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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    infuriated animal manages to catch some one and gore him with his long sharp horns, often causing instant death. Notwithstanding these frequent accidents, the practice still continues, though I think there is some improvement of late years, at any rate in the capital. Since even grown-up men will join in tormenting the cattle in this way, we cannot wonder that young boys should learn to copy them in their games. A number of children having assembled, and provided themselves with a widely branching forked stick and one or more ropes, they choose one boy to be the bmby, and then the others all set upon this one and chase him about, and jump upon him and throw noosed ropes at him, calling out wildly all the time : Singbry ! Singbry ! Iantandrbhy ! Tolbmy ! Alavby b !—'Lasso him! Lasso him ! Catch him by the horns ! Wrestle with him ! Throw him down !' He meanwhile runs about chasing them hither and thither, and trying to poke them with the forked stick which he holds out in front of him to represent horns. At length they overpower him, and having thrown him to the ground, tie his hands and feet up together with a string or cloth, just as the feet of the oxen are tied when about to be killed. Then they get a piece of reed or stick for a knife, with which one of them pretends to cut his throat, the others all dancing round and crying out: ' Cut him ! Cut him ! Divide him up ! Bring the plates ! Catch the blood !' Then having finished him off and cut him up to their satisfaction, they all go home carrying stones or sods with them to represent pieces of meat. I fancy most English children have at one time or other played at funerals, probably over some pet canary bird, cat or rabbit. Now you will be interested in hearing that Malagasy children amuse them- selves in just the same way. Having chosen a suitable place, they first of all make a tomb ; for in this country a man generally makes his own tomb during his lifetime, and very often spends far more money over it than he does over his house, so that you may often see people living in a poor mud house, but with a fine tomb of worked stone in the yard outside. So too they will wear nothing but thin