The children of Madagascar / by Herbert F. Standing.

  • Herbert Standing
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The children of Madagascar / by Herbert F. Standing. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The Malagasy tombs consist of a large square hole or vault dug in the ground, enclosed on each of the four sides with stone slabs, and covered over at the top with a still greater slab of stone. All these have been split off the blue granite rocks by kindling fires upon them. Around the walls of this underground room other large slabs of stone are placed, one above another, like the berths in a ship ; and on these the bodies are laid, having first been wrapped up in red silk lambas. The building of a tomb is a great event in Malagasy family life ; for since there are no waggons in Madagascar, all the great slabs of stone used in making the tomb have to be dragged from the quarry by main force. The stone is usually strapped to a sledge-like frame- work of rough timbers, though a primitive sort of truck with small clumsy wooden wheels is sometimes employed ; but this is of so rough a construction, and the roads are so bad, that even when it is used it requires a great number of people to pull it along. This stone-dragging is one of the most interesting sights in Madagascar. A number of ropes attached to the stone are held by long lines of people, men, women and children, all dressed in holiday attire, while one man mounted on the stone directs the movements of the others, singing and dancing, and flourishing a sort of flag which he holds in his hand. The rest all take up the chorus, and as they sing they simultaneously give the stone a series of short tugs, and so gradually move it along. The Rev. J. Sibree has furnished me with the following account of the strange way in which some of the coast and forest tribes dispose of their dead. He says:—' They do not bury their dead, but throw them away into some low, damp place in the forest. One day we met a funeral in the forest, and a most saddening sight it was. I heard a great noise of shouting and singing, and thought it was the people dragging a great piece of timber, but on coming up close found it was a child's coffin. A rough wooden box was being carried by a great number of men, who were pulling it backwards and forwards,