In conclusion, I have to add a few remarks about the regions I have passed through.

The Bara country is very sandy and stony; the maromita were obliged to use sandals almost always to protect their feet against the stones, and it is very dry and consequently unfertile; and this is also the case as regards a part of the Tanosy country near the Onilahy. In the dry season one very seldom sees even a clouded sky, to say nothing of rain; the air is exceedingly hot, and the vegetation suffers very much, so that in many places it is a long distance between each root of grass, and what grass is seen is dry and faded. But the trees growing here have a greater power of resistance to the dryness, and many kinds of trees are green all through the rainless season, and the leaves are used to feed the cattle. This statement also applies to the raikėta. or prickly-pear, which is used all over the island as a living fence. In the southern part of Madagascar it is also used as food for the cattle; for the people. burn the grass surrounding it, and thus it is scorched or roasted sufficiently to make it eatable. In the Mahafaly and Tandroy countries, where water is very scarce, the inhabitants when travelling eat the fruit to satisfy their thirst.

But there are many river-beds, and even if these are almost dry, there is a pretty fair vegetation along them. On the vast plains in the southern Bara country, which are covered with grass, heather or brushwood, one can see from a long distance the direction of the river-beds from the lofty luxuriant trees growing along them. The people settle wherever water can be led out over the fields; but on account of the sterility of the country, food is very expensive, and it was often very difficult to get the rice we required. In the eastern parts of the island it is quite different; the rain here is abundant, and the soil is very fertile, with the exception only of the tracts near the sea. Rice, manioc, sweet-potatoes and Indian-corn are grown everywhere.

The clothing of the people is much the same as that used the interior; the lamba is the principal article of dress, only it is poorer. The Taisaka form an exception to this rule, wearing a kind of narrow skirt without gatherings, made of fine plaited straw, and extending from the knees to below the arms, and kept together by a belt. Both men as well as women among these people plait their hair. Among the Tanosy, however, some men may be seen with their hair cut short. The Bara roll the plaits together like balls round the back of the head, and it looks as if they wore a crown of balls. To make themselves smart—to their taste-and to make the balls big, they rub white earth, ashes, and suet into them, so that it as difficult to see the hair at all.

The houses everywhere are very small; they are made of slight wooden frame-work filled in with reeds, long grass, rushes, or the stalks of palm leaves. The roof is covered with grass or palm leaf.

These people are sunk very low under the heavy yoke of idolatry, and are heavily burdened by it; but even in these dark places we find man to be the only one of God's creatures who is conscious of a God and prays to Him. The women, especially by the Bara and Tanosy, are looked upon as slaves. Once I asked some men, "Why do you not permit the women to take their meals along with you? Why are they to wait till you have done, and consequently get their food cold?" They answered, "The woman is our slave; if she will not wait, we give her a blow on the head till she is done for." Polygamy prevails among these people.

Let us look at the condition of the new-born children. When a child is born, it is the custom to ask the sorcerer if it has a good or an evil fate. If he says that it is born on an evil day and consequently has an evil fate, it is believed that if permitted to live it will cause the death of its father or mother. The father, for this reason, either buries the child alive in an anthill, or he throws it into the dense brushwood; or, more rarely, following the sorcerer's directions, he places it in the way of the cattle. If the cattle do

not tread upon it, it is permitted to live, and thus sometimes the parents get their doomed child back again, but sometimes not, as it all depends on the sorcerer. If the child can be saved, he directs how it is to be done. But | what is invariably required for such recovery is, to sacrifice an ox to the gods. It is the custom among the Bara to dig a little tunnel through the bank of the river, and while the bleeding animal is lying close by, the child is carried through this tunnel, until it falls into the river, where it is received by the father. Part of the sacrificed animal is then buried in the tunnel. On the south-east coast the blood of the animal is rubbed on the forehead and behind the ears of the infant. Then a strip in the shape of a large ring is cut out of the skin of the animal, and the mother with the baby at her bosom must pass through this ring. The child can also be saved if a stranger adopts it and brings it up as his own.

As to the idols of these people, they may be divided into three classes. There are personal gods, which only protect their owners, and must always be worn on the body. There are also village gods, which protect the village that owns them. These consist of poles of various lengths, sharply pointed at the top. They are erected inside the village gates, and in some villages there are as many as eleven poles arranged in one or two rows. There are also some very primitive images cut in human shape, standing either above or outside the gates, with spears in their hands. These gods are believed to be able to protect the village against enemies. Lastly, there are national gods, to whom everybody may pray. A tree, a stone, or a heap of stones in the woods, may be such a god; and in the Bara country a number of trees are worshipped. We often witnessed such trees invoked by cutting into the bark with a spear, as if to make sure that the prayers offered would be taken notice of by these deaf gods. In the western Bara country I noticed such an idol, a fine lofty tree, protected by a fence of thorns. Inside the fence, under the shade of the tree, there were put up 26 pieces of wood with round heads; these things represented the worshippers, standing praying to their god night and day, and are regarded as intercessors for those who had put them there. I have never seen anything like this anywhere else in this country. Let us hear some of their proverbs, to get an idea as to how far their thoughts and imagination go as regards the God of heaven.

"All men are the children of God, but the white men are his first-born children." "The little children play, but their mother (God) watches them.” "Do not try to find a hiding-place, for God sees thee." "The chicken drinks water, raising its head to God." "Do not turn thy feet against God, like the flying-fox; He (God) hates this, as He has made thee" (for something better).

There is also some idea of immortality found among these people. The Bara, in cases of illness, apply to a kind of astrologer in order to know whether the illness will be fatal or not. These astrologers look at the stars, and if one of them, in their opinion, draws nearer, it is to fetch the soul of the sick person, and death is inevitable. And they have a proverb which says, "The body belongs to earth, the soul to heaven." Among the tribes of the south-east coast it is a custom that all who have been present at a funeral, I after the ceremonies are over, throw sticks at the tomb to prevent the spirit of the dead from wandering about.

It was with sadness I saw these tribes in their misery. In different ways they all reminded me of the call, "Come over and help us." I shall never forget a man of the Bara tribe whom I met on this journey. He told me of his child, which had been born on an evil day, and how he succeeded in saving it. At last he cried, "Do come and live amongst us, and I will be the first one who comes to you to learn the Word of God."

*The flying-fox often hangs in the trees by its feet.

One day we came to a village to the east of the Onilahy, where an intant had just been buried alive in an ant-hill. In the evening the mother was so heart-sick with sorrow that she did not know what to do. One of my men, witnessing her sorrow, said to her that she ought to go and rescue her baby, as it was a gift from the living God. The poor mother listened to these words and went to the grave with a trembling heart, fearing that the baby might already have expired, and yet hoping to find it still alive. She dug it out of the anthill and found it still living. But when she reached the village, her husband got very angry and said, "You are never to cross my threshold with this child; otherwise you may do with it just as you like.” Here again misery called, "Come over and help us."

One evening I sat talking with some men from the south-east coast about the many murders of innocent infants committed through idol-worship. One of the number, a handsome intelligent man, said, "My name is Mànambìntana ('Having (good) fate'), for when I was born, the sorcerer said it was on an evil day, and I had an evil fate; and I barely escaped being buried alive, for the grave was already made. But just when they were going to bury me, a man and his wife came and wanted to adopt me as their child. They were rich but childless people, and their request was complied with. Thus it was seen that I had a good fate, in spite of the sorcerer's word. But my real, parents have despised me, and I always have been, and still am, a stranger to them." This man and his companions expressed the wish that we might soon come and teach them, and it was again as a call from many lips, "Come over and help us."

Translated from the Norwegian of J. NIELSEN-LUND,

By JOHANNA BORCHGREVINK.

VII.

V1

SIKIDY AND VINTANA:

HALF-HOURS WITH MALAGASY DIVINERS. (NO. III.)

(Concluded from ANNUAL No. XI.)

VINTANA AND SAN-ANDRO.

VINTANA. What is vintana? If a man was ill, people often said, "Perhaps the vintana of his son is too strong for him, or he has become subject to some misfortune," so they said, "Vintany izàny angàha” ("Perhaps that is his vintana"); or perhaps he was perpetually unsuccessful, and they said, "Olona ràtsy vintana izany" ("This man must have a bad vintana"). Sometimes even immorality (e.g., an unmarried woman becoming pregnant) was excused by the remark, "Vintany hiány angaha izany" ("Perhaps that is her vintana" [destiny]), meaning that there was no helping it.

Now what did all this mean? It is rather difficult to give a clear and conclusive answer to this question. Vintana was like the fatum of the Greeks and Romans, an invisible power that made itself felt always and everywhere. If I were to venture to form a theory of it (or, rather, to reproduce the theory of the natives, by stating explicitly what I think is the view they hold implicitly, it would be to the following effect::

I.

1. Earth is not governed by itself, but by heaven. Not only is the succession of night and day settled by the most glorious heavenly bodies, the sun and the moon, but the fitness or unfitness of times and seasons for various work to be done, as well as the destiny of man himself, depends upon the heavenly bodies.

2. As far as mankind is concerned, the stars forming the constellations of the Zodiac are all-important. Their influence is manifested in two respects they decide the destiny of a man; and it depends upon them whether a certain time is fit or unfit for certain kinds of business.

The destiny of a man (his vintana) depends on what day he was born (partly also on what time of the day), or, rather, on what constellation of the Zodiac governed the day of his birth. It was therefore incumbent upon the mpamintana (those who dealt with the vintana), or the mpanandro (day-makers or -declarers), who were also mpisikidy, to enquire about the day or time of the day of a child's birth in order to make out its vintana, i.e. under what constellation it had been born, and what influence this would have on its destiny.

4. As the names of the constellations of the Zodiac also became the names of the months and of the days of each month (at least here in the interior), it is not clear what influence was attributed to the moon; but that it was not considered to be without some influence appears from the following facts:-(a) Although the days of the month had seemingly borrowed their names from the constellations of the Zodiac, they really represented the 28 moon-stations (Manazil-ul-kamari), as I have pointed out elsewhere (ANNUAL III., p. 131). In the interior of Madagascar these names have been superseded by a somewhat simplified nomenclature; but on the south-east coast the true names of the moon-stations were, in Flacourt's time, still the names of the days.* (b) The Malagasy year was a lunar year (354 days). (c) Both the sun and the moon take their place among the planets as governors of the days of the week (cf. 5, below).

These names I have given in the article quoted above. In the interior the names of the days in a month were arranged in the following way: (a) The houses are generally built with their length running due north and south. (b) Four of the month-names were considered as attached to the corners, and two to each side, of the house, beginning with Alàhamàdy (northeastern corner), and ending with Alohotsy (the last one on the northern side). (c) In naming the days they made use of the month-names in the same order; but as there are more than 12 days in a month, they borrowed 3 day-names from each of the 4 month-names that fell on the corners, and 2 from each of the 8 that fell on the sides, of the house. This would give 28 days. But as a lunar month has from 29 to 30 days, they added 2 days to each of the 4 corner-months, and one to cach of the 8 side-months, and 2 days at the end of the year, so as to make it 354 days (a lunar year). For particulars, see Ellis's Hist. of Madr., vol. i. p. 445-457, where a pretty full and tolerably correct description is given, therefore I do not enter more fully into this here. But I may remark that when he invariably calls the 2 days that get their names from the same month severally váva and vódy (its mouth and its end), and calls the 3 vava, vònto, fára (its mouth, its increase, and its end), this does not agree with the information I have got from my native friends. For Aláhasàty, Asombòla, Alakaràbo, Alakaosy, Adalo, Alohotsy, my helper also speaks simply of vava and vody; but for the remaining 6 months he has partially!

5. Besides the division of the year into months in the manner briefly pointed out in the note below, the Malagasy have from time immemorial known a hebdomadal unit, the week, the days of which have Arabic names. These days were thought to be under the special influence of "the seven planets" (i.e. what were by the ancients so called, viz. the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn), which will be shown more fully under San-andro.

These are, I believe, the chief features in the astrological part of the Malagasy vintana doctrine, as known at present.

It is easy to see that the whole life of a Malagasy would be under the influence of these heavenly bodies, and consequently at the mercy of those who had the reputation of understanding these often very intricate affairs. People are generally under the spell of those who know their destiny beforehand (while they do not know it themselves), who have the power of remedying the evils of it, and are able to tell them both what they ought to do, and when (on what days and hours) they ought to do it. When we remember what great influence astrologers had over emperors, kings and princes during the Middle Ages and even far into the 17th century (see, for instance, the history of a man like Wallenstein), we can easily understand what power they must have had in a country like this.

I do not intend to enter at all minutely into the doctrine of lucky and unlucky days, a subject with regard to which I will restrict myself to a few general observations.

1. Although the different months were thought to have their peculiar character (being governed, as was supposed, by different constellations), their special fáditra and sòrona, etc., it does not appear that one month was considered more unlucky than another. The difference in this res-. pect was a difference between the different days in the month.

2. The character of the days evidently did not depend so much on from what month-name it took its name, as on what moon-station it represented. Therefore we often find two successive days with the same general name, of which one was considered good, the other bad. E.g. the 1st and 2nd of Asorotany were good, and were, and are still, favourite days for famadihana (the ceremony of removing corpses from an old. family grave to a new one); but the 3rd one was considered bad.

3. Some days were considered absolutely bad, e.g. the 3rd of Asòro-· tany, the 2nd of Asombòla, the 2nd of Alakaosy, and the 1st of Adijàdy; others were absolutely good, e.g. the 3 days called Alàhamady and the 2nd of Alakarabo; others again were considered indifferent (tsy tsara, tsy ratsy), e.g. the 1st and 2nd of Alahasȧty.

or wholly special names for the 2, or 3 days which borrow their names from each of them, viz.-I. The 2nd of Alahamady he calls Akondron' Alahamady (the 'banana' of A.). 2. The 1st of Adaoro he calls Tandrok' Adaoro (the 'horn' of A.). 3. The 1st and 2nd of Adízaoza he calls Ràvina ('leaf') and Vohitr' Adizaoza ('town' of A.). 4. The 2nd of Asòrotàny he calls Akokon' Asorotany, and the 3rd of the same, Akifik' Asorotany. 5. The 1st of Adimizàna he calls Vavan' Alakafora (the corresponding moon-station is Al-gafru); the 2nd of Adimizana, Ampaningan' Adimizana (perhaps a corruption of Az-zubani, the corresponding moon-station); and the 3rd of the same, Fara-adikididy (the corresponding moon-station is Al-iklilu). 6. The 1st of Adijady he calls Ranomàson' Adijady (the 'tears' of Adijady); the 3rd of Adijady he calls Apanaparan' Adijady. It will be seen that some of these names are corruptions of the Arabic names of the moon-stations; others (e.g. akoka, akifika) are at any rate not Malagasy words.