Dancing with Corpses Reconsidered: An Interpretation of "famadihana" (In Arivonimamo, Madagascar) Author(s): David Graeber Source: American Ethnologist,

Vol. 22, No. 2 (May, 1995), pp. 258-278 Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/646702 Accessed: 10/10/2008 04:48
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dancing with corpses reconsidered: an interpretation of famadihana(in Arivonimamo,Madagascar)

DAVID GRAEBER-University ofChicago

In September of 1990 I was talking with a woman named Irinaabout something an ancestor of hers had done some 60 years earlier. Like all the andriana or nobles of Betafo (a community to the north of the town of Arivonimamo, in Imerina, Madagascar) she was descended from a certain Andrianambololona, whose body, together with those of his wife and daughter and of three of his retainers,was buried in a large white tomb in the center of the village of Betafo, a five-minute walk across the rice fields from her house. This particular ancestor, she was telling me, has long had the custom of appearing to his descendants in dreams to announce when the occupants of the tomb felt cold and needed to have a famadihana performed: that is, to be taken out and wrapped in new silk shrouds. When this happened in 1931, his descendants quickly gathered and organized the ritual. But, in their hurry perhaps, they forgot to exhume the bodies of the three retainers buried at the foot of the tomb somewhat apart from the rest. "The afternoon after they'd finished," she said, "the town suddenly caught fire and burned to the ground. And the next morning he came once more to the person"-the individual who had originally had the dream-"and said, 'If you don't wrap us all, next time I'll kill you outright .. .' So they got the tombs ready again and rewrapped them."1 This story is a good place to begin a discussion of the Merina practice of famadihana, if for no other reason than because it shows how high the stakes involved can be. Admittedly, it was the worst such disaster of which I ever heard, and Irinawas doubtless justified in concluding that her ancestor was unusually "arrogantand cruel." But stories like this were hardly unusual. Ruralcommunities in Imerinawere, I found, largely organized around the memory of ancestors whose presence in the lives of their descendants made itself felt largely through the constraint and violence they were capable of inflicting on them. The dangers surrounding famadihanaand these were said to be great-only marked them as the culminating moment in an ongoing relationship between memory and violence implicit in the organization of everyday life, here played out over the very bodies of the ancestral dead. Maurice Bloch, author of the classic analysis of famadihana, was also the first to point out the connection between memory and violence within it (1971:168-169). Pursuing that connection, however, leads one to focus on a very different side of Merina ritual life than the one

The ritualof exhumation and rewrapping of ancestral bodies practiced in Imerina, Madagascar, is the culmination of a pervasive relation of memory and violence-a relationship that can only be fully understood by contrasting the attitudes toward ancestors held by ambitious or powerful men in rural society, and those attitudes held by most women. Doing so reveals the parameters of a complex and ambivalent attitude toward authority. [kinship, authority, gender, mortuaryritual, Madagascar]
American Ethnologist22(2):258-278. Copyright ? 1995, American Anthropological Association.

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emphasized in most of Bloch's subsequentwork. Inspiredby an ongoing interestin the of authority, his research hasfocusedon how ritual createsthe imageof a timeless, legitimation idealized ancestralorder,identifiedwith death and the past and set apartfromthe practical are contingenciesof humanexistence (Bloch1982, 1985, 1986). Myown theoreticalinterests more concerned with questionsof how authorityworks itself out in practice:in the ways of deathand the ancestorsare continuouswith everydaylife. representations such representations were profoundly Amongpeople I knewin Arivonimamo, contradictory. Older men-almost anyone, in fact,who held a positionof authority-wouldtend to become wheneverthe theme of ancestralviolence arose. Mostdid theirbest distinctlyuncomfortable to avoid the subjectentirely-at least,they avoided it in frontof me. Instead, they echoed the termsof formalrhetoric,in which ancestors were alwaysrepresented as benevolentguardians of the moralunityof the community of theirdescendants, theveryembodiments of moral good.2 Thisis the view emphasizednotonly by Blochbutin mostof the existingethnographic literature on Madagascar did (withexceptions:Astuti1991; Feeley-Harnik 1991:56-60), and Icertainly not know anyone in Arivonimamo who would have openly challenged it. At the same time, to reconcilewith storiessuch as Irina's, and people seemed awareof however,it was difficult the discrepancy,if not entirelysurewhatto makeof it. To get at the rootsof the contradiction, and to understand with violence in the why it is that memoryshould have become identified firstplace, one hasto go beyondquestionsof ideologyto considerhow local authority actually worksitselfout in practiceand the rolefamadihana it. play in reproducing

the ritual The word famadihana3 is nowadaysused to refereitherto ritualsheld for the purposeof a body froma temporary tomb,or fromone tombto another, transferring graveto its ancestral or simplyto open a tomb and removethe bodiestemporarily forthe purposeof wrapping them in new lambamena, or silkshrouds. Whilefamadihana of this lastkindappearto havebecome recenttimes(atleast,they are nevermentionedin accountsof commonplaceonly in relatively famadihana writtenin the 19th century:Callet 1908:272-273; Cousins 1963[1876]:79-81; Haile 1891; cf. Raison-Jourde 1991:717-738), everyone I talkedto between 1989 and 1991 fromthe regionof Arivonimamo,4 and forthatmatter fromelsewhere,took forgranted thatthe of ancestralbodies was the basic purposeof famadihana. rewrapping Althoughthe frequency of such ceremoniesvariedfromtombto tomb, mostindividuals saidthatthe ceremonyshould be performedat least every six or seven years. This held true even if no ancestor-like ina dreamor visionto complainof beingcold, as the ancestors Andrianambololona-appeared were often said to do. The overwhelming of famadihana aboutwhich I have information fell intoone of majority two categories.Either the bodyof an individual who haddied they were held in orderto return lands,orelse theywere organizedin honorof a local ancestor,deadsome awayfromancestral fourto ten years,who had neverbeforebeen the objectof a famadihana (see Bloch1971:146, 157-1 58). Thesponsorsof famadihana of the firstsort-almost alwaysfamiliesno longerliving in the area-always made a point of rewrapping other ancestorsin the tomb as well, and at times such "returnfamadihanas" (as Bloch calls them [1971:146]) could become quite elaborate.Butthe most celebratedand important famadihana of any given yearwere almost to honor each of the local always of the second kind. Since it was considered important ancestor'sown immediateascendants(mother,father'smother,mother'sfather,and so on), these mightinvolveopeningthreeor fourdifferent tombs-but the focuswas alwayson the last which from the ancestor around whom the one, ceremonywas organizedwas alwaysthe very lastto emerge.

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Whenpeopledescribeda typicalfamadihana to me, theyalwaysemphasizedthe same basic of with the of the ancestors' events, names,andendingwiththe ritual sequence starting calling the tomb. of What is own version of such an account.Theframework follows, then, locking my and orderare basedon participants' aredrawnfrommy observations The details descriptions. of seven famadihanaI attendedbetween June 1989 and January 1990, all in the regionof and in the Betafo itself. Arivonimamo, majority Thenightbeforethe tombwas to be opened,the sponsor anda few companions wou d mount and out if the tomb call the namesof the ancestorsto be rewrapped, askingthem all to return in accountsof famadihana, but it they happento have strayed.Thisstage is always important is conductedby a few close kin largelyoutsidethe publicgaze. I neverwitnessedit myself. The famadihana properwould begin the next day with a processionfrom the sponsor's hometownor villageto the tomb. Betweenthe zanadrazana-the "children of the ancestors"therewereusuallyat leastseveralhundred andtheirguestsandneighbors, people inattendance. An astrologer of the always led the way, usuallyaccompaniedby men carrying photographs mostimportant confirmed andalwaysby one bearing the Malagasy (its ancestors, flag presence andwomencarrying rolledpapyrus thattheceremonywas legallyauthorized). mats, Musicians, followedclose behind. On arrival the flag was plantedon the roofof the tomb, and men began diggingaway the was festive and informal, earththat covered the buriedstone door. The atmosphere though a of was some marked certain there music, by peopledanced,otherscarried feeling anticipation: shovelsand othertools backand forthor milledaboutand talked. Once the doorwas fullyuncoveredsome of the diggerssplasheditwith rumandthen began to move it aside;othersreadiedcandlesor lampsand then beganto descendthe stairsleading insidethe femalezanadrazana numbers sometimes to the innervault.Astheydisappeared (their with legsextendednear themselvesin rows,sitting augmented by youngmenor boys)arranged the entrance to the tomb.Inside,the menwouldfindthe mostancientbody,splasha bitof rum over it, makea briefinvocationaskingfor its blessing,and then begin to roll it fromits place mat.Thenthreeorfourmenwouldcarryit upthe stairs, onto a papyrus callingouttheancestor's The musicwould nameas they emergedand the crowdwhooped and shouteditsenthusiasm. usuallypick up at this moment,and other men would help carrythe body aroundthe tomb threetimes,theirabrupt stopsandstarts leadingto itsbeingtwistedandcrushedinsidethe mats. Afterall the bodies had been carriedout in orderof seniorityand had been placed on the began.Menandwomenproducedbottles, lapsof the women,the nextphaseof the famadihana some fullof honey and rum,othersof cow fator occasionallycologne. Therewere also plastic candies, pieces of ginger,and coins. bags full of honeycombsor pastel-colored"Malagasy" Some movedfrombodyto body, pouringrumand honeyovereach; othershandedthe bottles Sometimesa widow would to the seatedwomen (oftenaftertakinga sip or swig themselves). in would inside half her a stick of tobacco mouth, and, putting place the remainder produce off or broke of of her dead husband'slamba.Others the tatters pieces honeycomb produced coins, ginger,andpieces of candyto place insidethefoldsof clotharoundwherethe ancestor's heador chestwould lie.5 tsodranoor Thissequence of giving, taking,and sharing-invariablycalled a fangatahana forthe blessing" of the ancestors-was alwaysa momentof greatemotionalintensity. "request Women-particularlyif they held the remainsof a close relativeon their lap-were clearly sad, and disturbed by what they were doing. Manyappearedin a virtualstateof frightened, I attendedat least one shock, barelymanagingto hold back tears,and in every famadihana such woman did begin to cry. People quicklycrowded aroundto do their best to reassure, is an act of celebration,not of mourning" or distract her,"This her,alwaysreminding comfort,
(fifaliana fa tsy fahoriana ity).

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Next, men divided into teams around each ancestor to begin the actual wrapping. The initial stages were performed while the body lay across the women's laps, since it was very important that at no time should an ancestor touch the earth. Old layers of cloth were never removed; instead, all the remains were rolled first into a white sheet, then into one or more thicker and more durable lamba. There were almost always at least two layers of cloth in all: bright silk lambamena for the more importantancestors, polyester for the rest.While women watched and often gave advice, men were responsible for actually wrapping the bodies and then tying the resulting bundle together with cords or stripsof cloth. They spared no effortto roll and bind the ancestral bundles as tightly as possible. Once again the music picked up in volume and tempo, and the final, joyous part of the ceremony began. Mixed groups of men and women carried the bodies, borne in mats, one by one around the tomb, this time stopping and starting and dancing even more vigorously than they had before-even violently-with all sorts of roughhousing, shouts, whoops, and cries. People generally threw themselves about in a sort of delirious abandon, and the razana were twisted and crunched about a great deal before finally being returnedto their places inside. With this the business was basically finished. If there were more tombs to be opened, a procession would form behind the astrologer once again. If this was the last, the sponsor and some local elders or politicians would mount the head of the tomb to deliver brief orations summarizing the day's events and thanking everyone who had come. Afterward,as the crowd began to drift off, a group of men took shovels and began to pile back the dirt removed from the door to the vault.6 Laterstill, often around nightfall after everyone had long since left, the astrologer and a few assistants would returnto make a fanidi-pasana-a "lock to the tomb"-by burying a few magical objects in or around its doorway. If placed correctly, a fanidy should ensure that the ghosts of those within would remain there, unable to emerge again and trouble the living.

descent groups
Merina society is divided up into a number of named undifferentiateddescent groups, which Maurice Bloch called "demes" because they tend toward endogamy and are closely identified with ancestral territories.About a third claim andriana, or "noble" rank;the rest are hova, or "commoner" demes. In addition, perhaps a third of the population of Imerina are descended from people brought there in the 19th century as slaves. These mainty, or "black people," are not organized into demes and do not usually intermarrywith the fotsy, or "whites," though in most other respects their social organization was the same as that of the latter.(Betafo was made up of andriana and mainty in roughly equal numbers, but what follows is based on material from other andriana, hova, and mainty groups in the region of Arivonimamo as well.)7 Each deme has its history, usually beginning with an account of the origins of its founding ancestor, how he came to the territoryon which his descendants now reside, how by his various movements he defined its boundaries, how he created its villages named various prominent aspects of its landscape, and so on. In most cases the stories go on to tell how he subdivided the territoryby giving each of his children (or occasionally wives) a village or territory:that of the eldest always furthestto the east, with the others ranging westward in order of seniority (see, for instance, Condominas 1960:199-203; Rasamimanana and Razafindrazaka1957:9-13). Most people, Ifound, could tell me from which ofthese branches they considered themselves to be descended; but this was not because they could trace any genealogical link to the founder. Genealogical memory was in fact extremely shallow. I met very few people who could remember furtherback than their grandparents,or to people they personally remembered from their youth. Nor are deme divisions in most cases any longer identified with clearly bounded

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territories-ifindeedthey ever were. Whatmattered was notwhereone lived,butthe location and history of one's tomb. In ruralImerina, tombs are everywhere.In most villagesthere is literally no place one can standwithouta tomb being somewhere in sight. Ancientones, now little more than grassy moundsof earth,sit next to whitewashedstone and cement tombstoppedwith wreathesand stone crosses, now and then-if a particularly wealthy family lives in the neighborhoodflankedby brightly on wide platforms, theirdoorwaysshielded by paintedpalatialstructures metallatticegates.Whatever theirsize, theirgranitesolidityis meantto contrastwith houses, which are neverbuiltof stone but are usuallymadeof mudbrick.Clearly,tombswere meant of the enduring to be symbolsof permanence,constantreminders presenceof the ancestors. Itwas this hierarchy Tombswere also organizedintoa hierarchy. of tombsthatformedthe of the deme and providedthe termsof referenceby which people real physicalframework could placethemselveswithinit. Mostpeople I knew hadonly the haziestidea of theirdeme's butall could pointout theirfamilytomb. history, Andrianambololona was buriedwith his wife and daughterin an impressive stone tomb to Inthe westernpartof the same villagewere fourtombs,each the east of the villageof Betafo.8 to the west said to holdthe body of one of his foureldest sons, and halfan hour'swalk further with his was a fifthtomb,thatof his youngestson. (Theyoungestson is said to have quarreled seniorsand movedaway.)Eachof the deme's divisionswas saidto be descendedfromone of whose relativerankis remembered even if theirnames have long since been these brothers, Andwhileonlya handful of the present-day inhabitants actually forgotten. expectedto be buried in one of these ancienttombs,each new tomb was linkedto one of them by the affiliation of its founder.Inotherwords,what reallyknitsa deme togetheris not a humangenealogybut a youngerones, and the organization genealogyof tombs. Older tombsare seen as generating in a pattern of historical the as a whole inscribes memory landscapein a way thatmakesitseem features. one of its mostpermanent the organization of tombs or unchanging.Infact is in any sense reallypermanent Thisis notto say thatthisframework and redefined humanaction.New tombsarealways it iscontinually through beingtransformed back and forth,broken being built,old ones emptiedand abandoned.Bodiesare transferred Andin a purelypractical andcombinedwithone another. sense, this is whatfamadihana apart, can be saidto do. theirouterappearance,inside, Merinatombsare much the same. The doorway Whatever alwaysfaces east;the door itselfis a huge buriedslabof stone. Below it a stairdescends intoa walls emergestone "beds" western,and southern single largechamberfromwhose northern, three the other. there are shelves on each wall, or shelves, set one above (farafara) Typically in to bodies on the bottom but are shelves,so that people rarely willing place makingnine all, in mosttombsthe numberavailableis effectivelysix. In principleeveryonewho has the rightto be buriedin a given tomb is descendedfroma The bodies of razambe knownas thattomb'srazambe(or"great ancestor"). single individual, are always placed on eitherthe highestshelf to the northor the highestto the east, usually shelveson which children.Theotherchildrenareallotteddifferent withtheirfirstborn together have the right and on their descendants it which as minor razambe, were, only they become, same means. Shelves subdivided the individual shelvesarefurther to be buried.Sometimes, by I haveeven heardof a case of a man andspaceson the shelvesthusbecome a formof property. troublewho triedto sell his space in a prestigious in extremefinancial tomb,althoughI am not surewhetheranyonewould have daredto buy it fromhim;his relatives eventuallytalkedhim out of the idea.

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Inpractice,however,one can drawon a varietyof otherconnections-marriage,fosterage, and so forth-to gain access to a tomb, so that most men and almostall blood brotherhood, often women have a range of choices over where they intend to be buried.9Informants childrenlinked on such matters: emphasized,however,thateach tombhas itsown regulations throughwomen are not allowed on the uppershelves of one tomb; in anotheronly actual Suchregulations or wives, maybe interred. of the razambe,butnottheirhusbands descendants in fact, they are usuallycalled can take manyformsbut are alwaysnegativein theirphrasing; clothes andarenotdistinguished as suchfromrulesagainstwearing thetomb'sfady,or "taboos," with buttonsinsidesome tombsor givingtobacco to the dead in others. me was how When I started tombs,the thingthatcontinually surprised going insideMerina few bodies mostseemedto contain.Inmanyancientones only two or threeof the shelvesheld were occupied,theremightbe only threeor fourbodies bodiesat all. Evenwherethe majority on any given shelf-remarkablyfew, when one considersthatsome of these tombshad been in continualuse forover a century.Therewere, I found,a numberof reasonswhy this should be so. Forone thing, new tombswere constantlybeing built.On completinga new tomb, it was customaryto take at least one ancestorfrom one's formertomb to be the new one's fromallthe owners,a whole shelf'sworthof ancestors razambe.Ifone can get permission might Andsince the divisionof shelves be clearedoutanddividedup amongthoseof the new tomb.10 in the old one was consideredto have been fixed by ancestraldecree-which made people to rearrange the bodies-whole walls of shelves mightend up lyingemptyas a very reluctant resuIt. A more important reason,however,is thatthe numberof bodies is keptlimitedby the habit term thatthese bodies-the Malagasy them.Herethe reader shouldunderstand of consolidating at all in anysense and "corpse"-arenot really"bodies" razanaactuallymeansboth"ancestor" word." Theycertainlydid not look anythinglike humanbodies, but suggestedby the English resembledwrappedbundlesof redearth. untilthe corpsesare considered"dry"-thatis, until No razanacan takepartin famadihana in been the tomb for several had years,by which time littlebut dustand bones are likely they to a greatdeal of roughhandling: bodiesaresubjected to remain.During famadihana, they are with extreme and and bound madeto dancewith livingpartners, force, pulled tugged,wrapped dance before being returned to their shelves. and then draggedinto a still moretumultuous After20 years and several famadihana, they have been quite literallypulverized;even the thatthe thinghas skeletonshave largely crumbled,andthereis littleleftto serveas a reminder it is once had humanform. People say thatthe deceased have turnedinto "dust" (vovoka): to tell what was once from what was once both turned cloth, having usuallyimpossible body color thatis, incidentally, the same as thatof the lateritic soil. the same brick-red Malagasy Bodies can only be combined aftertheir firstfamadihana-that is to say, afterthey have simple to rewraptwo such bodies in the alreadylargelybeen reducedto dust. It is relatively in very same cloth. Indeed,if one does not, ancestors-unless they are regularly rewrapped numbers of shrouds-tend to become ever thinner until look like mere large they eventually thana humanarmor leg, andwitha bulgein the middle.On the other tubesof cloth,no thicker or "combinedancestors"-which for all anyone knows may be hand, razana ikambanana, the remains of a dozen different individuals and theiraccumulatedlamba-can of comprised often attaina size two or threetimesthatof a livinghumanbeing. The mostfrequent practicewas to wraphusbandswith theirwives and to wrapchildrenin one lambatogetherwith theirparents.(Despitethe frequencyof this practiceI was oftentold thattwo siblingscould neverbe combined.)Apart fromthis it is difficult to generalize,since as in so many things differentfamilies and tombs have differentcustoms. But the ancestors combinedtogetherare almostalwaysthose on the verge of being forgotten-that is, contemof the parents or grandparents of thetomb'soldest livingdescendants.Usuallychildren poraries

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who have died at an early age are the firstto be so treated(these are incorporated in their nextcome adultswith no livingdescendants to providethemwith lambamena parents); during future famadihana who do).Thenamesof such minorrazana (theyarecombinedwithancestors Inthe end, however,except in those rareinstances areforthe mostpartquicklyforgotten. when the tomb'sowners makea pointof marking certainrazanawith writtenlabelsor keep family notebooks,all but two or three of the most famous older names will inevitablypass from Mostoldertombsend upcontaining at leastone andoftenseverallargebundlesknown memory. since none of the current ownershave ("combined razambe") only as a razambeikambanana the slightestidea whatthe name of any of itscomponentancestorsmightbe. Since none of these razambe-named or nameless-can ever be removedto anothertomb, no tomb, howeverold, can ever be entirelystripped of bodies. Butas some of the branches of descendantsdie out and othersbuildnew tombsand removetheirown immediateancestors, many reach the point where they are no longerused for burial.(Theyare said to be "full," althoughin fact they are more likelyto be largelyempty.)Mostsuch tombswill occasionally At leastin my stillbe opened and one or two bodies rewrapped duringelaboratefamadihana. experience,however,thisis usuallytheoccasionof muchconfusion,as thezanadrazana inspect the halfdozen or so ancestralbundlesleft in the tomb, tryingto identify theirown. Andeven these connectionsarenot remembered forever. Hillsidesaredottedwiththe remains of ancient tombswhich often look like nothingmorethan low moundswith a few workedstonesvisible here and therethroughthe grass;theirremaining occupantshave long since been forgotten. The most prestigious ancienttombs, seen as key nodes in the hierarchical of the framework deme, may reallybe merelythe oldestones thathave managedto avoid oblivion. Thewhole processof pulverizing andthenconsolidating bodiescan be seen as the concrete ortangibleaspectof a processof genealogical amnesia. Ancestral dissolved bodiesaregradually at the same time as their identitiesare graduallyforgotten;both are ultimatelydestinedto become absorbedintothose of morefamousrazambe.Something of thissortoccurswherever in are but the Merina case the whole issue of andforgetting remembering genealogies important, are conceived in so becomes much moreof a tangibleproblem,if only because "ancestors" them ancestors becomesa matter of handling tangiblea way. Ifremembering corpses,forgetting thansomething thatcan just happenby default. hasto be made an active processrather while ancestral namesplayedan important role in famadihana-they were called Similarly, out fromthe tombthe nightbefore,calledout againas the bodiesemerged,and, usually,listed a thirdtime in the speeches thatclosed the ceremony12-almostno one has madethe slightest these namesin writing. Therewas no reasonwhytheycould not be preserved: effort to preserve in rural Withveryfew exceptions,however,theyare not. is almost unknown Imerina. illiteracy call them "memorials" It is a central ironyof famadihana that, while participants regularly forthe dead, what they actuallyaccomplishis to makedescendantsactively (fahatsiarovona) them. complicitin forgetting cursing and taboo tombsandbodies have littleimpacton people'severyday Mostof the practicessurrounding When ancestorsintervene affairs. through daily lives, it is largely directlyin theirdescendants' or imposingfadyon one's of fady,or taboos.One mightwell say that"cursing," the imposition modeof ancestral action;in the sameway, the quintessential descendants,is the quintessential or "blessing," that to fortheirtsodrano the is ask the ancestors ritual actionundertaken by living from such to ask them for release restrictions. is, A good deal has been writtenabout Malagasyfady (Lambek1992; Ruud1960; Standing the important 1883;VanGennep1904). Forpresent thingto emphasizeisthat,unlike purposes, with ideasaboutthe sacredor for are not concerned tabu, example,fady primarily Polynesian

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than a personor a thing.Fadyare,quite they are alwaysplacedon an action rather pollution; one cannot do. to be able to imposesuch restrictions simply,things Throughout Madagascar, over them;sharingfady is on othersis one of the mostbasic ways of demonstrating authority one of the clearestways of demonstrating solidarity. Eachdeme had its own ancestralfady. The older men who were consideredthe ultimate terms: on such matters authorities tendedto describethese fadyto me in moralistic they were which the As a the maintained the and of deme. the means by ancestors integrity harmony result, fadyagainst stealing theywould almostalwaysdwellon the sametwo orthreeexamples: those againstsellingthe ancestrallandto outsiders, fromone's kindred, and,sometimes,those with inferiorgroups (particularly the descendantsof slaves). Though against intermarrying to a deme's particular ancestors,this list remainedlargelyunchangedfrom always attributed deme fady:othergroupsof equal status groupto group. Buttherewere also more particular andcertainanimalsand plantsthatone could not raise,grow, intowhich one could not marry, or eat. Tombsoften had theirown sets of fady, usuallyattributed to theirrespectiverazambe; if descendants neverto eat a certainkind so "curse" their even livingparents could, they chose, of meator wear a certaintypeof clothing,therebycreatinga taboo. Oftentherewere storiesaboutthe originof important fady. People were much more likely to knowthese storiesthanthe moreformaldeme histories,if only because they were usually much more entertaining. Manywere explicitlycomic and clearly meantto poke fun at their A favorite theme has variousancestorsgorgingthemselvesso greedily ancestralprotagonists. that on a particular cursedtheir delicacy they burstapartand died, whereuponthe survivors descendantsnever to eat such food again. One might argue that the absurdity is meant to of so many ancestralrestrictions. underlinethe perceivedarbitrariness Buttherewas also a genreof veryseriousstoriesaboutfadythatwere perhapseven morewidely known,andthese
concerned the consequences of a fady's transgression.

A richandriana Iheardsuch storiesconstantly. who married a womandescendedfromslaves suddenly lost everythinghe had and is now a pauper.Someone grew garlicin a prohibited place; his cropswere destroyedby hail. Someone else triedto removea body froma tomb in he was blastedby lightning violationof its regulations; and died. Anyone-young or old, male or female-could easily recount a dozen or moresuch stories.Andit is almostexclusivelythese storieswhichdescribedhowthe hasina, or invisiblepower,of the ancestors actuallymanifested itselfto livingpeople-or, in otherwords, how the ancestorscontinuedto act and to play a direct role in theirdescendants' the ancestors'presencewas almost daily lives. Remarkably, in reified attacks on their had these actions been carriedout by a living descendants; always would been have the condemned as most kindof witchperson,they instantly reprehensible craft. No one wou d openlysuggest thatancestors were anything likewitches.As Ihavementioned, elders in particular tendedto picture them as the benevolentguarantors of the unityand moral of the group.On the otherhand,manyof these old men grewdistinctly uncomfortable integrity wheneveranything retribution was mentioned touchingon the questionof ancestral justas they would have done at any mentionof witchcraft. Withina community,it seems mainlyto be women who transmit these stories.Mostof the women I spoke to did not hesitateto express their opinions about the ancestors'behavior-in fact, the most common epithetthey used, or "cruel."The older men's reluctanceto talk about masiaka,means "savage,""violent," ancestralviolence probablysprangin partfromthe fact that they were very close to being ancestorsthemselvesand as figuresof authority simplytendedto identifywith the ancestors' Like all also wielded the theirown children. position. parents, they powerof ozona, or "cursing," Ozona could be usedas a weaponto punishoffspring who hadprovedutterly resistantto advice or admonition and inasmuch, thiswas the ultimatebastionof parental authority.13

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WhileIonly heardof two orthreeinstancesin which people I knewhadbeen cursed,people constantlyalludedto the possibility. By all accounts,such cursesalwaystook a negativeform: "Youwill never have any children," in your life,"or "Youwill "Youwill neverfind prosperity neverenterthe familytomb."In otherwords,whateverthe contentof a curse, and whatever the means of its enforcement,it never took the form of a direct assault,such as inflictinga diseaseon someoneor causingpeople to loose all theirwealth,butinstead specifiedsomething the victimwould neverattain. Whilethe storiesof distantancestorsseparate the imposition of restrictions and punishment fortheirtransgression, one mightsay thatthe two are mergedhere in a singlegesture.Butthis what I thinkto be a generalprinciple: thatthe powerto imposerestrictions is only underlines continuous with the violence which those restrictions are enforced. ultimately through an initial synthesis One reasonMerina ancestors were feltto be a constraint on the actionsof theirdescendants was that the ultimateaspiration, at least of any man, was to become a prominent ancestor himself.To do so, however,he must manage both to overshadowthe memoryof his own ancestorsand to constrainhis children-particularlyhis sons-from either moving away or him in turn.It is important to emphasizethatthe social divisionsI have been overshadowing not to are said have been instituted describing by divine beings or totemicanimalsin some distantmythologicalpast.They were createdby ancestors.Ancestors,while still alive, were simplypeople-people who were born,had children,builttombs,and died in the same way thatpeople stilldo today.'4Inprinciple,there is no reasonwhy anyonealivetoday could not become famousrazambe,even-and I met plentyof people willingto entertain this possibilof demes. Ifone cannotbecome such an illustrious ity-razambe on the orderof the founders ancestor,it is only because someone else alreadyhas done so.15Inotherwords,the memory of the dead is itselfa constraint on the ambitionsof the living.This makesit much easier to a seriesof constraints. understand why the presenceof the ancestorsis generallyfelt through inthe pastowing is one of thoseplacesthatanthropologists havefoundtroubling Madagascar or rules(Wilson1977).Authors to the lackof "structure" haveemphasizedthe degreeto which ratherthan even links of descent are seen as created ratherthan as received ("achieved" in Southall's of linkslike the importance "ascribed" usage [1971, 1986]), and have underlined increatinglinksbetween or otherkindsof"friendship" fosterage, adoption,bloodbrotherhood, In and rights of group 1986; Vogel1982). Imerina, 1991; Kottak property people (Feeley-Harnik membershipare conveyed as easily throughmen as throughwomen, maritalresidence is flexible,and marriage easy to dissolve. Mostpeople have a verywide rangeof optionsabout with whom to live their lives. At the same time, however,tremendous how and emphasisis which form. and the of of ozona is the ultimate on role elders, only authority placed parental orconstrained Inotherwords,people'sfreedom of actionis notseen as greatlylimited byexplicit Thosesocial as constrained rules,butrather by others,especiallythose in positionsof authority. aroundtombs)providethe contextforpeople'sdailyaffairs thoseorganized groupsthat(unlike of a single individual. are forthe mostpartorganizedaroundthe personality a politics of movement folktalesimpliedthattherewas nothingunusualin a Alreadyin the 19thcentury,Malagasy and his home man's (Dahle 1984).Deme familyto travelin searchof fortune young abandoning as men who had left home still tend to be represented founderssuch as Andrianambololona To become a famousancestor,however,it was "togain a betterliving"(mitadyravinahitra).

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not enough simplyto breakwith one's own familyand come into wealth. One also had to has long been, ensurethatone's own childrendid not do the same.Therewas, and apparently andthatof his sons. As a result,generational betweena father'sinterest a radicalcontradiction to keeptheirdescendants withfathers amountto a politicsof movement, striving politicslargely of being able to breakaway. fromleavingand sons at leastdreaming had been takingplace for well over a century, In a place such as Betafo,where migration of any given tomb were likely not to live there. Some residedin the capital, most "owners" andyet othershad in otherparts of Madagascar, otherswere teachers,officials,or shopkeepers of the women) fair number men a (and to new landsin the west. Since almostall the migrated spent a good deal of theirtime away fromtheirvillages and engaged in petty commerce or elsewhere. some otherfinancialactivity, everyonewas awareof opportunities had the means to Inthe end this meantthatonly the wealthiestor mostsuccessfulfarmers would see their of theirchildrenaroundthem. The less fortunate keep any largeproportion married one by one. Daughters childrendisappear away.Sonsmightwell do likewiseor might or simplyhead west or to the capital, follow theirmothers,be adoptedby wealthierrelatives, neverreturning. to stayonly longenoughto makea Iittle at firstintending money,butultimately leadto a perception of demography, combinedwiththe vagaries Theeffectsof such migration, in the space of one or two generationswhole villages could be of tremendousinstability: familiesvanishwithouta trace. On the otherhand,the most and large,prosperous emptied, at home but successfulcould not only keep mostor all of theirown sons and even daughters or sisters and their brothers could add a whole rangeof dependentsor semidependents: poorer kin such to cement was often used ties), children,affines (endogamousmarriage through and so on. The crucialfactorwas land.A fatherwho wanted adoptionor blood brotherhood, themenoughricefields aroundhimhadto be ableto grant to keephis childrenand dependents a familywhen theywere readyto get married, to support usuallyleavingonly a modestportion for himself. of people in a given ruralcommunity,groupsorganizedaroundone Forthe vast majority for daily life. Againfollowing Bloch individualprovidedthe real framework such prominent Memberscontinuedto work theirfields (1971:81-86), I call these groups"localfamilies."16 cooperativelyeven afterthe patrimonyhad been divided, fosteringeach other's children, of people andthingsthan circulation meals,and generallyallowinga farmoreintimate sharing such with of their other conduced Sometimes, groupswould breakaway neighbors. any they communities were seen as littlemore Even when did settlements fromlarger not, entirely. they of such local families,each of whichwouldoftencohere undera nominal thanagglomerations headfor at leasta decade afterthe deathof its originalfounder. were the mostsignificant Intheirown way, these dead founders politicalfiguresin any given in Timeaftertime conversation. their names were alwayscroppingup Certainly, community. field or Rabe'shouse, only laterto find I would hear someone speakingof a certainRakoto's or Rabein questionhad been dead forover a decade. Usuallyitturnedout out thatthe Rakoto thatthe groupsthese men hadfoundedstiIIexisted,headednow by the men'swidows, by elder or by both.Oftenin suchcases the finaldivisionof rightsin land sonsof less intrinsic authority, and houses had not yet been made. In othercases the speakereitherwas not quite sure who wheneverIaskedpeople the ownerinsignificant. thecurrent ownerwas orconsidered Similarly, traditions-a rolewhich should who could tell me about local historical in a given community properly go to the politicalleadersof a community-their immediateresponsewas alwaysto people who haddied overthe lastten or fifteenyears. begin namingthe most prominent "fathers Inprinciple,the leadersof a communityare its elders,or RayamandReny (literally Inpractice,Ifound,people almostneverusedthe termto referto livingpeople. and mothers"). Almostall otherswere excluded. were mainlydead individuals. The RayamandReny

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of Betafo,Andrianony, The largest was madeup of three local families.Inonly one quarter was the founder still alive. Between these threegroupsaccountedfor all but five them, family of the quarter's Theotherfamilieswere all marginal or fragmentary in some twentyhouseholds. adult sense; mostwere composedof a singleelderlymanor woman livingwith an unmarried of youngerchildrenorgrandchildren. the of heads such child,orwith a smallnumber Although fortheirage, theywere usuallyquitepoor,and no one wouldthink familiesmightbe respected of them as RayamandReny. The same was trueof elders who were dependentswithinother local families.Womencould in principle be RayamandReny, but in practicetheywere almost neverconsideredso. Othermen were disqualified Inthe end, of the by questionsof character. therewas reallyonly one who everyoneagreedcould roughly118 peoplewho lived in Betafo, be consideredan elder. Betafo,moreover, was unusualin havingeven one.

not being forgotten of any localfamilywould normally Mostof the members expect to be buriedin itsfounder's tomb. Oftenthis was a tombthe deceased had himselfcreated;if not, it was usuallybecause he hadalreadysucceeded in establishing himselfas the exclusiveeffectiveownerof one of the most famous ancient tombs, with whose razambehe might be confused in the eyes of the neighborhood. stillrecallhim in theirdaily lives-asHow can a manof local fame-whose grandchildren and reveredlong afterthose sume the statusof a famousrazambe,who will be remembered If are dead? one founds a one to has tomb, bringin at leastone of one's own grandchildren to be itsrazambe; in the case of an ancienttomb,one is oftendealingwithan ancestor ancestors whose fame is alreadyso great(oneof the childrenof the deme'sfounder,forinstance) thatthe it to of the owner could be overshadowed it. While is help impossible speak identity hardly by in with any realcertainty aboutprocessesthatcan only be observedover severalgenerations, orcan end up absorbed Evena razambe can be forgotten practicethereareseveralpossibilities. On inspection into some morefamoussuccessor(withwhom he is often physicallymerged). I frequently discoveredthat the ancestorgenerallyassumedto be the of old documents,"7 razambeof some tombwas in factnot itsoldest ancestorat all butthe manwho builtit. This entailed a complex politics whose very existence was never openly admitted.The of most of the effectivecommunityleaderswas derived fromthat of some more authority who was no longeralive. Whileeveryonespokeof the venerableancestor-most oftena father fameof a father needto remember and honordeceasedparents, theyalso knewthatthe ultimate almostnecessarilymeantthe eventualoblivionof his sons (andvice versa). some people who were apparently In any communitytherewere admittedly seekingtheir Butin myexperiencethiswas a strategy mainlyadoptedby prominent vicariously. immortality women and rarely,if ever, by men. A widow mightpromotethe prestigeand memoryof her as razambe of a tomb,thinkinglittleof herown thoseof herfather) latehusband(ora daughter in comparison. Butwomen had a verydifferent name and reputation positionthandid men in was not at all likethe betweenfathers and daughters the politicsof localfamilies.Therelation close. to be particularly fathers and sons. held relation between and Itwas difficult contradictory for instance,explained as a simple matterof for cousin marriage, I often heardpreferences move too faraway. And could not bearto see theirdaughters fathers sentimentality: paternal faraway knowsherfatherwill alwaysbe happyto welcome who does marry even a daughter and all the her back if he is at all able to do so, shouldshe wish to leave hercurrenthusband, more so if she has childrenwho will add to the numberof his local descendants.Formost to the universal this doubtlesscontributed women a father'shouse was a potentialrefuge;'8 with emotional attachments their form their closest that fathers, just as girls naturally feeling

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boys alwaystend to remainprimarily loyalto theirmothers,in childhoodas well as lateron in life.

gender and the politics of memory I mentionedat the beginningof the articlethatthe mostprominent famadihana of any year was likelyto be dedicatedto a singlepersonwho had died some fouror five yearsbefore.In myexperiencethispersonwas alwaystheheadof a localfamilywhose memorystilldominated the lives of his descendantsin the way I have been described. A famadihana in the winterof 1990. Razafindrabe was held for Irina's father,Razafindrabe, had died in 1982 at the age of 66, only two yearsafterhavingfinishedbuildinghis tomb. He hadbeen a verysuccessfulmanand hisdescendants now dominated two different villagesnear Betafo.The ceremonywas sponsoredby his widow and six surviving children.Threedifferent tombswere opened. The firstwas thatof Razafindrabe's father.Thoughthe father's body itself had been removedto the new tomb, four other ancestorswere rewrapped there and some unrelated peopletookthe occasionto addtwo bodiesthathadbeen buriedin temporary graves forthe ancestors tomb,wherethe familywas also responsible nearby.Nextcame his mother's of a rich but childlesswoman who had adoptedRazafindrabe and left him her land. Evenat these firsttombstherewas a certainfeelingof fearand anxietyas the ancestorsfirstemerged, a certainair of triumph and rejoicingas they were returned. Butthese were not the bodies of had actuallyknown;to the contrary,most did not even know people any of the participants theirnames. Thefinaltomb,however,was Razafindrabe's own. Bythe timethe lasttombhadbeenopened the tension had builtup to the pointwhere manyof the zanadrazana clearlyfound it almost unbearable. Some of the young men carrying the bodies out of the tomb appeared,although fortified by rum,so overwhelmed by whattheywere doingthattheirfaceswere thoseof people in physicalpain, as if they were forcingthemselvesto carryout theirpartsin the ritual. Others seemed to have fallen into an almost trancelikestate, stumblinglyoblivious to what was himselfemerged-and was immediately surhappeningaroundthem. When Razafindrabe rounded by a press of descendantswho flooded him with rum and other offerings-the emotionalpitchhad reacheda climax;few were the women who did not at leastchoke back sobswhenthe ancestors werefirstplacedon theirlaps,andseveral,includingIrina, brokedown in tears. As the processof giving giftsand wrapping the ancestorscontinuedpeople would always their and the end virtuallyeveryone took part in mood of graduallyregain composure, by celebration;after the ceremony, however, women always tended to remarkon who had becauseyou stillremember the person cried-particularlyif they haddone so themselves."It's so vividly,"I was told on severaloccasions,alwaysin moreor less the same words,"andthen were you see justhow littleis still left."I once askedone of these women why, if famadihana to be such someone burst into tears. She looked at me supposed happy occasions, always somewhatquizzicallyand pointedout thatsuch people had oftenjusthadtheirfather's corpse placed acrosstheir laps. "Wellhow would you feel?"I did not want to give anyonethe idea thatwe foreigners were lackingin normalhumansentiments,so I hurriedly assuredherthat in the world would be to have a similar reaction to a such situation. anyone likely Only later did it occur to me thatI could have addedthatthis is preciselywhy we neverputdead fathers on people's lapsto begin with. Ifin Imerina of they do so, it can only be because the memory the livingindividuals-or at least,of some-remains so powerfuland so persuasive a presence in the mindsof theirdescendants thatonly sucha dramatic confrontation can reallybringhome the fact of theirdeath.

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the Bloch has already noted that famadihanaare largelyconcerned with transforming memoriesof the living (1971:168-169); this he adds makes them quite differentfrom the concernedwith secondaryburialsmade famousby RobertHertz(1907), which are primarily of the souls the dead from their existence between this world person lingering halfway freeing and the next. Butin a way the two are not so verydifferent: here,too, the dead could be said to lingeron in a kindof suspendedhalf-lifein the memories of theircontemporaries. Inthe ritual,it was women's memoriesthatwere mostprominently intoplay,while brought the ancestorswho are the realemotionalfocus of the ritual This were almostalways male.19 anddaughters was quitein keepingwiththe emotionalbondsbetweenfathers (asalso between mothersand sons), attachmentsthat colored both women's and men's attitudestoward ancestors more generally. The same pattern-female ancestors boding ill, males boding for instance,in accountsof women'sdreams.Andwhile I knowa well-appeared constantly, deal about the less dreams of men thanthose of women, since men were less inclinedto good tell me about such things, my impressionis that the termswere typicallyreversed.Fathers with each otheror had appearedmainlyto chide theirsons when they had been squabbling or to warnof disaster.Razafindrabe himselfis a case in point.Irina told me otherwisestrayed, he had madea deathbedpromiseto his six sons thathe would continue,even afterhis death, in the family.On the otherhand,Irina themwhen therewas a quarrel to counselandadmonish She had nevermarried herselfhadbeen herfather's as well as his only daughter. favorite, away of partners a number of children and letting fromherfather's by a variety village,insteadbearing the famadihana described herfather above, she had been the most help herraisethem. During conspicuouswith hertearsover his body;a few days later,she told me thatherfatherregularly herfromdangerand givingher spirit,protecting appearedin herdreamsas a kindof guardian advice. A remarkable featureof all such dreamswas the way that imagesof livingpeople become as in the followingdream,reported to me by Irina, mixedup with imagesof death. Frequently, in or neartheirtombs;alternatively, the imagesrecounted shiftedbackand forth they appeared betweenthose of livinghumanbeingsand those of frightening corpses.
I dreamed that I saw my father in 1989 (this was when he was already dead) to the north of Ambodivona. There are some trees there and we were talking among them [and I asked myself], "Isthis daddy appearing to us here, still alive?"Then, "Give me your blessing," Isaid (because I wasn't well . .) So we were talking, when he said, "You shouldn't do such things, Irina,"and rightthere he plunged back into being dead and bound. LaterI went up to the village where my older brother was; and he too just took off out of the village, and plunged into death like that. It was, like, disgusting and frightening.20

wonderswhetherhe is stillalive, but when she asks him for On firstseeing her fatherIrina his blessinghe suddenlyrebukesher and turnsintoa corpse.The imagechanges fromthatof a livingpersonto thatof an ancestor,bound head and foot by the ropesused to fastenon his shrouds.Whathappensin Irina's dream-confrontinga vivid memoryof an ancestor,asking intoa dead, boundcorpse-is just for his blessing,and then suddenlyseeing him transformed it is livingmen who bring what happens to women in famadihana,21 except thatin famadihana aboutthe confrontation by calling out the names of the dead and thus evoking memoriesof livingpersonsin the mindsof the women, beforeplacingthose persons'decomposedbodies on theirlaps.The memoriesevoked by these namesare tied to physicalobjects-objects that Theprocessas a whole can dissolveas the namesthemselvesaregradually forgotten. gradually be viewed as effacingthe individualidentitiesof all the dead except the veryfew who are or will become a tomb'srazambe. Idescribedthis processas an activeformof genealogicalamnesiain which the living Earlier withotherswhose names aboutto passfrommemory of ancestors combine the remains to begin to be morelikelyto endure.Butfew endureforverylong. Inexaminingthe names arethought tombsIfoundthat,asidefromone famadihana at particular called out during thatwere actually or two razambe, almostall belongedto people who haddied withinthe last10 or 15 years.In

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other words, most names continuedto be commemorated only so long as memoriesof the bearersthemselveswere likelyto remainvivid in the mindsof any numberof the living;or, moreto the point,as longas the socialties derivedfromthose memories stillhavesome perhaps realityin people'sdaily lives. Names likethatof Razafindrabe, however,remainenormouslyimportant-so much so that local society can be said to be largelyorganizedaroundthem. Localfamiliescontinuedto be as longas theyheld together; as I havenoted,these names called by the namesof theirfounders invokedin conversationaboutthe ownershipof houses, rice fields,and tombs were regularly haddied. The expressionmostoften usedto refer on one's to ancestors long aftertheirbearers means"nameof the father" Itwas also used to referto what father's side literally (anaran-dray). the male houses,tombs,and ricefieldspassedon through property": mightbe called "ancestral or "nameof the mother" forthe femaleline).As a number of scholars line (aswas anaran-dreny, have remarked (Gueunier 1980; Razafintsalama 1982:237, n.2; Razafindratovo 1981), this is a curious expression,since Malagasysociety does not use patronymics or, for that matter, of any kind.Why,then, shouldthe most important elementsof one's inheritance matronymics be identifiedwith one of the few aspectsof a fatheror mother'ssocial identitythatwere not inherited? The answer,Iwould argue,is thatby usingthisexpressionone underlines the factthatsuch does notentirelybelongto the personholdingit. Insome cases thiswas quite literally property and sisterspostponethe formaldivisionof theirparents'property, true. If a groupof brothers in a dead ancestor's landand housesmightremainlegallyregistered nameforyears.Iwas even toldthatdescendants forthe expresspurposeof askingsuch mightdecide to hold a famadihana beforedividingup a jointestate.Evenwhen descendants an ancestor's do (tsodrano) "blessing" hold legal title, however, possession is not without its obligations:if one holds a rice field inheritedfroma given ancestor,one is responsiblefor providinglambamena and otherwise to the that is in whenever ancestor involved famadihana22-an contributing expenses obligation thatenduresas longas does the memoryof the ancestor.Hereagain,the logicof the ritual leads backto the dissolution of identity: severalpeople told me thatthe reasonwhy it was necessary to combine razanatogetherwas to keep such expenses down. Icertainly neverhearditputin quitethisway, one mightconceptualize famadihana Although as a process of transferring ancestralnames from an attachment to land and houses to an to stones. Standingstones have always been the archetypal attachment formof memorialin in Tombs are a sense themselves memorial timesthey stones;in former Madagascar.23 highland were alwayscrownedby a stela,which was saidto standdirectlyoverthe head of the razambe (thencalled the tompon'nyfasana,or "ownerof the tomb"[Jully 1896]) and which received In sacrifices offered to him. tombs the stelae have become crosses,butthe any contemporary and the remain same. The stone in effect the tomb as a whole, implication position represents andbothareultimately identified witha singleancestor, whose namewould inturnbe attached sharedby livingpeople. In this sense, at least,the only to the stone but not to any property of ancestors whose namesendurearethose who manageto transfer handful theirmemoryfrom the shared with to to the dead. property living property peculiar famadihana as reversal The differencebetween men's and women's attitudes roles they explainsthe very different at the critical momentwhen the confrontation respectivelyplay in the ritual,particularly between ancestral bodies and humanmemoriestakesplace. Womencarryancestorson their The means"tonursea child sitting laps. expressionused for this is miampofo,which literally on one's lap,"andthe candy,honey,trifling sumsof money,andso on, arejustthe sortof thing one gives as treatsto small children.Eventhe fact thatthe zanadrazana clothe the ancestors

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and carrythem rolled like infantsin blanket-like lambacould be seen as treatingthem like the ancestorsare hereconceptualizedas symbolically children.Assuming male,thistreatment reverses the relationship betweenfathers and daughters, it intoa relationship between turning
mothers and sons.24

Themen'spart,on the otherhand,is to carrythe ancestors, to wrapthem,to bindthem,and to lead the dancingat the end of the ceremonywith which they are returned to the tomb. In the ancestors, since the combination of these effect,thismeansthatit is the male roleto destroy actions-none of which are carriedout in a gingerlyfashion-results in the dry body's being andturn brokenapart ingto dust.One womantold me this was the reasonitwas menwho must the bindinghas to be done with such "outrageous" bind the ancestors: force (mahatsiravana) thatonly men are strongenoughto do it. The word famadihanaitself can also mean "reversal," or even "betrayal." And it could certainlybe arguedthat the male role in the ceremonies involves a reversalof the normal betweenthe livingand the dead. The livinginflicton the ancestorspreciselywhat relationship the ancestorsinflicton the living:a formof constraint continuous with a formof violence. This that is perfectly encapsulatedin the act of bindingthe bodies, each cord yankedso forcefully the very bones are crushed.A particular emphasisis also placedon the politicsof movement. would striveto keep his descendantsfrommovingaway, so Justas any fatheror grandfather is largelyone of containingthe dead ancestorsin space:afterbeing the processof famadihana fromtheirwanderings to the tomb at the startof the ritual, called to return they are removed, boundtightlywith ropes,and lockedback in the tombwith magiccharms. ancestral blessings was thus largelyorganizedaroundthe identitiesof a handfulof Ruralsociety in Imerina who had in assemblingdescendantsaroundthem or at least in elders succeeded prominent retains enormoussocial of sucheldersgenerally keepingthemfrommovingaway.Thememory a ritual of force longafterthey themselveshavedied-so muchso thatto overcomeit requires profoundtraumaand violence in which the relationbetween ancestorsand descendantsis their dead ancestorsinto turnedcompletelyon its head. By allowing women to transform and violence that children,living men can turn back on them the very formsof constraint constituteancestralauthority and, in so doing, set off a processby which the memoryof the themselveswill be largelyeffaced. ancestors a participant would be likelyto offeroreven to agreewith.When Thisis notan interpretation violence. in the abstract almosteveryonetendedto avoid mentioning discussingfamadihana to famadihana orations: thatthe living on a themecentral Instead, peopleplacedgreatemphasis wish to give honorto the dead, and thatby doingso they receivetheirtsodranoor blessing-a and fertility.25 blessingthatwill ensuretheircontinuedhealth,prosperity, in famadihana On the face of it, the notionthatthe ancestorsremembered providepositive own benefitsfortheirdescendantswould appearto contradictmy directly.On interpretation the ancestors and closer examination,however,the "health,prosperity, fertility" providedby No would kind. one most and abstract unspecific turnsout to be only of the normally sponsor in orderto cure someone who was ill, bringsuccess to some financialproject, a famadihana one mightmakea vow atthe to conceive. Inany of these situations, or cause someoneinfertile or one mightconsulta magicalspecialistof one kind tombof an ancientkingor Vazimbaspirit, had done at leastone of these thingsat some in Madagascar all my acquaintances or another; to theirown ancestors, time. Peoplewould neverconsiderappealing however,unless,perhaps forthe problemfromthe start. theirancestorshad been responsible they thought of rum,candies, In Betafo,some people would moreor less surreptitiously depositofferings Thistoo was called the gesturewith a prayer. or honey on the roofof a tomb,accompanying

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"asking for a tsodrano." But it was hard to get information on this practice since, although there were almost always one or two empty bottles or the remains of offerings on prominent tombs, I only found one person willing to openly admit to having put one there at any time. The one exception was something of a social pariah, said to have fallen into abject poverty and debt as a result of having offended his razambe by violating a number of ancestral taboos. One night, while drunkenly celebrating an unexpected windfall, he declared to his neighbors that he had appealed to this same razambe for relief from his debts, and that his prayers had been answered. Itwas clear to everyone that his real motive was to broadcast as far as possible that the ancestor had forgiven him. (Few were convinced.) I strongly suspect that, in most (if not all) cases of offerings left on the tops of tombs "to ask for the ancestors' tsodrano,"they were actually appealing for relief from some punishment those ancestors had inflicted, and that this was the real reason for their reluctance to speak of the matter. The literal meaning of tsodrano is "to blow water." At its simplest it refersto a domestic ritual in which a child or younger person requests an elder's blessing and the latter responds by sprinkling the supplicant with water. The elder usually adds a few words of benediction, which, using a relatively conventionalized language, wish good health, prosperity, and many descendants on the person being blessed. Two important points should be made here. The first is that elders never give such blessings on their own initiative. A tsodrano must always be requested. In the past, I was told, children had to "buy"their parents' blessing by presenting a coin or small piece of money to them as a token of request. (The giving of small change and other "tokens of request" to ancestors in famadihana would seem to echo this same ritual logic.)26 The second point is that the effect a blessing has on its recipient is the precise opposite of that achieved through cursing or ozona. By cursing, parents impose taboos and restrictions on their descendants. By "blessing," they remove them. In one village, for instance, I heard that the local elders gave such a blessing after a number of teenagers who were studying in Antananarivo approached them to complain that it was impossible to maintain their deme's fady on pork while living in the city. The elders blew water over them, thereby freeing the whole deme from the taboo. In almost every context in which I heard of someone asking for a tsodrano, giving it could be construed as releasing the recipient from some constraint or restriction on which the giver would otherwise have had the right to insist. The archetypal example was that of a young man who left home, whether to pursue his education or simply to "look for money." Such a person, I was told, will always go to his parents and ask for their blessing, particularly if he was leaving the country or going very far away. The same notion of release occurs in common speech. One can say that two lovers have "blown water over one another" (mifampitsodrano) if, on parting temporarily,they agree that each is free to see other people until they are reunited. Shortly before leaving Madagascar in December 1990, just as the war in Kuwait was heating up, I heard on the radio news that "the American Congress has given President Bush its tsodrano to use force in the Persian Gulf."

a war against death?

What I am arguing then is that, since there is no clear line between positive benefits and the benefits of simply being left alone, the notion of tsodrano can be used as a kind of euphemism. This became particularly clear when, instead of asking why one performed famadihana, I inquired what would happen if one did not perform them at all. While answers to the first question were usually preceded by a good deal of reflection and casting about for the right words, responses to the second were instantaneous: your children will die, your health will fail, or your family will fall ever deeper into poverty. The catalog of misfortunes could admittedly be seen as simply a negative image of the fertility, health, and prosperity tsodrano was said to

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bring;but since people were always much more concrete and specific in speakingof the misfortunes than they were of the benefits,it would make bettersense to look at it the other around. way children. Peoplewere in factquiteconcernedwiththe dangerancestors posedto theirinfant Ghosts(olo, angatra,matoatoa) were said to lingeraroundtombs.Anyoneunwise enough to come intoexcessivelyclose contactwith a tomb underordinary circumstances should lighta small fire in the doorwayof the house and enter by steppingover it lest a ghost follow. The same thing was done after attendingfunerals.The major considerationin building and tombswas thatof denyingthe dead access to the living;one knewwith certainty maintaining thatone had failedto maintain thatseparation when the youngchildrenin one's familybegan to die. Mostof the people I knew could tell storiesabout wakingin the middle of the night becausethey (orothersin the same room)were in the middleof beingstrangled by malevolent in when one's are characterized their black formsand naked, they appear ghoststhat, sleep, by In size. one can find two or three vendors charms to keep any marketplace huge always selling or to rid of them. These were and contrasted ghostsaway get ghosts anonymous, genericbeings in this with individualized, "good"ancestorswho when they appearedin dreamsand visions were usually robed in white. But even such relativelybenevolent ancestorswere at least The mostfrequent troublesome. reasonfortheirappearance was to complainof beingcold and to demand that their descendantsperformfamadihana; and I have alreadymentionedthe with the results. When askedabout the origins probableconsequencesof theirdissatisfaction of the dark,murderous that disturbed children's or specters sleep otherwiseplaguedthe living, most people immediately were ancestors whose descendantsno longer"took suggestedthey care of them." Sincesome would say thatit was mostoftenthe recentlydead who demandedfamadihana, one mightbe temptedto look for a parallelto Hertz's(1907) secondaryburialsonce again. In the societiesHertzdiscussed,the vindictiveghostsof the recentlydead were believedto linger the ritual neartheirold habitations; servedto releasethemintoanother worldwheretheywould be harmless to the living.Famadihana could be thought of as doingsomething similar: dissolving of the identities the recent so could be absorbedinto dead, they away dangerous, ultimately that of a relativelybenevolent razambe.As the storywith which I began this article makes benevolent. clear, however,even razambeare not necessarily abundantly from Betafo-after to me their own versionof the storyabout One married couple relating the in 1931 fire-mentioned that following the most recent famadihanafor Andrianambololona'ssomeone had brokeninto his tomb and had stolen severalexpensive lambamena odd," I said. "Youwould thinka thiefwould be boughtforthe ceremony,but unused."That's he's supposed to entersuch a tomb.""Wellthis one mustnot havebeen,"theysaid. "But afraid to be so powerfuland fearsome!Isn'tthis the same one who burneddown the town?""Well" they both replied-more or less in unison-"he wasn't cold any more, was he? If he starts to you, it can only be because he's cold. But in this case, there had just been a appearing He'd justbeen wrapped;he wasn'tcold at all. And unless he was,"the husband famadihana. "he's added, reallynothingbut a pile of dust." of famadihana. roleinthe symbolism Heatdidplayan important Honey,rum,cow fat,ginger, the "tokens of requestsfor tsodrano" and even candies-all of which are prominent among a one eats when one has ancestors-are all also to the cold, preciselybecausethey things given in one's to relieve the "coldness" are food withheatingproperties. areconsidered They thought forcoughingor congestion.Indeed,these giftswere supposedto be head or chest responsible wherethe ancestor'shead and chest oughtto have been. placed roughly had a complexlyambiguousrelationwiththe dead. Ghostswere frightened Fire,too, by it. a if accosted a one should one in of knew that was by ghost light match; Everyone danger being Iwas told,would not sufficebecauseghostsdo notfearlightbutonly actualflames. a flashlight,

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I have alreadymentionedthat steppingover a candle or otherflamewhen enteringa house to driveaway ghosts almostalways involve preventedghostsfromfollowingone in. Charms heat and flames.Atthe same time, however,people insistedthatone shouldcarrya candle or would notdo-when descendingintoa tombduringa famadihana, lantern-again, a flashlight to burncandlesatthe tombsof ancientkingsorotherbenevolent it was common as practice just them elsewhere. while or invoking spirits, A friendof mine called RamoseParson,a biologyteacherat the Catholicsecondaryschool as beingbasically of the practiceof famadihana toldme thathe alwaysthought inArivonimamo, it out over a much of that is carried the sameas cremation, longerperiod time.Cremated except the application of heat;afterward, the dustis encased in an bodies are reducedto dustthrough earth.All this, he pointedout, is urnwhich insuresthat it will never mixwith the surrounding ritual. The place of the urnis takenby the lambamena, which also trueof Malagasymortuary and by the care people take to insurethe ancestral is valued for its hardnessand durability, bundlesnever come in contactwith the earth.Thisis of course one man'stheory,and rather an eccentricone at that,but-if nothingelse-it would makethe storywithwhich I beganthis to carryout the famadihanain its articleall the more appropriate poetically:by forgetting the destructive fireon themthe haplessdescendantsof Andrianambololona brought entirety, selves instead. some conclusions to mean that remembering and forgetting are equally The incidentcan also be interpreted of the violencethatvariesbetweenthe two. This matters of violence;thatit is only the direction I havetriedto develop overthe courseof the presentarticle.Inpractical is the argument terms, the ancestors'enduringmemoriesmainlygave shape to social groupsthroughthe power to constrainand punish descendants by ancestralviolence; famadihana,seen as the highest of groupunity,were occasionson which descendants could turna formof violence expression preciselymodeled on that of theirancestorsagainstthose ancestors,and, by so doing could obliterate those memories. gradually In Imerina, the rathercommonplacedynamicsby which genealogies are made and transa continualprocessof forgetting work formed,requiring people's names(cf. Evans-Pritchard's on the Nuer [1940]),arechanged intoa veritable forexistencebetweenthe livingand struggle sense.Thedead, as a Malagasy the dead. Thiswas truein the mostliteral proverb putsit, "wish to become more numerous"by murdering the living;the living respondby crushingand the bodies of the dead so as to keep theirnumberslow. consolidating This is not to deny that famadihana were also memorials to the dead. Butthe memoryof fromthe pointof view of the most important ancestorswas double-edged,particularly men in and fame largelyborrowed ruralsociety.Theywielded an authority fromancestorswho were theirrivals,as well as being people they knew and caredforwhile they were alive. ultimately As I have said, the contradictions of theirpositionoften seem to put such men in a positionof even though,in describing the moral wantingto denythe existenceof suchviolencealtogether, unityof the communitythat ancestorscreate,they are to all intentsand purposesspeakingof theeffectsof thatviolence itself.Women,whose positionin relation to ancestorsis verydifferent (thoughequally complex),felt much more comfortable talkingabout such matters.Buteven women could not reconcile the "cruelty" of which ancestorswere capable when enforcing moral principleswith the sheer egotisticalviolence of ancestorswho simply wanted to be Itwas presumably remembered. thisdilemmathateffectively caused imagesof the deadto split in two, and thatwas itselfa transformation of the same centralcontradiction of authority. This divisionpittedbenevolentelderswho broughttheir descendants in a moral together community childrento join them in the tomb. againstrapacious ghostswho carriedoff theirdescendants'

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notes
Acknowledgments. Research was funded by a Fulbright/IEEE fellowship. I would like to thank Jean Comaroff, John Comaroff, Debra Durham, Gillian Feeley-Harnik, Arjun Gunderatne, Marshall Sahlins, Johanna Schoss, Raymond T. Smith, Debra Spitulnik, and Rebecca Tolen for their helpful comments and suggestions. 1. "Dia vitaohatran'nyandroanyantoandro izao ny fonosan-damba, dia injanyfa nirehitrany tanana.... Dia may izany. Dia maraina dia iny niavy tamin'ny olona indray hoe ho taperiko mihitsy aza ny ainareo raha ohatra ka tsy mamono lamba fa avelao izahy fonosona, ... Dia novonona indray ireo fasana ireo dia fonosina indray." 2. While several people with whom I spoke repeated Irina'sstory of her ancestor's wrath and the resulting fire of 1931, others clearly avoided discussion of ancestral violence. The few older men I asked about such stories flatly denied that anything of the sort had ever happened. 3. Mamadika is a verb meaning "to turn over," "to reverse," or "to betray";famadihana is its nominalization. 4. I spent 20 months in Madagascar, carrying out both archival research and fieldwork, between June 1989 and January 1991. I did my fieldwork in the town of Arivonimamo and especially in the rural community of Betafo, although I made a point of gathering comparative materialfrom a wide range of social contexts. 5. I have heard that some people leave small bottles of rum in the wrappings during one famadihana and drink them during the next, and I often heard about people who took dust from inside the wrappings and smeared it on their faces or gums as tooth medicine (although I never saw it done myself), or took a handful of beads from the ancient cloth to preserve for the same reason. 6. In theory it should be the oldest man among the local zanadrazana who removes the firstshovelful of earth from the doorway at the beginning of the ceremony; the firstreturnedat the end should, I learned, be done by a young man whose father and mother are both still living. 7. Despite occasional remarksthat mainty were more prone to preserve some of the more elaborate or traditional ritual forms, I found little difference in the practice of famadihana, or in fundamental attitudes toward ancestors, between these groups. 8. Archival sources make it clear that the andriana of Betafo are descended from militarycolonists placed there after the Merina kingdom's conquest of Imamo around 1800. These colonists were from a famous andriana group called the Zanak' ("childrenof") Andrianamboninolona, and, while no memory remains of the circumstances of their arrival, andriana from Betafo regularly call themselves children of Andrianamboninolona; most, in fact, think it is Andrianamboninolona himself who is buried in the razambe's tomb. 9. A woman may have more options because she can always choose to be buried in her husband's tombs (or, often, in one of several husbands' tombs), while only occasionally is a husband buried in his wife's family tomb. Forstatisticson actual choices see Bloch 1971:115; Razafintsalama1981:190-200; and Vogel 1982:162. 10. All the shelves of a new tomb were properly expected to hold at least one body, since if one is left empty the spiritsof the dead were likely to carryoff a child or other family member in order to fill it. Ifhuman bodies were not available, the trunkof a banana tree was usually placed on the empty shelf as a substitute. 11. Nor were they necessarily ancestors: all the bodies in a tomb were called razana whether they had descendants or not. 12. Examination, however, usually revealed that these lists represented only a tiny proportion even of those ancestors involved in the ceremony. 13. This is not to say that women could not curse as well-in fact, a few very old and venerable women would put more of a moral slant on the ancestors' ferocity (complaining, for example, that the ancestor was merciless in the punishment of evildoers). Most, however, did not do so. 14. This emerges very clearly in deme histories, in which ancestors are never represented as having had powers of action or creativity basically different from those available to people in the present. Even when magical powers enter into these stories (and they only rarely do), they are powers one could acquire in the present day, if one had the skill or if one were willing to pay for the knowledge. 15. One might even see the stories about the origins of fady as being statements about the essence of this relationship "because our ancestor took this action tfor example, ate caterpillars], therefore we, his descendants, are never allowed to take that action again." 16. While there is again no generic term in Malagasy for such groups, people usually would refer to particular local families aftertheir founders; hence, for example, "theoffspringof Ranaivo"(ny terad-Ranaivo). For this reason Vogel (1982) calls such groups teraka ("offspring").But the term would never be so used by a native speaker. 1 7. These were mostly private papers from families in Betafo, but they also included records of contracts involving tombs in the AKTAseries of the Malagasy National Archives. 18. When women talked about leaving their husbands they always, I noticed, spoke of "going home to father,"never "to mother." 19. I only saw women crying and male ancestors being cried over, but I only witnessed four or five incidents firsthand.

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20. "Izaho izao ohatra tamin'ny 1989, nanofy izany izaho eto hoe hitako i dadanay-izy izany efa maty io-ary Avaratr'Ambodivonaary-fa misy hazo eo, dia niresaka aminy izahay "fa ity dada ity ve mbola tsy maty?"hoy aho, "mbola miseho eto indray?"Dia "omeo tsodrano aho" hoy aho fa izaho tsy salama.... Dia niresaka eo izahay mianaka: "tsy fanao izay Irina"hoy izy, dia iny izy dia nidaboka maty tamin'izy nafatotrainy. Dia izaho niakatratamin'ny tanana misy an'ilay zokinay lahimatoa hafareny tery. Dia izy koa mba nikisaka niala an-tanana izy izany nidaboka an'iny fahafatesan'iny, Ohatran'ny hoe: mahatsiravana mampahatahotra." 21. This comparison is somewhat complicated by the fact that Irinahad this dream at a time her siblings were all quarreling-which probably explains her father's sudden transformationfrom benevolent to stern and authoritarian. It is unclear whether Irina meant to imply that her illness was caused by her father's disapproval. 22. In Betafo, for instance, I heard of the case of several absentee owners living in the capital who, upon converting to an evangelical sect that did not allow them to participate in famadihana, immediately sold off their rice fields in Betafo. 23. No postindependence Malagasy government has, to my knowledge, ever erected a statue in the European sense-that is, one bearing some kind of likeness. Public monuments always take the form of standing stones. 24. One elderly man made a great point of this, in speaking of his father, whom he resented for not having taken care of him as a child: "He never so much as clothed us then, but we still bring cloth for him now." As Gillian Feeley-Harnik (1989) reminds us, lamba are feminine products, and ideally should be the handiwork of the participants themselves. 25. While older men and figures of authoritywere particularlyinclined to emphasize these themes, this was a familiar notion to everyone. The formal expression meaning "to ask for a tsodrano" (mangataka tsodrano sy ranombavaka) was the one piece of ritual language even the most ignorant person was guaranteed to know, and the term was constantly invoked in ritualcontexts, or in any other context in which a certain formalityof speech was felt to be appropriate. 26. Generally speaking, every ritualgesture that involved giving something to the ancestors-for instance, pouring rum over the door of the tomb or over the bodies inside, giving gifts when the ancestors are placed on womens' laps-was called a "requestfor tsodrano."Similarly,anything taken away bythe zanadrazanasuch as the pieces of mat which are said to bring fertility to women and the tooth medicine mentioned above-can be called "tsodrano."

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submitted March 10, 1993 revised version submitted October 22, 1993 accepted February17, 1994

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