The year was 1968. I was 23 year old and was interested in adventure. I was working at the Kennedy space flight center in Florida at the time and had been on the launch team for the first 2 Saturn 5 moon rocket launches. These were test flights, not the Apollo 11 moon landing. I had an opportunity to leave the launch operations and join the remote tracking and support network. At that time technology was primitive by today’s standards. Any orbiting space craft, manned or unmanned, required a lot of ground support. NASA built a network of ground racking stations around the globe. In 1968 I was offered a job on the NASA station in Madagascar. I was there for 4 years. I got to know a lot of new and different people of many different cultural backgrounds and mind sets. One of these was my wife, Nachin ( Maddy). She is not from Madagascar. She is from the British Commonwealth island of Mauritius and was in Madagascar teaching English.
I also got to know the Malagasy people of the big red island. Nineteen distinct tribes live on this exotic land. The high plateau where our tracking station was located is the home land of the Merina People. We employed a number of local people on the station and I became friends with many of them. The Merina have a custom which, as far as I know, is unique in the world. Ancestor worship is a very important part of their culture. And they take it to higher level than anyone else I know of. One each year, in the southern hemisphere winter, July and August, it’s time for Famadihana, the most important ceremony in these people's family and religious life. They open the tombs and invite the ancestors to a family reunion. They take skeletal remains of dead family members out of the tomb and spend long hours singing, dancing and talking with the bones. This is a very deeply felt sacred occasion to these people. A typical family will spend up to half their annual income of the affair. By custom, in addition to all the extended family members, the entire local village will be invited and is expected to attend. For a Merina, skipping a Famadihana would be a serious breach of etiquette. For an outsider, especially a non Merina to be invited to this once a year high ceremony is a great honor and act of friendship. I was invited to several Famadihana exhumations during my time in Madagascar.
On arriving in the village on Famadihana day a visitor will find every one gathered at the home of the family hosting the event.
There will be a lot of food on outdoor tables. Several zebus will and a number of chickens will have been recently slaughtered and the smell of cooking meat will be heavy in the air. As at any Malagasy meal, rice will be boiling in large pots. Although Madagascar is a tropical island, the elevation on the plateau averages 1350 m (4500 ft) and Famadihana season is the coldest part of the year; fresh tropical fruits and vegetables are not in season locally but no expense is spared on this day so bananas, mangos and other good things are shipped in from coastal lowlands so that their sweet aroma blend with all the other fragrants of this happy day.
There is also a lot of sweet cakes and desert type things. And of course the local beer, wine and whiskey flow in great torrents. I once attended a famadihana as the guest of a friend from work and when we approached the tables with all the food I was told “no that’s not for you. You are an honored guest” I was escorted into the house to a smaller table where the senior family and some of the local political leaders were seated. This was the gourmet table for VIPs. There was nothing on this table but insects. My favorite was the roasted grasshoppers.
Now get them out. As a result of being handled many times, the bones are no longer connected as a skeleton, but each body is just a loose bundle of bones. The bundle is wrapped in cloth shroud. If it has been there for a while, the shroud may have rotted so that it can no longer hold the bones, so a woven straw mat is slipped under, and wrapped around the package before it is lifted.
Catching up on family news.
And, of course, there is music and dance.
One of the reasons for famadihana in the cold season is the ancestor need for new garments to keep them warn. Here they get colorful new shrouds.
The children wear their best
At long last the band can take a break.
These photos hark back to my youth, a primitively time when cameras use film and did not record sound. So here is some links to a modern famadihana which can give the reader a sense of the sound and movement.
http://journals.worldnomads.com/worldfestivals/story/32602/Madagascar/August-Famadihana-(Turning-of-the-Bones)-Madagascarhttp://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/newtrail/nav04.cfm?nav04=46799&nav03=46609&nav02=46604&nav01=46603
But all this feasting will go on for several days. It is soon time to invite the real guest of honor. The tombs are always located within walking distance, or on this day parading distance, of the village.
The tomb is usually a stone structure with the doorway underground. So it is necessary to dig the dirt away from the opening.
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