Man, Past and Present by Agustus Henry Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin, Alfred Court Haddon (free reads .TXT) 📕

Dravidian blood (Klings and Tamuls) from southern India. The charge of cruelty and treachery brought against them by the Dutch may be received with some reserve, such terms as "patriot" and "rebel" being interchangeable according to the standpoints from which they are considered. In any case no one denies them the virtues of valour and love of freedom, with which are associated industrious habits and a remarkable aptitude for such handicrafts as metal work, jewellery, weaving, and ship-building. The Achinese do not appear to be very strict Muhammadans; polygamy is little practised, their women are free to go abroad unveiled, nor are they condemned to the seclusion of the harem, and a pleasing survival from Buddhist times is the Kanduri, a solemn feast, in which the poor are permitted to share. Another reminiscence of Hindu philosophy may perhaps have been an outburst of religious fervour, which took the form of a pantheistic creed, and was so zealously preached, that it had to be stamped out with fire and sword by the dominant Moslem monotheists[536].

Since the French occupation of Madagascar, the Malagasy problem has naturally been revived. But it may be regretted that so much time and talent have been spent on a somewhat thrashed-out question by a number of writers, who did not first take the trouble to read up the literature of the subject.

By what race Madagascar was first peopled it is no longer possible to say. The local reports or traditions of primitive peoples, either extinct or still surviving in the interior, belong rather to the sphere of Malagasy folklore than to that of ethnological research. In these reports mention is frequently made of the Kimos, said to be now or formerly living in the Bara country, and of the Vazimbas, who are by some supposed to have been Gallas (Ba-Simba)--though they had no knowledge of iron--whose graves are supposed to be certain monolithic monuments which take the form of menhirs disposed in circles, and are believed by the present inhabitants of the land to be still haunted by evil spirits, that is, the ghosts of the long extinct Vazimbas.

Much of the confusion prevalent regarding the present ethnical relations may be avoided if certain points (ably summarised by T. A. Joyce[537]) are borne in mind. The greater part of the population is negroid; the language spoken over the whole of the island and many institutions and customs are Malayo-Polynesian. A small section (Antimerina commonly called Hovas)--forming the dominant people in the nineteenth century--is of fairly pure Malay (or Javanese) blood, but is composed of sixteenth-century immigrants, whereas the language belongs to a very early branch of the Malayo-Polynesian (Austronesian) family. It would be natural to suppose that the negroid element was African[538], for in later times large numbers of Africans have been brought over by Arabs and other slavers; but there are several objections to this view. In the first place, the natives of the neighbouring coast are not seamen, and the voyage to Madagascar offers peculiar difficulties owing to the strong currents. In the second place, it seems impossible that the first inhabitants, supposing them to be African, should have abandoned their own language in favour of one introduced by a small minority of immigrants; the few Bantu words found in Madagascar may well have been adopted from the slaves. In the third place, the culture exhibits no distinctively African features, but is far more akin to that of south-east Asia. There is much to be said, therefore, for the view that the earliest and negroid inhabitants of Madagascar were Oceanic negroids, who have always been known as expert seamen.

Since the coming of the negroid population, which probably arrived in very early days, various small bands of immigrants or castaways have landed on the shores of Madagascar and imposed themselves as reigning dynasties on the surrounding villages, each thus forming the nucleus of what now appears as a tribe. Among these were immigrants from Arabia, and J. T. Last, who identifies Madagascar with the island of Menuthias described by Arrian in the third century A.D.[539], suggests the "possibility that Madagascar may have been reached by Arabs before the Christian era." This "possibility" is converted almost into a certainty by the analysis of the Arabo-Malagasy terms made by Dahle, who clearly shows that such terms "are comparatively very few," and also "very ancient," in fact that, as already suggested by Fleischer of Leipzig, many, perhaps the majority of them, "may be traced back to Himyaritic influence[540]," that is, not merely to pre-Muhammadan, but to pre-Christian times, just like the Sanskritic elements in the Oceanic tongues.

The evidence that Malagasy is itself one of these Oceanic tongues, and not an offshoot of the comparatively recent standard Malay is overwhelming, and need not here detain us[541]. The diffusion of this Austronesian language over the whole island--even amongst distinctly Negroid Bantu populations, such as the Betsileos and Tanalas--to the absolute exclusion of all other forms of speech, is an extraordinary linguistic phenomenon more easily proved than explained. There are, of course, provincialisms and even what may be called local dialects, such as that of the Antankarana people at the northern extremity of the island who, although commonly included in the large division of the western Sakalavas, really form a separate ethnical group, speaking a somewhat marked variety of Malagasy. But even this differs much less from the normal form than might be supposed by comparing, for instance, such a term as maso-mahamay, sun, with the Hova maso-andro, where maso in both means "eye," mahamay in both = "burning," and androin both = "day." Thus the only difference is that one calls the sun "burning eye," while the Hovas call it the "day's eye," as do so many peoples in Malaysia[542].

So also the fish-eating Anorohoro people, a branch of the Sihanakasin the Alaotra valley, are said to have "quite a different dialect from them[543]." But the statement need not be taken too seriously, because these rustic fisherfolk, who may be called the Gothamites of Madagascar, are supposed, by their scornful neighbours, to do everything "contrariwise." Of them it is told that once when cooking eggs they boiled them for hours to make them soft, and then finding they got harder and harder threw them away as unfit for food. Others having only one slave, who could not paddle the canoe properly, cut him in two, putting one half at the prow, the other at the stern, and were surprised at the result. It was not to be expected that such simpletons should speak Malagasy properly, which nevertheless is spoken with surprising uniformity by all the Malayan and Negro or Negroid peoples alike.

In Madagascar, however, the fusion of the two races is far less complete than is commonly supposed. Various shades of transition between the two extremes are no doubt presented by the Sakalavas of the west, and the Betsimisarakas, Sitanakas, and others of the east coast. But, strange to say, on the central tableland the two seem to stand almost completely apart, so that here the politically dominant Hovas still present all the essential characteristics of the Oceanic Mongol, while their southern neighbours, the Betsileos, as well as the Tanalas and Ibaras, are described as "African pure and simple, allied to the south-eastern tribes of that continent[544]."

Specially remarkable is the account given by a careful observer, G. A. Shaw, of the Betsileos, whose "average height is not less than six feet for the men, and a few inches less for the women. They are large-boned and muscular, and their colour is several degrees darker than that of the Hovas, approaching very close to a black. The forehead is low and broad, the nose flatter, and the lips thicker than those of their conquerors, whilst their hair is invariably crisp and woolly. No pure Betsileo is to be met with having the smooth long hair of the Hovas. In this, as in other points, there is a very clear departure from the Malayan type, and a close approximation to the Negro races of the adjacent continent[545]."

Now compare these brawny negroid giants with the wiry undersized Malayan Hovas. As described by A. Vouchereau[546], their type closely resembles that of the Javanese--short stature, yellowish or light leather complexion, long, black, smooth and rather coarse hair, round head (85.25), flat and straight forehead, flat face, prominent cheek-bones, small straight nose, tolerably wide nostrils, small black and slightly oblique eyes, rather thick lips, slim lithesome figure, small extremities, dull restless expression, cranial capacity 1516 c.c., superior to both Negro and Sakalava[547].

Except in respect of this high cranial capacity, the measurements of three Malagasy skulls in the Cambridge University Anatomical Museum, studied by W. L. H. Duckworth[548], correspond fairly well with these descriptions. Thus the cephalic index of the reputed Betsimisaraka (Negroid) and that of the Betsileo (Negro) are respectively 71 and 72.4, while that of the Hova is 82.1; the first two, therefore, are long-headed, the third round-headed, as we should expect. But the cubic capacity of the Hova (presumably Mongoloid) is only 1315 as compared with 1450 and 1480 of two others, presumably African Negroes. Duckworth discusses the question whether the black element in Madagascar is of African or Oceanic (Melanesian-Papuan) origin, about which much diversity of opinion still prevails, and on the evidence of the few cranial specimens available he decides in favour of the African.

Despite the low cubic capacity of Duckworth's Hova, the mental powers of these, and indeed of the Malagasy generally, are far from despicable. Before the French occupation the London Missionary Society had succeeded in disseminating Christian principles and even some degree of culture among considerable numbers both in the Hova capital and surrounding districts. The local press had been kept going by native compositors who had issued quite an extensive literature both in Malagasy and English. Agricultural and industrial methods had been improved, some engineering works attempted, and the Hova craftsmen had learnt to build but not to complete houses in the European style, because, although they could master European processes, they could not, Christians though they were, get the better of the old superstitions, one of which is that the owner of a house always dies within a year of its completion. Longevity is therefore ensured by not completing it, with the curious result that the whole city looks unfinished or dilapidated. In the house where Mrs Colvile stayed, "one window was framed and glazed, the other nailed up with rough boards; part of the stair-banister had no top-rail; outside only a portion of the roof had been tiled; and so on throughout[549]."

The culture has been thus summarised by T. A. Joyce[550]. Clothing is entirely vegetable, and the Malay sarong is found throughout the east; bark-cloth in the south-east and west. Hairdressing varies considerably, and among the Bara and Sakalava is often elaborate. Silver ornaments are found amongst the Antimerina and some other eastern tribes, made chiefly from European coins dating from the sixteenth century. Circumcision is universal. In the east the tribes are chiefly agricultural; in the north, west and south, pastoral. Fishing is important among those tribes situated on coast, lake or river. Houses are all rectangular and pile-dwellings are found locally. Rice is the staple crop and the cattle are of the humped variety. The Antimerina excel the rest in all crafts. Weaving, basket-work (woven variety) and iron-working are all good; the use of iron is said to have been unknown to the Bara and Vazimba until comparatively recent times. Pottery is poor. Carvings in the round (men and animals) are found amongst the Sakalava and Bara, in relief (arabesques, etc.) among the Betsileo and others. Before the introduction of firearms, the spear was the universal weapon; bows are rare and possibly of late introduction; slings and the blowgun are also found. Shields are circular, made of wood covered with hide. The early system of government was patriarchal, and villages were independent; the later immigrants introduced a system of feudal monarchy with themselves as a ruling caste.