that their forefathers landed on the north-east coast of the island, fought their way gradually up into the interior, and finally took possession of the central province of Imèrina. That is probably as near the truth as will ever be discovered.

‘About the seventh century, the Arabs of Mecca took possession of the Comoro Islands, lying to the north-west of Madagascar, and extended their commerce all over the coasts of that great island; and it was to a marked extent their language, civilization, and religion which for centuries dominated the north-west of the island. The great Arab geographer Edresi, who lived in A.D. 1099, has left among his writings a description of Madagascar, which he calls Zaledi. The same author refers to the emigration of Chinese and Malays, who settled in Madagascar at an epoch which unfortunately cannot now be precisely determined, but which at least is not so very remote; these were probably the ancestors of the Hovas.’

Madagascar was first made known to modern Europe by the celebrated Venetian traveller Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century. He, however, had never seen or visited the island, but had heard during his travels in Asia various accounts of it under the name of Magaster, or Madagascar. He devotes a chapter of his most interesting book of travels to a description of the island; but he seems to have confounded it with Magadoxo on the adjoining coast of Africa, as much of what he relates is evidently confused with accounts of the districts on the mainland of Africa, and of the island of Zanzibar, since he says that ivory is one of its chief products, and that it contained elephants, camels, giraffes, panthers, lions, and other animals which never existed in Madagascar. The ‘rock’ or ‘rukh,’ a gigantic bird which he describes, is in all probability the aepyornis, the original of the huge bird of Sinbad the Sailor, long deemed fabulous. The aepyornis, now extinct, was a struthious bird allied to the New Zealand moa. It produced an egg which would fill a gentleman’s silk hat.

It was not until the beginning of the sixteenth century that any European set foot on Madagascar. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the adventurous Portuguese navigators, Bartholomew Diaz and Vasco da Gama, reached the southernmost point of Africa, and rounded the Cape of Good Hope, thus discovering the sea route to India and the far East. On the Mozambique coast da Gama found numbers of Arabs trading with India, and well acquainted with the island of Madagascar. In A.D. 1505, King Manoel of Portugal sent out a fleet to the Indies, under the command of Don Francisco de Almeida, who in the following year sent back to Portugal eight ships laden with spices. On their way they discovered, on February 1, A.D. 1506, the east coast of Madagascar. Joas Gomez d’Abrew discovered the west coast of the island in the same year, on August 10, St. Laurence’s Day, from which circumstance it was called the Island of St. Laurence, a name which it retained for more than a hundred years.

During the early times of French intercourse with Madagascar, in the reign of Henry IV, it was known as the île Dauphiné; this name was never accepted by other nations. There is, however, every reason for believing that the name Madagascar is not a native name, but one given to the island by foreigners. ‘Nòsindàmbo’ (the isle of wild hogs) was a name sometimes given to Madagascar; but when the Malagasy themselves spoke of the whole island, they usually called it Izao rehètra izao, or Izao tontòlo izao (the universe). The Malagasy, like many other islanders, probably thought that their island home, if not the whole universe, was certainly the most important part of it, and that the Arabs and other foreigners came from some insignificant spots across the sea. Another name used by the Malagasy for their island is Ny anìvon’ny rìaka (what is in the midst of the floods), a name that might be fairly applied to most islands. This name, it is said, was engraved on the huge solid silver coffin of Radàma I, the King of Madagascar, or rather King of the Hovas. On it he was called Tòmpon’ny anìvon’ny rìaka (Lord of what is in the midst of the floods).

As might be expected, the accounts given of Madagascar by early voyagers and writers are full of glowing and extravagant language as to the fertility and natural wealth of the island. Although these are certainly very great, they have been much exaggerated.