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Hébert (1965), are discussed below. In addition to describing the complex calculation and diagnostic processes of Malagasy divination, we will comment on the origins and diffusion of the Antemoro system, focusing on how it developed in relation to the Malagasy world view. |
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After independence, the Western-educated elite who took over from the French in the 1960s established legal procedures to deal with "witchcraft practices" in the country.
3 To enforce the antisorcery laws, the police confiscated bead necklaces, charms, and even books of divination written in the Arabico-Malagasy script.4 These actions demonstrate a confusion on the part of the officials between divination and sorcery. Most Malagasy make a clear-cut distinction between the mpamosavy, the deviant sorcerer, and the ombiasy, the benevolent medicine man who practices divination in order to identify the causes of disease and evil and to cure them. |
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Ombiasy is the general term for a diviner,5 but according to his ways of investigation he is either an mpanandro or an mpisikidy. The mpanandro relies on astrology to define favorable and unfavorable days; he recommends the proper procedures to be followed so that his clients may achieve the results desired. Mpanandro is best translated as "chooser of the day," but the translation of the term used in the southeast, mpamintanana, more dramatically reveals the true significance of this individual: "destiny maker."6 The mpisikidy has a quite different function: he seeks the cause of disorders and evils which happen in the lives of his clients by using a form of geomancy. (Sometimes an ombiasy, with the aid of sacred texts, performs both roles, as will be discussed below.) The mpisikidy employs a divination system, termed sikidy (west, sikily), which has parallels throughout Africa (Trautmann 1939) and is thought to have come from Arabia (Ferrand and Vérin 1985:947).7 In Madagascar this system underwent a significant cultural reinterpretation and now continues to serve the people as a crucial channel of communication with the ancestors. |
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The ancestors' role is all-important. In the traditional religion of the Malagasy, which has no supreme god who can enforce sanctions against a forbidden action, this duty is performed by the ever-present ancestors, who linger around the individual. The Arabico-Malagasy manuscripts of the Antemoro refer to two types of ancestors. The better known ones are linked to living beings by well-documented genealogies, but there are also those whose names are unknown who, it is said, sometimes assume the appearance of genies or spirits.8 Communication between a person and his ancestors occurs constantly, whether or not a diviner is present. The diviner, when called upon, becomes a witness who interprets the signs, which may be direct expressions of the individual's vintana ("destiny") or may appear through the sikidy configurations. |
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In the cases of collective misfortune or individual disease, the mpisikidy tries to find out the cause. "Mechanical" causes in the Western sense do not exist for most Malagasy. Misfortunes are attributed to the ancestors' dissatisfaction with the behavior of their descendants who, deliberately or not, have transgressed against customary rules and commited tsiny (southwest, havoa; southeast, tahina), a "sin" that entails a mythical sanction. Channels of communication between the |
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