In the primitive Malagasy animist religion, death as a concept did not exist, but it was a kind of “limbo” in which after the death of a person, he or she rested (body and soul) waiting for the “Return of the Dead” to be accepted in the pantheon of the ancestors and to acquire after this ceremony, immortality, finally becoming a “Razana”, that is, an ancestor, and to obtain, apart from the longed-for eternal life, the privilege of communicating with the gods of Nature, immortality, becoming at last a “Razana“, that is, an ancestor, and obtaining, besides the longed-for eternal life, the privilege of communicating with the gods of Nature.
With the arrival of the Christian religions imported from the West (Catholicism and Lutheran Protestantism the main ones, although also Anglicanism and other confessions of Christian roots) the ceremony acquired new features of identity, in a curious religious syncretism unique in the world and that has lasted until today.
Famadihana Ceremony in the Highlands
On this great plateau riddled with valleys and mountain ranges ranging from 1,000 to 2,895 meters above sea level, in a vast central region of the island that begins about 100 kilometers north of Antananarivo and ends about 80 kilometers south of Ambalavao, the first inhabitants of Madagascar settled between 1,500 and 1,200 years ago. Arriving by sea from different islands of the Indo-Malayan archipelago, helped by the sea currents and the trade winds, they found a large desert island where the geography of these Highlands allowed them to continue their ancestral agricultural life by cultivating rice paddies on large tracts of land.
They settled gradually and for centuries there was a “call effect” that brought new migrations of other peoples coming from the Indo-Malayan area. From these first migrations came ethnic groups of Indonesian origin such as the Merina, Betsileo, Bezanozano… They also brought rice and Asian zebus, some funeral rites that have been disappearing from other latitudes and that were transformed through the centuries and the different migrations, in the current ceremony of Famadihana or Return of the Dead.
In the Highlands, Famadihana is the capital ceremony for each family, and it is considered a shame (even a social humiliation) not to perform every 5 or 7 years (depending on the family wealth) such festivity by taking out the body of a deceased and turning it into an ancestor.
Highland Famadihana can be personal or multiple. Many times, in order to economize and share expenses (which are extremely expensive), families join together to exhume several bodies in the same ceremony.
The rite begins many months before the chosen date. The ombiasy (astrologer or soothsayer) is visited, who will decree an Ody (good) day to perform the ceremony. Then begins the task of inviting as many people as possible (the more guests at a Famadihana, the more the deceased are honored) and preparing the barns for the feast (many kilos of rice, several heads of cattle, vegetables, snacks, alcoholic beverages, music bands…). ). The date is fixed, so once the invitations have been communicated, you must prepare to have everything you need for the ephemeris.
When the day of the ceremony arrives, at dawn, the young people closest to the deceased (or deceased), make their way to the grave where his remains rest.
They enter with great respect in it and with great care, extract the coffin or shroud that wraps the body (sometimes, after death, it is buried with a coffin, but usually it is done directly with the body wrapped in a linen cloth).
The corpse is carried in procession through the village, and always preceded by a traditional musical group, to the house, where the bones are cleaned so that the putrefied part of the human being disappears and the soul that resides in the bones can become an immortal ancestor (Razana).
The new shroud will be protected with a raffia mat and secured with ropes to start a new procession (always preceded by traditional Iray Gasy music) through the village again, to the place where the festivity will take place. Along the way, the procession will stop at some of the places frequented by the deceased and the news will be explained (the new houses built in his absence will be shown, newborns will be introduced to him, anecdotes and stories that happened in those years in which he has been waiting for his Famadihana will be told). All in a very natural and festive way, as if the corpse was not an inert being and was still among the living.
Upon arrival at the place chosen for the great feast (almost always in the countryside, on the outskirts of the village and under large tents set up for the occasion), the deceased will be placed in a place of honor, and the multitudinous ceremony will begin, which can last several days. There will be drinking(a lot of local rum “toka gasy” distilled sometimes at almost 80º…), singing, dancing, eating (many zebus will be sacrificed to entertain all the guests and these are always counted by hundreds), everything will be allowed in this great festivity in which a beloved person, will become immortal becoming forever a revered ancestor.
Other ethnic groups of the island have adapted the primitive Famadihana imported from Indonesia to their Bantu (African) customs. Thus, the Bara for example (it is an ethnic group of semi-nomadic shepherds of Bantu origin that lives in the great savannahs of the south and around the Isalo massif), do not perform multiple Famadihana, and have provisional graves (for the corpse to rest before the Return of the Dead) and definitive graves (for after the ceremony, when it is already considered an ancestor).
The Betsimitsaraka from the east of the island or the Mahafaly from the extreme south also practice similar ceremonies with different variations… However, other ethnic groups, such as the Antandroy, the Tanala or the Sakalava Boina (mostly Muslim), do not perform these ceremonies of the Return of the Dead.
The Famadihana ceremony is usually performed between the months of July and September (dry season on the island), and it is much more common to find it in rural environments than in large cities where its practice is slowly disappearing.
For the Malagasy, Madagascar, in their native language, is called only “Tanin’D’Razana” (Land of the ancestors): a statement of intent that helps us to better understand the meaning of their lives and deaths, still based on the most primitive animism, and always around the sacred land and the venerated ancestors with whom they will meet one day…
Text ©Sergi Formentin
Indigo Be Mazagine
