The Merina of Madagascar

Whilst I was studying at All Nations Christian College in Hertfordshire, Missiological Anthropology was a big part of the course curriculum. Seeing as we were confident that we would be going to Madagascar, it gave me the opportunity to research and produce a brief ethnography of the key people group that we would be engaging with - the Merina. Now that we have been here in Antananarivo for over a year, I thought it would be good to post parts of my assignment on the Merina, and then in the next blog I'll offer some comment to whether my perceptions have changed or deepened, and how this research helped in our early ministry.

Introduction

The Merina (also known as the Imerina) of the central Madagascan highlands are the largest classified people group in Madagascar, numbering approximately three million.[1] Merina means ‘elevated people’[2], originating both from their mountain home and their historic political status... In the 19th century, Madagascar was colonised by the French and they ‘showed preference for Merina who held a position of privilege in the colonial administration’.[3] This has led to animosity with the other people groups of Madagascar.

History continued to affect the Merina identity. During French colonialism, the Merina acquired a large ‘number of slaves taken from neighbouring people’,[4] exacerbating the resentment towards them from the other Madagascan people groups...This has divided the Merina into two key demographics. The fotsy (Malagasy for ‘white’) group largely has an Asian Malagasy physiognomy and place great importance in their historical ancestry as freemen [5]... The second group is the mainty (Malagasy for ‘black’), with a predominantly African physiognomy.[6] 

Traditional Cultural Elements

Language

All Malagasy speak dialects of a common language, expressed predominantly in the passive voice. Although direct talk is utilised by the Merina in everyday life, riddles and proverbs are a key method of communication... However, riddles, proverbs and poems are best expressed by the Merina through kabary – ‘an extremely rich form of political communication’.[7] This form of interaction appears in many scenarios, ranging from formal rituals to the political arena. This is because the Merina are opposed to speaking directly in a formal gathering, preferring to adopt a ‘”curvy”, or mioloka’[8] form of speech which avoids the central message.

Taboos

The rules and regulations of Merina culture, like the wider Malagasy population, is comprised of taboos, or fady, where ‘negation is most clearly articulated’.[9] These prohibitions are so numerous and varied that the ‘taboos are omnipresent’[10] in Merina society. Therefore, rather than relying on what is proper to do, it is better to understand what is fady. 

Kinship

The Merina operate a bilateral descent with the ‘complete equivalence of terms on father's and mother's side in all generations’.[11] However, due to the political origin of this ‘corporate identity named “Merina”’,[12] extrapolating a viable group composition is challenging.... This flexible affiliation means that for the sake of the choicest property and burial rights in the grand highland tombs, the ‘white’ Merina can flexibly recognise, claim or deny kinship.[13] In addition, this protection of kin property is supported by an endogamous marriage system among the fotsy, preferably between children of ‘cross-cousins’... The ‘black’ Merina, descended from slavery, are less restricted with their kinship ideology. They did not own any property and therefore did not concern themselves with establishing a descent structure.

Fotsy Marriage Rituals

The fotsy Merina place great importance on equality between kin members, and this is evidenced within their marriage rituals... The groom must pay the vodyondry -  a sum of money to the bride’s father. The groom’s father is not present at the ceremony, because it is an embarrassment to him to see his son play a son to another father.[14] Instead, a professional kabary speaker will present himself to the bride’s family, only to be roundly insulted by them.[15]

Death Rituals

The ancestry of fotsy Merina, is typified by their lavish family tombs in the Madagascan highlands. The tomb is a ‘conceptually fixed point in an apparently fluid social organisation’[16] which the Merina identify as home...For example, burials usually take place on Fridays as ‘Friday mixes neither with good nor with bad’,[17] and every three to five years the famadihana will take place. This ritual involves removing ancestral bodies from family tombs and rewrapping them in new cloth.[18]

Responses and Issues relating to Contemporary Social Change

Erosion of social hierarchy

A key social change has been in the Merina’s perception of descent...nowadays fotsy rarely live in a village of their ancestral ties. Therefore their rituals are eroding: the ‘rules should still be observed but are in fact frequently broken’.[19] ...now, the mainty have ‘built new permanent tombs in the new area and not in the old where their inferior status is remembered’.[20] This is an attempt to establish the ‘black’ mainty Merina with a corporate identity where they can now exercise a descent structure.  

Economic Crisis

...outbreaks of infectious diseases and malnutrition caused by ‘food production [rising] only 38%’[21] from 1960 to 2000 compared to a doubling in population. Madagascar has not recovered from this decline.

The first social issue the Merina have experienced from the increase in deprivation is the dramatic increases in child begging. Children ‘were once valued as an asset’[22] in Merina families, but are now either coerced to beg by their parents, or beg out of necessity due to family neglect. The second social issue surrounds the growth of prostitution across all strata of the Merina. Mainty prostitution has arisen in the deprived urban areas of the highlands as a response to extreme poverty; they want to find ‘in their sexual partners a source of stable financial and emotional support and care’.[23] Prostitution also exists among the ‘white’, elite Merina, many of whom are married and hide their sex work from their husbands, because they feel pressure to ‘provide a middle-class lifestyle for their families’.[24]

Political Reform

Due to the Merina’s dominance in Madagascar’s history, ‘the strongest political divide’[25] exists between the Merina and the other ethnic groups... In 2002, Marc Ravalomana, a Hova Merina, responded to this social change by attacking the formalised Malagasy speech by reframing ‘kabary as "corrupt"’.[26] He claimed that democracy collided with kabary politika because political truth is shielded in proverb and riddle.[27] He also styled his political campaign messages in the active voice, which is very discordant with a language that favours the passive voice in an attempt ‘to change the moral and rhetorical landscape’.[28] This gained huge popularity among the Malagasy.

Conclusion

All Merina, whether fotsy or mainty, are interested in creating or preserving ‘the romance of the past Merina kingdom… when the Merina were politically dominant and independent’.[29] In addition, the social changes to the Merina have relaxed their hierarchical order and traditions. Therefore, it is incumbent on the modern missionary to preach indiscriminately the unending glory of God’s kingdom and how all Merina, fotsy or mainty, are welcome to enter. However, the subsequent effects of imperialism have led the Merina to cast a dim view on foreign (vazaha) missionaries who, in the past, contributed to their downfall. ‘For the Merina, ‘Europeans are typical heart-thieves’, [30] known as mpakafo. For the modern missionary in Madagascar, the chief priority is to change this perception. Rather than enforcing a Western ideologue onto the Merina, proclaiming the gospel of Christ utilising their indigenous context will be more effective. God’s word will come alive to the Merina if it is communicated using their beloved kabary, proverb and narrative history. Finally, economic poverty has caused a powerlessness in the Merina, a ‘neurosis arising from deprivation, which turns them off from improving their lot’.[31] Establishing community development projects will help to regenerate the urban areas of Imerina, so that the practices of child begging and prostitution will diminish. This will restore and promote the identity of women and children in Merina society, demonstrating that the love of God brings holistic transformation.

[1] Larson, Pier. M. “Desperately Seeking 'the Merina' (Central Madagascar): Reading Ethnonyms and Their Semantic Fields in African Identity Histories.” Journal of Southern African Studies, 22, no. 4 (1996), 544.

[2] Graeber, David. “Painful Memories.” Journal of Religion in Africa, 27, no. 4, (1997), 375.

[3] Marcus, Richard. R., and Paul Razafindrakoto. “Participation and the Poverty of Electoral Democracy in Madagascar.” Africa Spectrum, 38, no. 1 (2003), 34.

[4] Bloch, Maurice. “The Implications of Marriage Rules and Descent: Categories for Merina Social Structures.” American Anthropologist, 73, no. 1 (1971), 165.

[5] Bloch, Maurice. “Tombs and Conservatism Among the Merina of Madagascar.” Man, 3, no. 1 (1968), 94.

[6] Bloch 1968, 94.

[7] Jackson, Jennifer. L. “To Tell It Directly or Not: Coding Transparency and Corruption in Malagasy Political Oratory.” Language in Society, 38, no. 1 (2009), 50.

[8] Jackson 2009, 51.

[9] Lambek, Michael. “Taboo as Cultural Practice Among Malagasy Speakers.” Man, 27, no. 2 (1992), 246.

[10] Ruud, Jørgen. Taboo. Norway: Oslo University Press, 1960, 1.

[11] Southall, Aidan. “Ideology and Group Composition in Madagascar.” American Anthropologist, 73, no. 1 (1971), 158.

[12] Larson 1996, 544.

[13] Moore, M. P. “The Ideological Function of Kinship: The Sinhalese and the Merina.” Man, 16, no. 4 (1981), 582.

[14] Bloch, Maurice. “Marriage Amongst Equals: An Analysis of the Marriage Ceremony of the Merina of Madagascar.” Man, 13, no. 1 (1978), 25.

[15] Bloch 1978, 28.

[16] Bloch 1968, 94.

[17] Ruud 1960, 34.

[18] Larson, Pier. M. “Multiple Narratives, Gendered Voices: Remembering the Past in Highland Central Madagascar.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 28, no. 2 (1995), 313.

[19] Bloch 1968, 96.

[20] Bloch 1968, 102.

[21] Waltisperger, Dominique, France Meslé, and Jonathan Mandelbaum. “Economic Crisis and Mortality: The Case of Antananarivo, 1976-2000.” Population, 60, no. 3 (2005), 201.

[22] Ballet, Jérôme., Augendra Bhukuth, Felana Rakotonirinjanahary, Miantra Rakotonirinjanahary, Emily Divinagracia and Catriona Dutreuilh. “Family Rationales behind Child Begging in Antananarivo.” Population, 65, no. 4 (2010), 706.

[23] Stoebenau, Kirsten. “Use as Directed (By the Global Aids Metropole): The ‘Prostitute’ and ‘Sex Worker’ Identities in Antananarivo, Madagascar.” International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, 2, no. 1, (2009), 110.

[24] Stoebenau 2009, 112.

[25] Marcus and Razafindrakoto, 2003, 34.

[26] Jackson 2009, 48.

[27] Jackson 2009, 47

[28] Jackson 2009, 48

[29] Bloch 1968, 102.

[30] Gintzburger, Alphonse. “Accommodation to Poverty: The Case of the Malagasy Peasant Communities (Accommodation à la pauvreté: le cas des communautés paysannes malgaches).” Cahiers d'Études Africaines, 23, no. 92 (1983), 420.

[31] Gintzburger 1983, 432.