Central Highlands of Madagascar
Richard Samuel does not fit the stereotype of the African traditional healer. By that, I mean a wizened old man in a loin cloth with straggly hair, squatting in a mud hut, brewing up a noxious potion from unidentified plants and animal bones, and muttering incomprehensible spells. Or a younger wild-eyed man with excessive body paint, dressed in animal skins and feathers, leaping around the village to exorcise evil spirits—in other words, an apocalyptic vision of what Morris dancing might look like if it also involved the ritual sacrifice of live chickens.
No loin cloth or animal skins for Richard. Because it’s the weekend, he is neatly dressed in jeans, a new white T-shirt (promoting the activities of an NGO) and hat. During the week, it’s a jacket, pants and shirt; because he’s an academic, a tie is not required. A lecturer in sociology at the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar’s largest and most prestigious institution, he has a background in economics and development studies. He has worked in social policy and programming for the ministries of Economy and Population, and as a regional administrator. The shelves of his university office contain the usual assortment of books and papers. No chicken bones or jars of dried plants in sight. Surely, if he is healing anything, it’s the gaping wound in the literature review or the fractured logic of the research question.
“I have the power to heal burns on the body,” he told me as he edged his slightly battered Nissan extended cab pickup through the chaotic traffic of Antananarivo, weaving around hand carts hauling furniture, metal fencing and sacks of charcoal, the cream-colored swarm of Citroen 2CV and Renault 4L taxis and the huge potholes. “I am from the district of Arivonimamo and a descendant of a former king (roi). I have inherited, along with all the members of my extended family, the power to cure burns.”
The word “king” needs to be taken with a pinch of salt (or maybe a traditional remedy). In the highlands of Madagascar, where the Merina (descendants of the original settlers from what today is Indonesia) are the dominant ethnic group, local lords ruled the villages and rice fields from fortified hilltop positions. My colleague, the Madagascar scholar Luke Freeman, more accurately describes them as kinglets; there’s no good French translation so I guess they are all kings.
However we define “roi,” Richard’s ancestors were local nobility, possessing not only political and military power and material wealth, measured by the size of their domain and the number of zebu (humped cattle) in the herd, but also by their moral authority and healing power. French colonization took away the ability of kinglets to raise armed bands of retainers. Land disputes were now settled in court or by traditional social contracts called dina, not with spears and muskets. For the descendants of noble families, healing powers remain—along with the respect due to lineage—their main claim to moral authority.
It is, as Richard explained, a matter of “noblesse oblige.” No traditional healer, full or part-time, hangs out a shingle like modern doctors and dentists do in Madagascar towns. People in the community simply know which family has the power to cure this or that ailment. Sometimes money is exchanged, but Richard says it’s more common to receive a gift—a bag of rice or cooking oil. For the poorest, traditional healers offer a sliding scale and instalment payments, Medicaid or the National Health Service without bureaucracy or means tests. Richard says that when he is called on to rub burns, he does not expect payment. It is a gift from the ancestors, and he must use it to benefit those less fortunate in life than himself.
Richard represents in many ways the conflict, both also the conflux, of the traditional and the modern in Madagascar. He lives in Antananarivo and works at the university, yet his ties to his home, Arivonimamo, a market town in an agricultural area, remain unbreakable; he returns as often as he can. He adopts social science methods in his teaching and research, yet believes in the power and obligations of traditional healing. He works with development agencies on strategies for economic and social development yet he knows when the rice is ready to harvest, the corn to pick.
We drove west from Tana along Route Nationale (RN) 1. The two-lane highway winds lazily through the highlands on its way to the savannah of the coastal plain; the truck traffic is relatively light, and most is between the agricultural market towns and Antananarivo, not long distance. This is also weekend getaway country; at weekends, city residents escape the noise and bustle to Lake Itasy where they can walk on the beach and eat at fish restaurants.
Richard and brother Lala outside Richard and Tina’s retirement home near Arivonimamo
An hour and about 30 miles from Antananarivo, we pulled off the road into the red dirt driveway of the house Richard and his wife Tina are having built as their retirement home. Like residential construction projects anywhere in the world, this one has been going on longer than Richard and Tina expected, but they seemed stoical about the delays. Richard, his brother Lala and I walked outside to the family cemetery—half a dozen above-ground large stone or concrete tombs. Two zebu wandered among the tombs, grazing contentedly on the long grass. I thought to myself that when Richard or Tina dies, they won’t have too far to go. I noticed one freshly dug grave. “A cousin,” Richard told me. “We will move him into the tomb at the proper time. You can’t just open up a tomb.”
Richard and Lala in family cemetery
The proper time is the famadihana, literally the “turning of the bones,” when extended families gather to open the tombs and exhume the corpses. For many Malagasy, death is the passage between life on earth and life beyond which is permanent. The famidihana is the opportunity to communicate with the ancestors, to seek their blessing for health and wealth. The corpses are placed on straw mats and lifted up by the crowd; the band cranks up the beat (maybe a Malagasy reggae number), and the corpses are danced around the graveyard. Then they are re-wrapped in white silk lamba, and held by family members who pray silently. The corpses are lifted up and danced around once more before being reinterred and the tomb sealed with mud.
The famidhana is a joyous occasion, but an expensive one. A huge feast is prepared; this is one of the few occasions when a zebu is killed for meat. There are the costs of the silk lambas, the fee for the band, the bottles of homemade rum. Family members are expected to contribute what they can, handing over an envelope of cash to the host. But the event can still cost $1,500-$2,000, more than many families earn in a year.
There is no set interval between the famadihana, although many say that once in seven years is common. “It depends on a family decision, and financial means,” said Richard. Lala was suggesting it was time, and maybe they could do it in September. “We need to consult everyone in the family,” said Richard. By then, he hoped, the house would be finished so everyone could stay overnight.
