James Sibree

“ Drunkenness is very prevalent in many parts of the island; and it can hardly be said of many of the Malagasy that they are very industrious. But they are courageous and loyal to their chiefs and tribe, and for short periods are capable of much strenuous exertion. They are affectionate and firm in their friendships, kind to their children and their aged and infirm relatives, very respectful to old age, most courteous and polite and very hospitable to strangers. ”

“ The Hòva became the dominant tribe from the beginning of the 19th century; they appear to be the latest immigrants, and are the lightest in colour; and they are also the most intelligent and civilized of all the peoples inhabiting the island.
The most striking proof of the virtual unity of the inhabitants of Madagascar is that substantially but one language is spoken over the whole country. The Malay affinities of Malagasy were noted in the 16th century ”

“ Together with this idolatry there is also a firm belief in the power of witchcraft and sorcery, in divination, in lucky and unlucky days and times, in ancestor worship, especially that of the sovereign’s predecessors, and in several curious ordeals for the detection of crime. The chief of these was the celebrated tangèna poison ordeal, in which there was implicit belief, and by which, until its prohibition by an article in the Anglo-Malagasy treaty of 1865, thousands of persons perished every year. ”

“ The majority of Hòva houses were formerly built of layers of the hard red soil of the country, with high-pitched roofs thatched with grass or rush; while the chiefs and wealthy people had houses of framed timber, with massive upright planking, and lofty roofs covered with shingles or tiles. ”

“ The Malagasy are skilful in metal-working; with a few rude-looking tools they manufacture silver chains of great fineness, and filagree ornaments both of gold and silver. Their iron-work is of excellent quality, and in copper and brass they can produce copies of anything made by Europeans. They display considerable inventive power, and they are exceedingly quick to adopt new ideas from Europeans.
There is a considerable variety in the houses of the different Malagasy tribes. ”

“ There is, however, an undoubted African mixture in the western and some other tribes. There is also an Arab element both on the north-west and south-east coasts; and it appears that most of the families of the ruling classes in all parts of the island are descended from Arabs, who married native women. It is believed that there are traces of an aboriginal people (the Vazimba) , who occupied portions of the interior before the advent of the present inhabitants, and these appear to have been a somewhat dwarfish race, and lighter-coloured than the Malagasy generally. ”

“ The Hòva [7] or commoners form the mass of the population of Imèrina. They are composed of a large number of tribes, who usually intermarry strictly among themselves, as indeed do families, so that property and land may be kept together. The third great division was the slave population, which since 1896 has become merged in the mass of the people. The Mozambiques or African slaves, who had been brought from the African coast by Arab dhows, were in 1877 formally set free by an agreement with the British government. ”

“ No plough is used, all work being done by a long-handled spade; and oxen are only employed to tread out the soft mud preparatory to transplanting. The rice is threshed by being beaten in bundles on stones set upright on the threshing-floor; and when beaten out the grain is stored by the Hòva in rice-pits dug in the hard red soil, but by the coast tribes in small timber houses raised on posts. In preparing the rice for use it is pounded in a wooden mortar to remove the husk, this work being almost always done by the women. ”

“ Reports of rich discoveries attracted considerable attention in South Africa and Europe during 1904–1906, but experts, sent from the Transvaal, came to the conclusion that Madagascar would not become one of the rich goldfields of the world. The chief mining districts have been already indicated (see under Geology) . Rich finds were reported from the north of the island during 1907, in which year the export of gold was £320,000. The mines afford a lucrative occupation for some thousands of persons, and many of the claim-holders are British. ”

“ In other districts the villages and homesteads are enclosed within formidable defences of prickly-pear or thorny mimosa.
Apart from the modern influence of religious teaching, the people are very immoral and untruthful, disregardful of human life and suffering, and cruel in war. Until lately polygamy has been common among all the Malagasy tribes, and divorce effected in an absurdly easy fashion. At the same time the position of woman is much higher in Madagascar than in most heathen countries ”

“ Silver has been detected in certain galenas, and also platinum; copper has been found in various localities, as well as zinc, lead, nickel, antimony and manganese, but none of these metals has yet been discovered in sufficient quantities for profitable working. Iron, on the contrary, especially magnetite, is found abundantly and has for long been worked by the Malagasy with the simple appliances brought by their ancestors from their original home in the Far East. The principal seats of the native industry are on the edge of the upper forest, where charcoal is easily procured. ”

“ The avi-fauna is much richer than the mammalian, and, although wanting the largest birds as well as the most brilliantly coloured, comprises two hundred and sixty species, half of which are endemic. Many of the birds are remarkable not so much for their shape or colouring as for their distant relationships; many belong to peculiar genera, and some are so isolated that new families have had to be formed for their reception. There is a large variety of perching birds, including several species of brilliant plumage—sun-birds, kingfishers, rollers and flycatchers, &c. ”

“ The vegetation on the western side of the island is much less dense, often appearing as scattered clumps of trees on savannah-like plains rather than continuous forest; while in the south-west, where the rainfall is very scanty, the vegetation is largely of fleshy-leaved and spiny plants—aloes and cacti (the latter introduced) , with several species of Euphorbia, as well as numerous lianas, one of which (Intisy) yields india-rubber. It is estimated that there are about 30,000 sq. m. of forest-covered country in Madagascar, or about one-eighth of its whole surface. ”

“ To an outsider it also appears that the staff of officials is very largely in excess of any real needs of administration; several monopolies, which interfere with the habits of the people, tend to produce discontent ”

“ The Hòva queen’s authority was maintained over the central and eastern portions of Madagascar, and at almost all the ports, by governors appointed by the queen, and supported by small garrisons of Hòva troops. At the same time the chiefs of the various tribes were left in possession of a good deal of their former honours and influence. Rànavàlona II., her predecessor and her successor were successively married to the prime minister, Ràinilaiàrivòny, a man of great ability and sagacity, who, by his position as husband and chief adviser of the sovereign, became virtual ruler of the country. ”

“ But on the island becoming a French colony, in 1896, royalty was formally abolished; and little regard is paid to native rank by French officials.
The chief employment of the Malagasy is agriculture. In the cultivation of rice they show very great ingenuity, the kètsa grounds, where the rice is sown before transplanting, being formed either on the margins of the streams or in the hollows of the hills in a series of terraces, to which water is often conducted from a considerable distance. In this agricultural engineering no people surpass the Bétsiléo. ”

“ The number of endemic genera now known is 148. Of the 3178 species of plants whose localities have been determined, 35% are peculiar to the eastern region, 27.5% to the central, and 22% to the western. One natural order, Chlaenaceae, is strictly confined to Madagascar. “A small proportion of the species are Asian, but not African; and the flora of the mountains corresponds closely with that of the great ranges of the tropical zone of Africa.” “The general plan of the flora follows thoroughly the same lines as that of the tropical regions of the Old World.” ”

“ Among the food-giving plants are rice—the staff of life to the majority of the Malagasy—in many varieties, maize, millet, manioc, yams, sweet-potatoes, arrowroot, which is largely used by the western tribes—as well as numerous vegetables, many of them of foreign introduction. ”

“ The people of the south and south-east make large use of soft rush matting for covering, and they also prepare a rough cloth of bark. Their non-employment of skins for clothing is a marked distinction between the Malagasy and the South African races, and their use of vegetable fibres an equally strong link between them and the Polynesian peoples. ”

“ Gold is found almost all over the region of crystalline rocks, except in and around the Antsihànaka province, the richest auriferous districts being a band of country parallel with the east coast and spreading at its southern end into the interior ”

“ The rainfall diminishes as one goes westward and especially south-westward, there being very little rain in the south-west corner of the island. No snow is known, even on the loftiest mountains, but thin ice is occasionally seen; and hail-showers, often very destructive, are frequent in the rainy season. Terrific thunderstorms are also common at that period; waterspouts are sometimes seen; and as the Indian Ocean cyclone region touches the eastern coast, hurricanes occur every few years, at rare intervals ascending into the interior highland. ”

“ Inhabitants.—The population is somewhat under two and three-quarter millions, [6] including some 10,000 or 11,000 Europeans, and a smaller number of Indian, Arab, and other Asiatics, mostly small traders found in the seaports, the Chinese being found in every town of any size. The island, it will be seen, is very sparsely inhabited; the most densely peopled province is that of Imèrina with (1905) 388,000 inhabitants. The natives, collectively known as Malagasy, are divided into a considerable number of tribes, each having its distinct customs. ”

“ Besides these highest points there are a considerable number of mountains in the central provinces of Imèrina and Bétsiléo and the intervening and surrounding districts; and in the Bàra country the Isàlo range has been compared to the “Church Buttes” and other striking features of the scenery of Utah. One of the finest of the Madagascar mountains is an isolated mass near the northern point of the island called Ambòhitra. This is 4460 ft. high, and rising from land little above the sea-level, is well seen far out to sea. ”

“ The Hòva government aspired to have Madagascar recognized as an independent civilized state, and consuls appointed by the British, French and American governments were accredited to the Malagasy sovereign, the queen having a consul in England, and a consular agent Foreign Relations. at Mauritius. The treaty with Great Britain, concluded in 1865, gave the consuls of that nation jurisdiction over the British subjects in the island. ”

“ There is now no active volcano in Madagascar, but a large number of extinct cones are found, some apparently of very recent formation. Some miles south of Diégo-Suarez is a huge volcanic mountain, Ambòhitra, with scores of subsidiary cones on its slopes and around its base. About 40 m. south-west of Antanànarìvo there is a still larger extinct volcano, Ankàratra, with an extensive lava field surrounding it; while near Lake Itàsy are some 200 volcanic cones. Another group of extinct volcanoes is in the Vàkinankàratra district, S.W. of Ankàratra. ”

“ This region, nearly coincident with the mountainous upper portion of the island, is chiefly composed of the following crystalline rocks: gneiss, which is the most common of them all, quartzite and quartz-schist, with occasional beds of crystalline limestone and mica-schist, although this latter rock is very rare. The gneiss is mostly grey, but occasionally pinkish, its essential constituents (felspar and quartz) being almost always associated with dark mica (biotite) and hornblende in variable quantity. The rock is therefore a hornblende-granitite-gneiss. ”

“ Early in 1896, however, a serious Rebellion of 1896, and Gradual Subjection of the Malagasy. rebellion broke out in several parts of Imèrina. This movement was not only anti-French and anti-foreign, but also distinctly anti-Christian. The French troops gradually broke up the power of the rebellion in the central provinces, but as there appeared to be considerable unrest in many other parts of the island, General Gallieni, an officer with a reputation for vigour and ability in the Sudan and Tongking campaigns, was sent out to relieve the then resident-general. ”

“ About 1870 india-rubber began to be exported in considerable quantities, and cattle, rubber and hides continue staple products. Other important exports are raphia fibre and beeswax. Since 1900 gold has become a leading export, the value of the gold sent out of the country in the five years 1901–1906 being £1,384,493. The imports consist chiefly of tissues (mostly cotton goods) , breadstuffs and rice, liquors, metal-ware and coal. Better means of internal transport and increased production in the island have greatly reduced the import of rice, which came mostly from Saigon. ”