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Ancient Malagasy Dynastic Succession; The Merina Example

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Paul Ottino
Paul Ottino*
Affiliation:
Ecole des Hautes, Etudes en, Sciences Sociales, Paris
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Extract

My paper dealing with the Andriambahoaka universal sovereigns and the Indonesian heritage that they embodied brought out the eminently religious character of the Malagasy marvelous tales, disarticulated fragments from a Malay myth of origin. As Françoise Raison has noted, the religious value of Ibonia was still perfectly felt in Imerina during the first half of the nineteenth century. I do not hark back to the possibilities offered by the notion of Hikayat--or in Malagasy the Tantara--at once narration and imitation--“semblance,” as it was called in the Arthurian Romance of the Grail. These notions refer to these Shiʿite syntheses, sometimes with gnostic and dualist ideas borrowed from neo-platonism and the ancient Babylonian philosophies of Lights which, introduced into Madagascar by an Indonesian relay, conceived the descendants of Andriambahoaka in the image of that of the imāms descended from Muḥammad through his daughter Fāṭima and her husband ʿAlī--prototype of Ramini, ancestor of the ZafiRaminia and fourth Caliph, but more importantly the first imām, initiator, after the cycle of revelation that Muḥammad closed, of the cycle of explanation, of initiation, of the “return,”, that is, of walayāt.

We are far from this “pedagogical model” that I evoked previously with regard to the other celestial line of the knights seeking the Grail. Far, too, from the unsatisfactory notions of ideology or the “imaginary” such as Georges Duby uses in his recent work, even though his chapter on “L'exemplarité celeste” returns to an infinitely richer universe, very near that which Henry Corbin describes. Can one truly explain from an agnostic point of view facts that are essentially perceived and experienced as religious? In any event going from Ibonia and the marvelous tales of the Andriambahoaka to the historical legends and genealogies in the first chapter of the Tantara ny Andriana of Callet, translated as Histoire des rois, we pass on to something entirely different.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 10 , 1983 , pp. 247 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1983

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References

Notes

1. Ottino, Paul, “Myth and History: The Malagasy Andriambahoaka and the Indonesian Legacy,” HA, 9 (1982), 221–50.Google Scholar

2. For example, Beguin, A. and Bonnefoy, Yves, La quête du Graal (Paris, 1965), 48.Google Scholar

3. Duby, Georges, Les trois ordres ou l'imaginaire du fêodalisme (Paris, 1978), 141–51.Google Scholar

4. Without doubt these omasy (lit., “holy men”) constituted next to the sovereigns a quasi-priestly order.

5. I agree with the chronology proposed by Délivré, Alain, L'histoire des rois d'Imérina. Interprétation d'une tradition orale (Paris, 1974), 233–34Google Scholar, save that I think that the first andriana, introducers of new political concepts, landed in northern and eastern Madagascar at the end rather than the beginning of the thirteenth century. There is hardly any point in noting that these last arrivals were only the last of an Indonesian continuum.

6. This is one of the possible senses derived from the root erina that one meets in m/erina and I/merina, names that the Tantara nonetheless attribute to Ralambo. See Callet, François, Chapus, G.S., and Ratsimba, E., Histoire des rois, traduction du Tantara'ny Andriana du R.P. Callet (Tananarive, 1953), 1:294.Google Scholar

7. Callet, François, Tantara ny Andriana eto Madagascar (Antananarivo, 1878), 1:13.Google Scholar

8. Callet, , Tantara, 1:13n7.Google Scholar

9. Ibid., 1:14.

10. Boismery, H., Ottino, P., and Roche, D., “Le blanc, le jeûne et le calendrier,” unpublished paper.Google Scholar

11. Or else of any food? Basing myself on the Swahili versions of the story of Adam and Eve, I have the feeling that the fall of our first parent could equally punish the major crime of having polluted paradise. Knappert, Jan, Traditional Swahili Poetry (Leiden, 1967), 109–15.Google Scholar The beliefs of the western Malagasy regarding the notion of tiva--pollution caused by contact with human excrement, the complication of the rites of purification (hifikifiky), lend credit to this hypothesis. Tabari tells us that when God raised Elijah from earth to take him living into paradise, he took away the desire to eat (and to sleep). al-Tabari, , Chronique de Tabari (4 vols.: Paris, 1977), 1: ch. lxxvi, 381 and 411.Google Scholar

12. Ottino, , “La mythologie malgache des Hautes Terres. Le cycle politique des Andriambahoaka” in Dictionnaire des Mythologies (Paris, 1981), 2:30–45.Google Scholar

13. Collection des ouvrages anciens concernant Madagascar. [henceforth COACM] ed. Grandidier, A.et al (9 vols.: Paris, 1903–1920), 8:82–83.Google Scholar

14. Ottino, , “Le mythe d'Andrianoro: la conception de la parenté et de l'alliance des anciens Andriana du centre de Madagascar,” Taloha, no. 7 (1976), 51–83.Google Scholar

15. These expressions are not innocent, having to do once again with the fundamental concepts of Shicite or Sufi Islam with regard to the “Perfect Man” (insan al-kamil), “the Exile” and the exiled, the last aspirant to the “return,” etc.

16. Corbin, , L'homme de lumière dans le soufisme iranien (Paris, 1971), 49-56, esp. 50.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., 41, 42-44, 57, 70, 75, 89, 97.

18. Baré, J-F, “Successions politiques et légitimité: l'exemple Sakalava du Nord (1700-1800).” Asie du Sud et Monde Insulindien, 4 (1973), 91–114, esp. 105.Google Scholar

19. Paul Ottino, “Itoerambolafotsy ou ‘La Princesse d'Argent,’” forthcoming.

20. Islamic patrilineal concepts apparently modified these ideas, although a few jurists that in the--very rare--cases where women nobles (shurafa', descendants of Muḥammad) marry men not so descended, any children of such hypogamic marriages would inherit the mother's status. On this see “Sharif,” in The Shorter Encyclopedia of Islam (Leiden, 1978), 531.Google Scholar Recall too that the two sons of Fatma had the exceptional privilege of being considered as “sons of the prophet of God” (“ibn Rasul Allah”). The hadiths report that Muḥammad was pleased to say that “all the sons of the mother are agnatically affiliated except for the sons of Fāṭima, for I am their nearest male relative,” ibid. Moreover, had not “God placed the seed of the Prophet; in the backbone of cAlī”? Tabataba'i, Muḥammad Husayn, Shiʿite Islam (London, 1975), 181.Google Scholar All this, I repeat, explains that in the image of the children of Fatima and the line of imams that issued from them, the lineage of the Andriambahoaka can be considered a mystical or “celestial” line.

21. Ottino, “Mythe d'Andrianoro.”

22. Délivré, , Histoire, 259–61.Google Scholar

23. Délivre, , like Coèdes, George (Les états hindouisés d'Indochine et d'Indonésie [Paris, 1964], passim)Google Scholar, speaks of maternal succession.

24. See the testimony of the Andriambahoaka Bruto Chambanga noted in my “Myth and History,” 222, which, in the remark that “por uma linha contava dezassete geracões e por outra catorze” implicitly admits the principle of double descent.

25. Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Historie des rois, 1: 9, 15–19.Google Scholar

26. Ibid., 1:18.

27. Ibid., 1:16.

28. Délivré, , Histoire, 177–214.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., figures on 29, 30-31, 33.

30. Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Histoire des rois, 1:18.Google Scholar

31. Mille, A., Contribution à l'étude des villages fortifiés de l'Imerina anaien (Madagascar), (2 vols.: Tannanarive, 1970), 1:72–75Google Scholar; 2:Plate 40.

32. Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Histoire des rois, 1:15.Google Scholar

33. Callet, , Tantara, 1:16.Google Scholar

34. Callet, , Tantara, 1:17–19nnGoogle Scholar; Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Histoire des rois, 16–17n15.Google Scholar The substantive fanjavonana, directly from which the name of Andriamanjavonana, whose name means “season of mists,” also means “flight.” This prince is also presented as the only son of Andrianerinerina the son of god fallen from Heaven, and thus establishing a connection between the second and third version.

35. Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Histoire, 1:14–15.Google Scholar

36. Consistent with itself, the third version explicitly denies the existence of this concept at the period that interests us, mentioning that a certain Ratsiseranina of Andraisisa “was not a vassal at Andraisisa, for at this time the clans were independent.” Ibid., 16. This is a free translation of the Malagasy “Ary Ratsiseranina tsy manoa…fa tsy mbola misy ny manoa” (“she did not submit…for submission did not exist then.”) Conversely, the first version does not encumber itself with details, merely presenting Ratsiseranina as a mpanoa princess, that is, one who had submitted to the authority of another prince. Callet, , Tantara, 1:13Google Scholar; Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Histoire des rois, 1:12.Google Scholar

37. To my knowledge the episode of the exchange between Esau and Jacob does not appear in the Qur'an (which scarcely means that it would be unknown to Malagasy tradition!)

38. The themes of unrestrained greed and gluttony, which can in some cases be compared with that of food (see note 20), is constant in Madagascar. The present instances parallels the episode in which Andriamampandry, the wise concillor of Andriamasinavalona, sounded out the aptitude for ruling of the four “first-designate” sons of that ruler. In the same way, three of the four could not resist the sight of food and thereby disqualified themselves. Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Histoire des rois, 1:560–61.Google Scholar In the literary domain one must naturally harken to the marvelous tale of Itoerambolaforsy. Ottino, “Itoerambolafotsy.”

39. Callet, , Tantara, 1:17.Google Scholar

40. Tregear, Edward, The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary (Wellington, 1891), 540.Google Scholar

41. Abinai, Antoine and Malzac, Victorin, Dictionnaire malgache-français (Paris, 1970), 301.Google Scholar

42. Like its Swahili and Malay analogs, the Malagasy word borrows from Arabic, but Malagasy seems to me the only one of the three languages takes as a first meaning this political sense. Both Swahili and Malay use the term in the more general sense of “news,” which they reintroduce (as does the western Malagasy dialects) in current expressions of greeting.

43. Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Histoire des rois, 1:18–19.Google Scholar

44. Abinal, /Malzac, , Dictionnaire, 509.Google Scholar

45. Callet, , Tantara, 1:19–20.Google Scholar

46. Literally, “the Prince above the leaves (ravina)”, another way to express the idea of “Prince of the great forest (of the east)” or Andriandravindravina.

47. Rahajarizafy, A., Ny Kabary, Ny Tantarany, Ny Fombany (Fianarantsoa, 1969), 12–13.Google Scholar

48. Ibid.

49. Ibid. Cf. Callet, , Tantara, 1:288Google Scholar and Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Histoire des rois, 1:286.Google Scholar

50. Rahajarizafy, , Ny Kabary, 13.Google Scholar

51. Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Histoire des rois, 1:10.Google Scholar

52. Ibid., 1:19.

53. Callet, , Tantara, 1:10.Google Scholar

54. Ibid., 1:20.

55. Ibid., 21.

56. Délivré, , Histoire, 259–60Google Scholar and the whole of chapter 6.

57. Callet, , Tantara, 1:21.Google Scholar

58. Since, as I have already mentioned, I am working from a literal reading of the texts, I will not discuss their plausibility, particularly doubtful in this instance.

59. Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Histoire des rois, 1:125–26.Google Scholar

60. Andriamanantsiety, , Tantarn 'Andrianamboninolona (Tananarive, 1955), 4–5.Google Scholar The key phrase, dia ity no voalohany nahitana ny mpanjaka namono ny miombon-dova aminy. Tonga fomba ratsy tarnin'ny taranany iaty aoriana nataon 'Andriamanelo izany (ibid., 5) may be translated “this is the first instance where we wee a ruler kill his co-heir. Later, what Andriamanelo did was to become an evil practice among his descendants.”

61. Délivré, , Histoire, 258-59, 260–61.Google Scholar

62. Boismery/Ottino/Roche, “Le blanc, le jeûne et le calendrier.” Cf. Abinal, /Malzac, , Dictionnaire, 710Google Scholar; Richardson, James, A New Malagasy-English Dictionary (2d. ed.: Farnborough, 1967), 650.Google Scholar

63. The studies of J.J. Ras on the Hikayat Bangar, a Malay chronicle from southeastern Borneo and on the remarkable figure of the minister Lambu Mangkurat, whose name Ras translates as “ox, supporter of the world (Ras, , Hikajat Bandjar. A Study in Malay Historiography [Hague, 1968], 107Google Scholar, based on the Malay lambu/lembu, meaning “ox” or “cow,” and Old Javanese rat, meaning “world”), prompts enquiry into the meaning for the name Ra/lambo. On the evidence, the actual sense of “Mr. Wild Boar” can in no way mask the earlier Malay etymology verified by the traditions that connect this ruler with the domestication and desac-ralization of cattle and making this licit food. See the hypothesis of Dahl, O.C., Malgache et Maanjan, une comparaison linguistique (Oslo, 1951), 318.Google Scholar Does this refer to a name or to a title? If the latter, to a royal title? Nothing is less sure, which further emphasizes the audacity of Andriamanelo's forceful action in imposing his son against the wishes of the Vazimba princesses.

64. Loeb, E.I., Sumatra: Its History and People (Kuala Lumpur, 1972), 49.Google Scholar

65. Délivré, , Histoire, 271.Google Scholar

66. Ibid., 250-51.

67. Ibid., 400n53. See figure 3 above.

68. Délivré, Histoire, 400n53.

69. Ibid., 258-59.

70. Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Histoire des rois, 1:557–58.Google Scholar

71. Callet, , Tantara, 1:570–71.Google Scholar

72. Abinal, /Malzac, , Dictionnaire, 180.Google Scholar

73. Richardson, , Dictionary, 603.Google Scholar

74. Callet, , Tantara, 1:571.Google Scholar

75. See Délivré, , Histoire, 213.Google Scholar

76. Andriamanantsiety, , Tantaran'Andrianamboninolona, 8.Google Scholar

77. Rolland, D., “Organisation politique des groupes Antemoro.” Asie du Sud-Est et Monde Insulindien, 4(1973), 129.Google Scholar

78. Délivré, , Histoire, 252–53.Google Scholar

79. Rasamimanana, J. and Razafindrazaka, L., Fanasoavana ny tantaran ny malagasy/Contribution à l'histoire des Malgaches. Ny Andriantompokoinarindra (2d. ed.: Ambohimalaza, 1957), 18.Google Scholar

80. Ibid.

81. The expression vady santatra, which may pertain to an ancient royal vocabulary, designated the first wife drawn from the uterine line of Andriantompokoindrindra. Santatra expresses the idea of first fruits owing to the sovereign, for example, those of rice or santa-bary. The current way to express this first wife is ordinarily vady be (lit., “great wife”).

82. Callet, /Chapus, /Ratsimba, , Histoire des rois, 1:287.Google Scholar

83. Rasamimanana, /Razafindrazaka, , Fanasoavana, 22–24.Google Scholar

84. Délivré, , Histoire, 247.Google Scholar

85. Valeri, V., “Le fonctionnement du système des rangs à Hawaii,” Homme, 12 (1975), 29–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Gullick, J.M., Indigenous Political Systems of Western Malaya (London, 1969), 59.Google Scholar

86. Beaujard, Philippe. “La lutte pour l'hégémonie du royaume à travers deux variantes d'un même mythe: le serpent-à-sept-têtes.” Asie du Sud-Est et Monde Insulindien, 8 (1977), esp. 177 table.Google Scholar

87. Richardson, , Dictionary, 236.Google Scholar

88. Abinal, /Malzac, , Dictionnaire, 222.Google Scholar

89. Trimingham, J. Spencer, The Influenae of Islam Upon Africa, (London, 1968), 74–75.Google Scholar Cf. Colin, G.C., “Baraka,” Encyclopaedia of Islam2, 1:1032.Google Scholar

90. In Hawaii, three chiefdoms, materially isolated in the mountains, thus each preserved the purity of its mana, playing the role of providers of wives of the loftiest status destined for reigning monarchs. Valeri, “Fonctionnement,” 41, 57.

91. Goldman, I., Ancient Polynesian Society (Chicago, 1970), 418.Google Scholar

92. We mention again the relevance of the notions of zana-dahy and zana-bavy, “children of men” and “children of women.”

93. Rivière, J-C, Georges Dumézil: à la découverte des Indo-Européens (Paris, 1979), 64–66.Google Scholar

94. Hikajat Bandjar, 526, 108.

95. Ibid., 109.

96. COACM, 8:25.

97. Ottino, , “Le thème du Monstre Dévorant dans les domaines malgache et bantou,” Asie du Sud-Est et Monde Insulindien, 8 (1977), 246.Google Scholar

98. Coèdes, , Etats hindouisês, 27.Google Scholar

99. Beaujard, , “La lutte pour hégémonie,” 177 table.Google Scholar

100. Loeb, , Sumatra, 46.Google Scholar

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102. Gullick, , Indigenous Political Systems, 40, 56-57, 59, 70et passim.Google Scholar

103. Ibid., 59n; Winstedt, Richard, The Malays. A Cultural History (2d. ed.: London, 1972), 71.Google Scholar

104. Vergouwen, , Social Organisation, 288.Google Scholar

105. Gullick, , Indigenous Political Systems, 40n2.Google Scholar

106. Loeb, , Sumatra, 103.Google Scholar

107. Berthe, L., “Parenté, pouvoir et modes de production. Eléments pour une typologie des sociétés agricoles de l'Indonesie” in Echanges et communications. Mélanges offerts à Claude Lévi-Strauss, ed. Pouillon, Jean and Maranda, Pierre (Paris, 1968), 722.Google Scholar

108. Ibid., 728.

109. Ibid., 716, 718, 725, 726 table.

110. Abinal, /Malzac, , Dictionnaire, 865Google Scholar, s.v. zafy.

111. With the exception of the first two sub-orders established by Andriamasinavalona, the Zanakandriana and the Zazamarolahy.

112. The politics of Malagasy royal and princely marriages rested entirely on the concept of hasina. In anticipation of delving more deeply into this question, I should cite a passage of B.G. Martin, of which it is scarcely necessary to emphasize its relevance for the Andriambahoaka adventure. Despite some differences, a transposition to the matter in hand would be possible. After noting that the descendants of Muhammad by way of Fāṭima and cAlī, regarded as nobles (ashrā;f) and “holy persons,” were “much sought after as marriage partner s because of their charisma [baraka],”

Martins writes:

“There were as many sublineages of holy persons in East Africa as ther e were in Yaman and the Hadramawt…

In the islamized towns and port s and on the islands of East Africa the members of these holy families were willingly accepted…Certain patterns for successful migrants are evident; many of them apply equally well to other parts of the Indian Ocean area, such a s western India, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

…

No les s often th e migrant married the daughter of a ruler, ensuing a place for his descendants even higher than his own. Some instances of East Africa and Indonesian marriage of this sort suggest a cyclical pattern of alliances in the more distant past to earlier Arab migrants with baraka. As their descendants became indistinguishable from the local population, renewed baraka was injected in the cycle by the arrival and marriage of another sharif from Yaman or the Hadramawt. The cycle was repeated afte r th e charisma imported by the first comer had been attenuated by the passage of time. Thus the Mahadila of Kilwa, Lamu and Pate were eventually ousted by Ba'Alawi sharifs in the same places.

Children of such dynastic marriages created a new clas s of muwalladun in East Africa Bantu-Arab sharifs, elsewhere Indian-Arab, or Sumatran and Javan-Arab sharifs. Although these people experienced some disadvantages in respect to their fathers, they obtained other compensations, becoming both representatives of a local political family and descendants of the Prophet. Thus they were able to take over existing political structures, generally with the acquiesence of the population, or create new states with a theocratic aspects, small enclaves, island realms, or coastal village-states. This pattern was repeated many times. Ever after an ancestor had long ceased to rule, his descendants, sharing his baraka, still retained an enviable place in loca l society. Although the “Alids failed repeatedly to gain the caliphate, they made up for it whith popularit y around the shores of the Indian Ocean.”

Martin, B.G., “Arab Migrations to East Africa in Medieval Times,” IJAES, 8 (1975), 378–79.Google Scholar

This remarkable passage, on which i t would be premature to comment, verifies again the validity of the idea of the Indian Ocean conceived of as comprising a specific research domain.