Red rice for the feast

Vohipeno part three. 

After the fomba I walked back down the hill to where we always stay in Vohipeno, the house of Monique’s mother, Jeanne d’Arc, who died in 2008. Monique, meanwhile, had other ceremonial business to attend to. I’m still not sure what all it entailed. But it involved an extended walk on a flooded path to a piece of family land some distance away, where a ritual was conducted. And what of the hapless zebu? It became the main course of a feast up on Vatomasy enjoyed by somewhere between 150 and 200 extended family members.

The party starts

Night was already falling, early and suddenly as it does in the tropics, by the time Monique returned. I was directing a face-making competition with the kids when she showed up at the head of a noisy procession of dancing women bearing the empty food platters.

This marked the start of a wild dance party. An uncle of Monique’s had installed a sound system in the living room: a pair of cabinets with 15” speakers and no tweeters. Even with the treble turned all the way up the sound blasting out was lo-fi. As it happened, this perfectly suited the 1970s and 80s Malagasy music that Yaya had on his computer: mp3 files transferred from worn-out cassettes that hadn’t had much high end to start with.

And continues

Soft drinks and Three Horses Beer flowed freely, as did dzama. This was not the aged elixir, smooth and golden, we quaffed at Vovo’s (see Feb. 25). Instead, it was reminiscent of something you’d use to strip paint. The idea, someone remarked conspiratorially, was to start people drinking early so that they wouldn’t stay on too late. For us VIPs, meanwhile, Monique had prepared an especially delicious batch of her cocktail: rum, freshly squeezed orange and lemon juice, grated ginger, cinnamon sticks and vanilla bean – all local ingredients.

* * *

Dressed for church

Next morning over coffee, also local, and mokary (rice cakes), everyone agreed that the weekend had been a huge success. Accompanied by much good will, it had generated a lot of social capital, for want of a nicer phrase. In more concrete terms it means, for instance, that folks are happy to come help out whenever we show up. Extra hands are essential in Vohipeno, where daily life is just a step above camping.

More critically, it ensures wide participation and support at ceremonial occasions, especially funerals. There’s also a reputation to maintain. Monique’s family may have had its run-ins with the local establishment – her maternal grandmother’s scandalous relationship with a Frenchman is remembered to this day. But her parents had a lot of standing in the community, boosted by the success of their musical progeny.

Monique takes this responsibility seriously. That’s why throughout our stay the house  received a constant stream of well-wishers, most movingly and raucously the church choir that Jeanne d’Arc had belonged to. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to accompany Monique to church for the elaborate Easter morning do. (It’s the first time she’s attended in years; she has a very low opinion of Church and its clergy.) But church came to us with the choir’s visit.

The day ended with a sunset visit to Vohipeno’s river, Matitanana. We asked some boys emerging from the water whether they were worried about the crocodiles. “No,” they replied, “We’re Antimoro and it’s our river.” 

An ultra-slow-speed internet connection in Tulear, where we were the past few days, has hampered blogging. Here’s part two of our Vohipeno adventures.

* * *

Omens are important in this part of the world, especially up on Vatomasy, where the personal and universal meet. Each time a new ruler seizes power in Madagascar he makes the trek over to Vohipeno and up the hill to check out the omens and get the Vatomasy seal of approval.

Now it was our turn. As scathing as Monique is about some of her ethnic group’s traditions and many taboos, especially those restricting the role of women, she is meticulous about respecting others.

* * *

Saturday dawned bright and clear. A promising sign, given the previous day’s weather. A downpour of truly biblical proportions had pounded the tin roof from morning to night. I was wondering how one orders up a rescue copter from the US embassy. But everyone else reacted with the resigned shrug appropriate to a normally rainy day. Even more reassuring was the total nonchalance of Yaya, the nephew who handles post-disaster logistics for the World Food Program.

Over the past 24 hours the numbers at the ancestral house had grown into a substantial crowd of extended family. Though it was only 9 am as we climbed the hill, I darted from one shady spot to another, amazed that all the houses, trees and dirt hadn’t been washed away.

Our destination was the rickety, one-room house of the head of Monique’s clan, one of seven clan leaders – they refer to them as kings – who live on Vatomasy. Leaving sandals and flipflops outside we entered barefoot through the door in the west wall. Someone motioned me to my place on the mat-covered floor. The king and two counselors sat in battered armchairs against the east wall. Women wearing the traditional Antimoro squarish, straw headgear sat on the south side of the room, men on the north. More folks arrived and everyone scooted over to accommodate them. By now there were maybe fifty of us packed into a space the size of a master bedroom. Others stood outside by the door.

This was a fomba, the Malagasy benediction ceremony. As the morning sunlight streamed through cracks in the walls, the proceedings began with palaver by various men. As usual I didn’t understand a thing, apart from some references to Melie and me. Then the king spoke up in a quavery voice. Christian whispered with awe that he had been born in 1906. Later on, Yaya, whom I suspect is better informed about the country’s mortality rate, dismissed this, as he did the framed ancien combattant certificate on the wall. “After the war with the French in 47-48, a lot of people claimed a lot of things,” he pointed out.

Gazing around the room, I saw that apart from the certificate, the décor consisted of very old plastic flowers, some faded family photos and a Chinese calendar. Conspicuously absent was the kitschy Jesus artwork seen in most homes. The explanation, perhaps, lay in the dusty, tobacco-colored tsorabe scrolls wedged in the rafters over the king’s head: in this household tradition edged out Christianity.

Already the sweat was dripping into my eyes. As I was trying to figure out how to get my handkerchief out of my pocket while folded into an orgami, people started to get up and troupe out. I followed the others filing around the house to an empty space on the ease side.

There I saw a zebu pinned to the ground with its legs bound. The last time I had seen this cow was yesterday at our gate as Monique haggled over the price. The animal now looked up with an impassive stoicism, similar to that of the white-capped man standing nearby holding a sword with a dark, curved blade. Earlier, through the doorway of the king’s house, I had seen a man toting a big bundle of banana leaves, used here as all-purpose drop cloths. Now I knew what they were for.

We stood in a circle around the beast. Someone indicated I should remove my cap. The king, leaning on his staff, said a few words, followed by Monique in an uncharacteristically subdued voice. Then we filed back the way we had come as the swordsman got down to work. Animal lovers look away now.

We squeezed ourselves back into the house, sat for a while and sweated. (I had fished my out handkerchief while outside.) In a few minutes two objects were passed in through the door. The first was the sword. It was placed on an armoire that stood against the east wall, dripping blood onto a lace doily. “The sword is very old,” whispered Christian. “It’s never cleaned and never gets dull.”

The second object was a big wooden bowl passed over the sitters’ heads to the king. He dropped a large silver coin into the liquid it contained, which resembled cherry Kool-Aid. Fishing it out, he flung drops out the window towards the east, summoning the ancestors.

Starting with Monique he then performed the benediction ceremony. As she scooted closer and bowed her head, the king sprinkled her hair, chanting. He did this three times. Next up was Melie. My turn was accompanied, as it always is, by jokes about the drops making my hair grow, which broke the tension. Then it was the turn of Christian and Hanta, our daughter-in-law, and her baby Arthur. The king followed this with collective benedictions for everyone else, flinging drops over their heads. When it was finished the women started singing, a cue for me to tear up. However, I blinked to clear my eyes. Any weeping at this point would have been fady, taboo.

To my surprise, whole ceremony was repeated, but this time by the man with the pointy gray beard that sat on the king’s left. “He’s the king’s seer,” Christian whispered. “I’ve never seen this happen before.” They’d clearly pulled out all the stops for the fomba. 

It's not that Monique had ordered up a deluxe performance, I learned later. Things don’t work that way up on Vatomasy. The correct, respectful and generous way she set everything up certainly had something to do with it. But the community had its own reasons for making this a big-in-Madagascar event. We were fortunate to have a front-row seat.

An ethnographer’s paradise, this island is rich in unusual observances, practices, rituals, ceremonies, taboos and the like. They cover birth, death, everything in between, and the afterlife. Some are downright bizarre. The most notorious is the famadihana ceremony practiced by the Merina of the high plateau. This ritual disinterment and reburying of the dead takes place every seven years with great fanfare – literally – with one or more brass bands.

But I’m told that none of the eighteen-or-so distinct ethnic groups that make up the population of Madagascar is as tradition-bound as the Antimoro of the east coast. The most old-school are found in the town of Vohipeno. Especially on the little hill known as Vatomasy, at the foot of which I’m currently sitting and typing. It’s a sticky night and the loudest sound is the crickets. For once we’re not here as music moguls. It’s more serious than that. Although Monique grew up on the west coast, she’s 100% Antimoro, with close family up on the hill. With this come certain responsibilities.

* * *

In a very poor country Vatomasy stands out somewhat. Just outside the front gate of my late mother-in-law’s house, where we’re staying, is the foot of the broad, crumbling, concrete staircase leading up the hill. At the summit, there are no streets as such. Just red earth. Houses are tiny, one-or-two-room shacks with thatched roofs. Walls are made of flattened tree-bark. The chickens, ducks and geese wandering around are not unusual. But the utter lack of running water is. As is the paucity of overhead electric cabling.

Yesterday I was hanging out with a group of kids, 4-13 years old. I know because I was playing a Q&A game, with the oldest translating from French when needed. They had a hard time with the concept of “What’s your favorite color?” It tended to be what everthey were wearing. Favorite animals were of the livestock variety, not the usual dolphins and lions. Then I got to, “What’s your favorite food?” I’ve polled a lot of kids in various parts of the world. The universal answer is pizza, with hamburger in second place and pasta a distant third. Here it was meat.

It’s not an all-day hike from here to the nearest road. This wireless internet connection is proof of that. Monique claims that what’s keeping Vatomasy so poor is the uncompromising way they’re clinging to the old ways. Tevye may bellow “Tradition!” in the first act. But in the end even he gives way to the new.

* * *

Thanks to French colonialism, nearly all folks here are Catholic. But this hasn’t stopped them from going on with their traditional spiritual practices. These are centered on the key position ancestors hold as interlocutors with god, whatever that is. Someone once described it as a scent on the wind that disappears just as you notice it.

A couple of years ago, with two cancer-afflicted family members on her hands, Monique called upon her ancestors. They delivered. Now we were in Vohipeno to keep her side of the deal. Accompanying was Monique’s sister Melie, also in remission, and Christian, her husband, ironically a non-practicing Christian.

As an Antimoro in good standing, and given the serious circumstances, Monique could not just light a candle and say, “Thanks very much.” This would be a complicated weekend. My role was ridiculously easy: look healthy, smile and pick up the tab. Monique, on the other hand, had to make it all happen. 

 Baristas in Vohipeno

Waiting their turn