A
Look At Madagascar
The Great Island ~ By Rabenilaina
Harinia Cyrille.
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It
is called the Great Island. In fact, it is almost a mini-continent: 1,580
km long, the size of France and Benelux together, and with about 12 million
inhabitants. Madagascar is an old land: millions of years ago, it was attached
to the “ Gondawana continent ” which comprised the south of India and even
Australia and from which Madagascar was separated by the process of continental
drift. Since then, like in the neighboring isles, volcanoes have appeared
on Madagascar, but they have long died out. Yet erosion has continued its
intense work, transforming certain regions of Madagascar – like the Isalo
massif for instance – into spectacular scenery. The geography of the island
is apparently simple. From north to south, the inner part of the island
is made of what we call the Highlands, which consist of a series of basins
surrounded and separated by rather high mountains rising to about 3000m
at Tsaratanana in the north. The average altitude of these highlands is
1300m. There, lakes and large fields have been irrigated into rice-fields.
It is in this region that the historic capital, Antananarivo, is located.
Antananarivo has been translated by the French into Tananarive. The eastern
and the western coasts of Madagascar are very different. On one side, the
eastern coast is relatively narrow, squeezed between the border of the
highlands which fall sharply into a range of mountains – often called “
Escarpment ”, and the Indian Ocean which is hemmed in by the mountains
into the shape of a long lagoon, which has a canal that runs through its
center. On the other side, in the western and southern parts, the highlands
gradually decline onto what becomes a large plain often cut by not so high
mountains or by limestone plateaus and large rivers, such as the Betsiboka,
which flows to the coast and into the sea through marshy deltas. All around
this “ almost-a-continent ”, there are many tiny islands and two large
islands – the two most famous large islands are : Sainte Marie Island,
in the east, fairly elongated in shape, and Nosy-Be, up in the north-west,
mountainous, very tropical and particularly renowned for its beaches.
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| The French
name for the capital of Madagascar is Tananarive. The city is built into
a hill at the top of which stands Queen Ravalana 's Palace. The palace
was destroyed in a fire in 1995. |
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Madagascar
is situated in the tropical zone. Being in the Southern Hemisphere, it
has two fairly distinct seasons: from May to October, austral winter, the
dry seasons; from October to April, austral summer, the rainy season. But
altitude and latitude may bring notable differences. Thus, Nosy-Be and
the northwestern islands keep a fairly stable temperature the year through
(25°C to 30°C) and in spite of the sudden tropical rains, which
may pour down over them, the atmosphere there is rather clear and dry.
On the other hand, the highlands compose a barrier and therefore they are
exposed to the trade winds and thus – in “summer” our winter, attract the
monsoon. On the highlands themselves, frost may occur in “winter”, and
in Tananarive, the average temperature is 15°C because of the altitude
(1245/1469m). Even if from May to October it becomes very dry, the eastern
border of the highlands – “the Escarpment” – remains quite damp and the
mountains of Angavo are almost all the year round hidden in mist.
Who
were the first inhabitants of the island? Malagasy chronicles mention hairy
dwarfs the Vazimbas. Anyway, nowadays everybody thinks that the people
of the Great Island do come from Indonesia or the southwest of Asia. Everything
in their customs and physical features point to their origins in Asia.
And the traditions of the Merina reports this as true. But when and how
did they come? It is not known. As a matter of fact, it was not until the
first Portuguese navigators came to Madagascar that the island was ever
mentioned in Europe. At the same period, the Merina Chief Andrianjaka founded
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| One of
the beautiful beaches of Madagascar. One of my favorite legends of Madagascar
is that of Captain Mission. There are different accounts of this 17th century
pirate from Provence, but the story goes that Mission was a man with idealist
values. He found himself on the seas of the Carribbean near Martinique
when he, his crew and his boat were almost all destroyed in a naval battle
with the English. After surviving the battle, Mission and his followers
made a vow to set up their own republic. The crew sailed for the Indian
Ocean and first landed in the Comoros Islands where Mission married a beautiful
Arab princess. From the Comoros Islands, Mission sailed into the Bay of
Antsiranana on Madagascar's northern coast. There he settled the Republic
of Libertalia. Mission built schools, set up a National Assembley and outlawed
dirty language. The republic was advertised and people were invited to
partcipate in the experiment. The natives watched the town from the hills
above. The relationship between the locals and the pirates was tense but
there was no violence. After almost 40 years of the republic's existence
the natives attacked when Mission and his men were out at sea; after arriving
and seeing his republic destroyed, Mission sailed out into the Indian Ocean
with his treasure - he nor his treasure were never heard of again. The
first person to document Mission's story was Daniel Defore in 1726. |
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Antananarivo,
the town of “the thousand warriors” or “the thousand villages” and turned
the surrounding marshes into rice-fields. Arab traders or sailors, who
had sailed down from Zanzibar or the Comoros islands, tried to settle especially
on the northwestern coast. Despite the relative failure of a settlement
in Fort-Dauphin as early as the XVIIth century, the French also persisted
in settling in Madagascar, particularly on Saint Marie Island with “Corporal-King”
La Bigorne. At the beginning of the XIXth century, Andrianampoinimerina
– more commonly called Nampoina – captured Antananarivo and undertook the
conquest of a great part of the island. His son; King Radama I, completed
his work and began to carry on sustained relationships with the English
and the French who were trying to win his favor. When he died at 36, a
succession of queens – among whom the first one, Ranavalona I, was a kind
of Catherine the Great of Russia with her Potemkine, the Frenchman, Jean
Laborde – was a involved in series of intrigues, pots and revolts which,
around 1890, resulted in General Gallieni deposing the last queen, the
very young Queen Ranavalona III. At the end of the XIXth century, French
troops occupied the whole island and Madagascar became a French colony.
But people went on resisting, and in 1960, the country recovered its independence.
Although Madagascar is very near Africa, the language that the people speak,
their race and culture have few links with those of African people. It
is undeniable that the common human core of the island is of Indonesian
or Malay origin: the terraced rice-fields in the highlands as well as the
outrigger canoes of the Vezo fishermen, or the old custom of the turning
of the dead, or even the physical features of many Malagasy, prove this.
As for the language, it is also closely related to the languages spoken
in the southeast of Asia. The inhabitants of the highlands, the Merina
who founded Antananarivo, trace back their origin to a people who sailed
from Indonesia, long ago.
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With
the Betsileo, their neighbors, they claim to be different from the coastal
people. This denomination covers a complex reality and tries to characterize
populations who may live rather far from the coast – such as the Zafimaniry
mountaineers who live in small perched-houses built on piles that rest
in villages that loom out of the mist; or the Antandroy nomads who wander
with their herds of zebus on the semi-desert plateaux of the south; and
the Bara of the south-west for whom the highest of all feats is “to steal
an ox”. In fact, along the successive centuries, people of various origins
have mingled here, among them were people from Africa, the Middle East,
the Comoros islands, and also the mysterious first inhabitants of the forests
or the peoples of the western deserts.
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| .You
may be attracted first by the beaches of Madagascar. Particularly by the
beaches of Nosy-Be which, in Malagasy, means “the big island”. “Big” island
is quite relative as it is only 24 km long and 18 km wide. But it is a
real little topical paradise, set 8 miles from the northwest coast of Madagascar,
in the middle of myriad’s of little islands and coral archipelagos. Nosy-Be
is a paradise for snorkeling. But Tulear, where there is a superb coral
reef, is also perfect place for snorkeling. Yet the inner part of the island
also deserves to be discovered. First of all, Antananarivo the capital,
the “citadel of the thousand warriors” of old, clinging to the side of
one of the twelve sacred hills of Imerina on which the town has been growing
for many centuries. A picturesque town, at the same time historic and modern,
with its hills of Analamanga. The Queen’s Palace used to stand on top of
it but it has burnt down. On this important place of malagasy history you
can see a museum, the tombs of the main sovereigns and the wooden house
Mahitsielafanjaka – one of the rare witnesses of ancient Malagasy dwellings,
alas now also burnt down. You will wander through the alleys and flights
of stairs linking the upper and the lower parts of the town; you will visit
the “old city”. The road in the central part of the island is, on the whole,
in fairly good condition and will enable you to discover scenery as different
as Asian-like rice-fields, the high plateau, the Zafimaniry mountains which
are lost in mist, the desert steppes of the Antandroy or the sculptured
limestone massif of Isalo.
Malagasy
cooking, very spicy, is based on rice, green-leafed vegetables and zebu
meat. The national dish is the “romazava”, an excellent stew made with
zebu meat which, contrary to what is generally thought, is as tender as
beef. Try also the stuffed goose, the nice and fat eel of the highlands
or the frogs legs called here “cuisses de nymphes”.
You
will find a great variety of malagasy handicrafts such as, bags, suitcases,
belts made of zebu skin or even crocodile; baskets – made of carved wood;
semiprecious stones and silicified wood, of which Madagascar is a big producer:
squarts, amethyst geodes, etc. You can also buy handicrafts on the roads
around Madagascar, and in artisan workshops. If you buy valuable articles,
antiquities or precious wood, ask for an export certificate. This document
will be requested by the customs officers at airport when you leave. |
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| Madagascar
was one of the first countires in the world to set up nature reserves:
1927. Chase Salmon Osborn, the 27th Governor of Michigan, wrote a
book about Madagascar called, Madagascar: Land Of The Man-eating
Trees. Osborn was govenor of Michigan, though born in Indiana's Wabash
River country, from 1911 to 1912 and was well-liked for his use of
language, his intellect and his skills as a politician: he cleaned
up corruption and the finances of the state within two years. Before becoming
govenor, he had been a journalist for the Chicago Tribune. Anyway, Osborn
traveled through Madagascar's infamous Zone Rouge - a place few if any
foreigners ever see - located in the interior of Masdagascar's West Coast.
The travels he recorded for his book were from the early 1920s. This
section of Madagascar is the home of the mythical Vazimba and Kalarno:
men of the deep interior who may be descendents of the original people
who once occupied South-east Asia. They are very rarely seen. Osborn reported
a story that he had heard about the Kalarno in his travel book. The story
talked about a black night in which campers were asleep in the deep forest
of western Madagascar, when suddenly a nude man appeared and took some
cooked rice from a bowl and then disappeared back into the dark forest
and night. Soon after, the nude man returned with a nude woman and it was
reported to Osborn by the natives that this must have been a honeymoon
couple because they fed each other with each other's hands and then made
love, talked with each other via grimaces and when disturbed got up and
ran off together into the surrounding forest. |
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In
Madagascar, the official language is Malagasy. But French, which is a second
language is spoken everywhere. However malagasy people are beginning to
have an interest in the English language.
Apart
from a few islamised Malagasy such as the Antaimoros on the eastern coast
whose Wise Men still wear the red turban, or the people of the north-west
coast who were influenced by the Comoros islands – almost all the inhabitants
of the Great island have been converted by missionaries to either Protestantism
or Catholicism. In fact this christianization has not deeply changed their
ancestral beliefs which give an important place to the dead and to ancestor
worship. On the highlands, the “famadihana” is still practiced – improperly
translated into “the turning of the dead”. Periodically alarmed by the
dream or the inspiration of an old member, the family gathers to exhume
the remains of one or many dead relatives, and wraps them in a new shroud
“lamba”. These remains will stay with their living relatives during the
whole ensuing feast and sometimes will even be carried on a trip around
allied villages. In the other provinces, this belief is essentially visible
in the presence of numerous tombs, often decorated with statues carved
on them and sometimes telling the story of the life of the deceased: Mahafaly,
Antandroy, Aloalo.
Travel
Information:
Visa
: compulsory
Anti-malarial
treatment is advised: before, during and after (about one month) the stay.
| Rabenilaina
Harinia Cyrille was born in Antananarivo. He and his family live
at Cité des Professeurs, Fort-Duchesne, Antananarivo, Madagascar.
He presently works as a teacher at College Saint-Michel teaching Information
and Communications. He also works for the NGO Mianala as a project manager.
He plays guitar in a band called VAIN, which plays a mix of grunge and
folk. He will be contributing articles about life in Madagascar for future
editions of Escape From America Magazine. He can be contacted at: niaa@refer.mg |
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