Madagascar has been called "Big Island," or "The Seventh
Continent" because this country is bigger than France. On the one
hand, because of its geography, Madagascar belongs to Africa, and
on the other hand, it belongs to Asia. For this reason, inside
Madagascar there evolved a very characteristic style, and this
unusual country always surprises us.
The origin of the people of Madagascar is a mystery, but we
could imagine from archeology that people came from Asia and
Africa around 1000 A.D., because of finding earthenware of this
time. We can say that the people of Madagascar are half Asian and
half African (Deschamps).
In Madagascar we can find eighteen tribes, but the culture of
all of them is almost the same. Before Madagascar was colonized
by France on September 30, 1895, a queen governed the country.
But after June 26, 1960, when Madagascar became independent, the
royal family was deposed, and a president began to govern the
country (Brandt). The population of Madagascar is 9 million
people, and 90,000 of them are foreign people. 30,000 are French
who stayed there after the colonization, or who came from the
Reunion (Brandt).
Madagascar's people have a very great respect for their
ancestors; their ancestors are looked upon as gods. Their houses
have only one room, and the front door is always faced east in
order to respect their ancestors. Madagascar's people believe and
pray always to their ancestors. If a member of their family dies,
they organize a big festival, or a big party; they eat, drink and
dance--for the dead they spare no expense. They sacrifice a cow,
and around the graveyard they dance until morning. We can say
that their funerals are very cheerful. People are afraid of the
curse of their ancestors, so once a year, they take corpses out
from the graveyard to change their clothes. People are expected
to have reverence for their descendants while they are alive
(Deschamps).
One magician always stays in each village to treat sick people
or to predict the future of the village, and a magician is always
at the center of the ceremonies. People of Madagascar could have
two or three names. The first name is given by their fate, which
the magician sees; for example if the baby was born at a bad
moment, the magician will name this baby "rat" or "black cat" to
make the evil disappear. After the bad moment has passed, the
father gives the baby a new name. When the boy becomes an
adolescent, the family cuts the foreskin of his penis, and the
grandfather of the boy eats the foreskin, expecting that the boy
will make a lot of babies to inherit the worship of their
ancestors.
The most important thing for men and women is to leave
descendants. For that reason unmarried people are looked on as
abnormal. People of the village take good care of the
fortune-teller or magician, and they respect what he says
(Deschamps). Madagascar is rich in natural resources. It exports
coffee and sugar cane. Eighty percent of the people have an
agrarian lifestyle, and the people live on rice, like the
Japanese. A scholar called Madagascar an island of paradise. We
can find all sorts of rare animals that live only on Madagascar:
seventy-five percent of the world's fox-monkeys, and sixty-six
percent of the world's chameleons have lived here for many
centuries without predators. In this country there aren't any
fierce animals like elephants or lions (Jenkins).
Madagascar has been developed little by little without the
influence of another country; they developed their own culture,
their own style of life. A lot of mysteries still remain in this
country: mysteries of people, mysteries of animals and mysteries
of nature. This country is very interesting with so many
mysteries to discover.
by Atsuhito Ito
Works Cited
Brandt, H. Guide to Madagascar, Second Edition. U.K.:
Publications, 1990.
Deschamps, Hubert. Madagascar. Que Sais-je? Presses
Universitaires de France.
Jenkins, M.D., ed. Madagascar, An Environmental
Profile. Cambridge: IUCN, 1987.
