Famahadiana

Being a Peace Corps Volunteer in the highlands of Madagascar it was a given that I would eventually be invited to witness a Famadihana, which is the Malagasy custom of exhumation.  Volunteers living in the highlands are far more likely to receive such an invitation as Famadihana is primarily a custom observed in the highlands region.  I’ve been told that as you move East towards the coast, the practice begins to drop off, close to the Betsileo/Merina ethnic and linguistic divide, near my friend James’s site in Moramanga.  Yet, volunteers from other regions however aren’t bereft of opportunities to experience one.  As Madagascar has modernized, however haltingly, its people have become increasingly migratory and ethnic groups have intermixed.  Due to the strong family connections that still persist here in Madagascar, a Malagasy disposed to work away from the place of birth will, upon his or her death, return to the town of the ancestors and be laid to rest in the family tomb. What this means for my volunteer friends in the deep-south, or the beach dwellers up north is that quite likely they could meet a man or woman from the highlands who will inevitably be observing a Famadihana during the volunteer’s two years of service.  It’s certainly lucky for them too that the opportunity still exists because though it is predominately a highlands custom, it’s a part of the culture here that absolutely cannot be missed.

I’ll start by providing just a bit of background on the practice to offer a bit of context before I get my particular experience.  The word Famadihana comes from the Malagasy verb, ‘mamadika’ and is most aptly described as the Malagasy tradition and ceremony of turning the bones of one’s ancestors. Tombs are large cubic structures situated into the hill side or on top of a ridge with many generations of an individual family entombed in a single structure. As I’ve gathered, tombs are often situated close to other tombs in specifically designated areas with the link between the owning families being that they often come from within the same fokonolona, a term given to the communal association of individuals, primarily delineated geographically.  I’ve been informed that traditionally a Famadihana occurs once every 5-7 years but the timing isn’t strictly bracketed as such and can vary, one of the biggest constraints on frequency being cash on hand.  When the time has come to observe Famadihana new burial shrouds must be procured, an appropriate number of pigs must be readied for the slaughtering, a tent must be constructed and a band of practiced ‘hira-gasy’ musicians (traditional Malagasy music) must be prepped to bust their chops providing a soundtrack for the occasion.  Once the necessary preparations are completed, family, friends, co-workers and the occasional Peace Corps Volunteer are all invited to take part in a two to three day party, which culminates in the application of new burial cloths for all of those previously laid to rest in the particular tomb.  At this point I’ve observed one full Famadihana and part of another and noticed some variation. During my first experience all families converged simultaneously on an outcropping of tombs, proceeding to exhume the bodies and re-wrap the cloths then and there. On a separate occasion I had lunch with a fokonolona that was performing a Famadihana and the custom was slightly altered.  It appeared as if rather than doing the whole process in one fell swoop at the tomb, the family had previously exhumed the bodies, taken them back to the cluster of houses and placed them on tables near the entrance of the dining hall.  I’m sure I’ll have plenty of chances in the future to get a handle on the most common practice is for observing Famadihana but it seems as if it can differ substantially.

Thus far the only complete Famadihana that I’ve been able to experience from start to finish was thanks to the guard at my office and good friend of mine, Mr. Ranary.  The first day’s events were primarily marked by the slaughtering of the pigs and general preparations.  When the time comes once every 5-7 years, responsibility for the celebrations fall to the most senior and direct descents of those entombed.  In this case Mr. Ranary’s sister and brother-in-law carried that torch, which permitted me a glimpse into some of the pre-party goings on.  It also was the case that due to a cultural crossroads that many Malagasy people find themselves in, which I’ll discuss later, Mr. Ranary had to tell his wife that he was taking me to ‘do a report’ as opposed to visiting a Famadihaha, before he could get permission.  In order to keep up the pretense it was also mandatory that I shoot video of the preparations.  So for those who would like to see it I have some very interesting film.  There were small outcroppings of butchers dotting the hillside just upwind of the cluster of houses where the Famahadiana festivities were to take place.  All told there must have been six or seven pigs with teams of three or four men hacking away at carcasses with remarkable speed and precision while Mr. Ranary and I dodged in and out, doing our reporter song and dance.  Mr. Ranary fielding questions while I shot video. Much the same as the wedding in Ambohitrambo, large speakers and a sound system had been carted in over a god-awful road at what I can only imagine to be a sizable personal expense for the organizers.  The evening mealtime arrived and the contingent of family and helpers that attended the pre-party festivities gathered on benches in an open air, tarpaulin enclosed configuration.  I, on the other hand, was ushered upstairs to eat with the important men of the ceremony.  This time I believe the undo elevation of my status was brought about by my gender and association with Mr. Ranary more so than my skin tone, as is so often the case here.  Sequestered in a small room upstairs I positioned myself against the back wall, filling out the circle of men in attendance.  Women began to bring in a few plates containing sizable, darkened hunks of meat, along with a formidable quantity of rice.  I was fairly certain that the meat I was about to try wasn’t any part of a pig that I would be used to eating but I decided to give it a shot first and ask later.  Turns out it was lung.

The next morning, Mr. Ranary and I returned to the scene around 10 in the morning with a few hours to kill before the group was scheduled to make a pilgrimage towards the tomb site.  A hundred yards or so outside of the small cluster of houses where the tent had stood, there was a large open field bounded on one edge by people selling an assortment of Malagasy snacks, mostly fried bread and sugar cane discs, with plenty of beer and rum on hand as well.  Across the way people were perched on a ridge, peering down at a group of maybe twelve ‘hira-gasy’ musicians who were taking a short respite on a log.  Typically bands of hira-gasy musicians are practiced groups of individuals originating from the same fokon-tany (the smallest political unit here in Madagascar, more or less the same as a neighborhood).  Invariably the groups consist of at least one fiddle player, a few accordion players, a fleet of guys playing the recorder, a snare drummer or two, and one guy triumphantly thumping away on a bass drum.  As far as I can tell, some variety has wormed its way into hira-gasy over the past few decades but it appears as if true hira-gasy is best described as a loose jam that ping-pongs back and forth between three chords.  The thing is though, it’s pretty intoxicating if you let yourself get into it. Mr. Ranary and I hiked up towards the log where the musicians were taking their break, followed by a hoard of bewildered spectators trying to make sense of the random white boy crashing their festivities.  In keeping with our reporter story, Mr. Ranary, along with the other big-wigs of Famahadiana, whom at this point adopted me into their clique, insisted that the players strike back up so we could shoot some film.  At this point my camera was handed off to Mr. Ranary which allowed him to capture my first Malagasy dance class.  While the band ticked away, a few of my new friends began to teach me the dance moves that most often accompany hira-gasy.  The videos are pretty embarrassing but I’ll show them off when I’m back home if anyone’s interested.  I’ve already showed it to some of my co-workers here in Arivonimamo who just about died laughing. 

I lost track of how long we danced for.  At one point we took a quick rice break, observing our particular groups designated eating period since other Famadihana participants had arrived necessitating that we all be fed in shifts.  Around two in the afternoon the final partakers had trickled in and we all began to converge on the main tent.  With all parties gathered together, the lead organizer of the Famadihana, the most senior and directly related individual, stepped up to say a few words.  After profusely apologizing for the presumption that he should be allowed to bore us with a speech (Malagasy people quite literally say something to that affect at the outset of every speech), he continued to thank all those in attendance and express his gratitude for all of those who came to help observe the tradition.  A hat was produced by the older man’s son and people approached in staggered groupings to contribute a small bit money while the hira-gasy musicians drummed away.  As soon as that was finished, a Malagasy flag was hoisted up on a large bamboo pole and the entire company set off on foot towards the tomb. 

The timing must have been set in advance because as we made our way towards the tombs, four large stone structures set into the top of a small crest in the rolling hills, our group swelled until we numbered close to five hundred.  Upon arrival ox-carts had been circled up along the hillside and vendors of booze and fried Malagasy snacks were stationed there prepped for our arrival.  The first order of business was a speech by the president of the commune, given from his perch atop one of the tombs.  I honestly cannot say whether or not he began with the customary Malagasy words of contrition because aside from being thoroughly overwhelmed by the experience, I was simultaneously doing my best to keep an eye on this shifty looking drunk fellow who was clearly not amused by the ‘vazah’ in attendance.  Shortly after the speech was completed groups of men, stationed at the separate tombs representing the various families, began to simultaneously dig at the dirt packed over the entrance of each respective tomb.  Once the entrance had been breached, an assemblage of family members would file into the tomb, select the body of a loved one, cradle it in a tan woven mat and extract it from the tomb.   As I’d mentioned before, there were roughly five hundred people in attendance, representing numerous families, in different tombs, all of which held a fairly sizable number of deceased relatives.  This meant that right down in the thick of it where bodies were being extracted left and right it was fairly hectic, with bodies being more or less crowd-surfed along a sea of people in order to procure a calm patch of land to crouch down and properly re-wrap the cloths.  Curious as I was, I decided to follow my friends right into the heart of it all (I didn’t go into the tombs because I believe that would have been sacrilege).  In the midst of it all, being buffeted on all sides by people in the process exhuming ancestors, I was accidentally bumped twice by dead bodies while they were being carted towards a quiet patch of ground.  I quickly extricated myself from the thongs and climbed to a higher vantage point where I could observe the replacement of the burial shrouds.  Once a safe spot was found, the group of people would crouch down, cradling the body on their thighs and begin to sprinkle perfume on the corpse. Still cushioning the body in the tannish mat, the family would begin to wrap the new shrouds around the body, finally cutting strips from the excess cloth to be used a ties to fasten down the new fabric.  The name of the deceased individual was written in marker on the new shroud before the body is once again laid to rest in the tomb. 

Once I returned home to Arivonimamo and had some time to process the entire event I kept coming back to Mr. Ranary’s insistence that we maintain the report/journalist façade, so I began to ask around to my neighbors in order to better understand what I’d been missing.  As it turns out, the advent of Christianity here in Madagascar ushered in a minor existential crisis for many Malagasy who were forced with grapple with a Christian prohibition of exhumation which stood in direct opposition to a centuries of traditional ancestor worship.  Many of my neighbors were quick to tell me, ‘raha mivavaka ny olona dia tsy mamadika intsony,’ which means, if the person prays (the implicit assumption here being Christian prayer), then they don’t observe Famahadiana anymore.  Yet by and large people here are Christian with a vengeance, so how is it that everyone and their mother seems to be doing Famadihana this time of year?  The answer I get for the most part is, ‘well…. It depends on the person.’  So as I’ve gathered Madagascar is caught in a crossroads right now.  A clash of civilizations brought on by the arrival and dissemination of Christian philosophy which so many Malagasy took to which throws into question a seminal cultural practice.  The family of Mr. Ranary is a perfect microcosm of the situation playing out on a larger scale throughout Madagascar.  While his family is Christian and his wife in particular now abhors exhumation, Mr. Ranary wants desperately to hold onto a custom that is one of the most defining expressions of Malagasy culture. 

And so goes the story of my first Famahadiana.

Until next time, Veloma