Vezo People - Culture

Culture

The Ancestors

The Hazomanga is an elder in a family or clan who acts as the intermediary between the ancestors and his family member. His responsibilities include overseeing ceremonies and consulting the ancestors for advice when needed. The most senior village Hazomanga in Andavadoaka is also the village historian and is a member of one of the three founding clans of Andavadoaka. He attends village events when the community considers them to require the permission or consideration of the ancestors. The Hazomanga douses the ground in rum during each consultation with the ancestors. If an occasion is particularly important, local cattle, zebu, may be sacrificed. The Vezo have official cultural ceremonies called Fomba. These include Bilo, Tromba, Savatse, Takasy and Soro. All these ceremonies, except Takasy, are practiced (with some variations) by the neighbouring inland Masikoro people.

Bilo

Bilo means several things. It is an evil spirit that possesses an individual and can kill them. When a Bilo possesses a person, the possessed is called “Bilo”. An individual realises that he or she is possessed due to illness or nightmares, and to exorcise the spirit they must perform a ceremony called Manjotso bilo, which can be performed for several Bilo at the same time. To conduct the ceremony, the Bilo invites his fellow villagers and family members, who may come from afar. During the ceremony, the Bilo requests benediction and improved health from their ancestors, and the rest of the participants dance and sing. The ceremony can last up to five days, and during it the individual becomes very sick. Afterwards, the former Bilo manifests supernatural powers, and can heal people for the rest of their life. They become a respected member of the community as a healer.

Tromba

Tromba or douany (“outside power”) is a ceremony conducted when a person or group of people feel that they are being negatively affected by a displaced spirit. The family of the possessed person(s) invites relatives and friends from the surrounding community to be the audience to the ceremony. Men and women are separated on either side of the site of the ceremony. An awning made from the sail of a pirogue (a traditional dugout canoe) covers part of the ground that is the dancing area for the possessed to dance. Traditional musicians play at regular intervals for two days while the possessed person, in a trance, tries to dance out the spirits. As the spirits come from other regions, a table with model boats (in particular the botry traditional sailing boats), representing the method of transport for the spirit to leave, is placed in front of a shrine to the ancestors, with offerings of food and drink. On the occasion observed by the author, the shrine consisted of a baobab tree with a piece of table coral (Acropora sp.) in front.

Satse

The circumcision ceremony typically lasts from 4 am until 9 am. The parents ask a wise elder to suggest the best date and time for the ceremony, and identify a nurse or doctor who knows how to perform the circumcision. Family members are invited to attend the ceremony, and one of the uncles holds the child during the ceremony. After the physical cut, there is drinking of alcohol. After the ceremony the child is called savatse.

Takasy

Takasy (ranja) is a request to the ancestors for continued success in obtaining something. For example, a Takasy Fano involves giving thanks for a recently caught turtle and requesting that the ancestors allow more turtles to be caught in future. The ceremony involves giving thanks and hoping for more luck in catching rare species such as shark (akio), whale (trozo) and dolphin (fesotse). The Vezo build a shrine on a site that is considered favourable, then each time an animal is caught, the ceremony can be performed shortly after the catch.

Soro

Soro is giving thanks for good fortune, or making a request for a cure or recovery from illness or accident. The person who wants the soro offers a sacrifice of zebu or goat to the ancestors. The Hazomanga (wise elder) asks benediction or gives thanks to the ancestors on behalf of the beneficiary. The family of the person who is ill, injured or wishes to give thanks also attends the ceremony. An example of a soro is soronanaka, which is the introduction of a wife to the ancestors, and is often performed in relation to childbirth (for example, before the woman is pregnant, during pregnancy or after birth). The time chosen depends on the money available within the family.

Fomba

The Hazomanga, with elders from other clans, conducted a Fomba (ceremony) on Nosy Fasy when the area was closed to octopus fishing for seven months, from the first spring tide of November 2004. At the reopening of this site a Fomba was again conducted. The ceremonies involved all the villagers coming together in silence while the Hazomanga faced east (inland) and spoke to the ancestors, ending the ceremony by opening a new bottle of dark rum and pouring it into the sea. The ancestors were consulted to be informed of the changes occurring. In Andavadoaka and Nosy Hao, shrines called Fomba are erected, to give thanks for catching shark and turtle. In the previous section, the ceremony is described under Takasy. Nosy Hao has two turtle Fomba and one shark Fomba. The turtle Fomba is where all turtles are killed. The carapaces are used to cook the turtle meat and retain the blood, as it is strictly taboo to spill the turtle’s blood on the sand. The carapaces are kept at the shrine and the spears used to catch the turtles are also kept, with the head of the turtle speared through the mouth. The heads are raised on spears surrounding the Fomba amid the carapaces of former kills kept in the centre of the shrine.

Cemeteries

Vezo cemeteries lie in the forest, far away from the villages and are so well hidden by the vegetation that they are considered "invisible to the eye". The cemeteries must be hidden in this way because the sight of tombs makes the people sad and unhappy. Cemeteries are not places the Vezo like to visit very often. One does not simply go for a stroll near the cemetery. The living only approach a cemetery when they bear a corpse or when they have to "work" for the dead, such as digging graves and building tombs.

Funerary Sculpture

In western Madagascar, Sakalava and Vezo funerary sculpture is renowned internationally for its erotic wooden figures, often depicted during copulation and showing oversized phalluses and breasts. It is unknown as to why the sculptures have this sort of eroticism, but it may have to do with meeting growing tourist demand.

Afterlife

Even after their ancestors have passed, the Vezo keep them involved in many different affairs. Many events in the productive, reproductive and social life of any Vezo family require that the dead be promptly informed, for example if one intends to move to a temporary fishing location, if one is moving into a newly built house or is launching a new canoe, if one is having a difficult birth or if a newborn is brought out of the house for the first time, if one is about to sit a school exam, if difficult words have been spoken which make people’s heart heavy with anger, if the visiting anthropologist arrives or leaves, and so on. It is the responsibility of the senior head of the family to call the dead and talk to them, asking for their protection or their forgiveness, and ensuring that they are kept well informed of life’s events – for whenever the dead have reasons to be “surprised,” they will want to ask questions, thereby causing trouble for the living.

The dead communicate with their living descendants through the dreams that they induce in them. This is because when a person dies, the breathing stops, the body becomes stiff, cold and soon begins to stink and to decompose. But when a person dies, the ‘spirit’ – known as fanahy up to the moment of death – permanently departs from the body. In its new disembodied, ghostly form, the spirit – now known as angatse – is invisible, and moves around like wind. To be seen by living people, it enters their dreams, where it appears together with its original uncorrupted body, just as it was when the person was alive.