III. The Conflicts of Town Life

8. The Problems and Conflicts of Town Life: The Adult World

Survival in this community of strangers (cf. Robertson 1978) hinges on social and economic success. Well-being for migrants in Ambanja is not just a matter of physical health—it involves personal skills and power in relation to the local social, economic, and political orders. The problems migrants encounter also affect kin who may live elsewhere under severe conditions characterized by a scarcity of land, food, animals, or even water. As healers, tromba mediums are specialists who help others cope with the uncertainties and disorder of life. Local systems of healing reveal the nature of affliction and are indicative of local tensions. Clients come to tromba mediums when plagued by problems that fall into three general categories: physical ill health, work and success, and love and romance. The focus of this chapter is on the problems and conflicts faced by adults in Ambanja; the chapter that follows addresses the special problems that are experienced by children (especially adolescent girls).

Malagasy Concepts of Healing

Medical pluralism is an essential element of life in Madagascar, where a wide variety of healers and healing practices operate. In Ambanja, the domains of indigenous practices and Western biomedicine cannot be described as distinct or, as Janzen (1978) has argued for Zaire, complementary. Rather, the boundaries between these healing systems fluctuate depending heavily on the skills of the healer, the preferences of the client, and on economic constraints.

Fanafody-Gasy, Fanafody Vazaha

Central to Malagasy notions of healing is fanafody, a term that has multiple meanings. First, it is used to distinguish between different styles of healing: fanafody-gasy or “Malagasy medicine” and fanafody vazaha or “foreign” or “European medicine” (which I will refer to here as “clinical medicine”).^[1] In Ambanja, indigenous healers, or those who specialize in fanafody-gasy, include moasy (HP: ombiasy) or herbalists; mpisikidy, the diviners who specialize in the vintana, a complex zodiac system which operates in reference to time and space (see Huntington 1981); and the mediums for tromba, kalanoro, and tsin̂y spirits. Here I will focus on the tromba medium as healer, who in many ways epitomizes the work of these different types of indigenous practitioners.

Ambanja also has a variety of practitioners trained in clinical medicine. Since it is a county seat, the town has a public hospital. In 1987 this was staffed primarily by female nurse-midwives and one male nurse. Usually there are also at least two medical students in residence (stagiaires) working at the hospital as part of their medical rotation. The primary activities carried out at the hospital are first aid, lying-in services, and the vaccination of children. Common ailments are also treated including malaria, gastrointestinal and dermatological problems, and venereal diseases. There are no operating facilities; serious emergencies must be treated in the town of Hell-ville on the nearby island of Nosy Be.

As a result of the presence of the enterprises, there is also a private workers’ clinic next door to the public hospital. This is staffed by a doctor (who is also affiliated with the public hospital) and several nurses. In addition, there are satellite clinics located at each of the enterprises. Each clinic is staffed by a nurse, and the doctor tries to visit once a week (this depends largely on the condition of the roads and how well the clinic’s truck is operating). In addition, the Catholic Mission runs its own small clinic, where a small charge is levied for visits (the public hospital is free). Here there are two doctors and several nurses. Both the workers’ and mission’s clinics have their own pharmacies, but patients at the public hospital must go to local pharmacies to fill their prescriptions. When I left the field in early 1988, the Catholic Mission was in the course of completing the construction of a new hospital with an operating room. Other services include a small leprosy hospital, maintained by the Catholic Mission in a nearby village, and there is at least one doctor who runs a private practice in town.

The term fanafody also means “medicine” and is used to refer to any substance that can bring about a change in an individual’s state of health—be it beneficial or harmful. In this context, fanafody is a term applied to a wide variety of substances. These include pharmaceutical drugs dispensed by clinicians and pharmacists, as well as the rich pharmacopoeia of medicinal plants used by moasy and other indigenous practitioners. Local plants are used in several ways, such as to make infusions, so that the patient can inhale the vapors or drink the liquid as a tea; there are also preparations that can be used in bath water or applied to the body in other ways. Incantations may be said over herbs or objects to instill them with healing powers. Today the efficacy of medicinal herbs indigenous to Madagascar is being studied by biologists and botanists. Near Antananarivo is an institute for testing the medicinal properties of plants. Similarly, several foreign pharmaceutical companies have become interested in the potential curative effects of the flora of Madagascar (see Boiteau 1979; Boiteau and Potier 1976; Cordell and Farnsworth 1976; Debray et al. 1971; Pernet 1964; Plotkin et al. n.d.; Ranaivoarivao 1974). Perhaps the most famous of these is a plant called the Madagascar Periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus), which is used to produce drugs for childhood leukemia (Jolly 1980: 138; 1987: 173).

Although the cost of pharmaceuticals is kept to a minimum by manufacturing and packaging them in Madagascar, they can still be difficult to acquire, because they are expensive by local standards and are sold primarily through privately owned pharmacies. It is not unusual for adoctor to write a prescription for a drug that can not be found locally (or anywhere in the country, for that matter). Doctors also often write prescriptions for small quantities—sometimes less than the amount needed for treatment—to prevent patients from reselling them at a profit. The drugs available at the private clinics are limited, but they tend to be better stocked than the local pharmacies. Malarial drugs, antibiotics, and dermatological creams are prescribed most often, although they may not always be available. Many patients also prefer to buy the more expensive (yet generally unavailable) imported brands, saying they are more effective than those produced domestically. Although a black market exists, Malagasy tend to hoard pharmaceuticals rather than share or resell them, since they are so difficult to acquire. Also, pharmacists as a rule do not dispense drugs without a prescription (for a contrasting view on other regions of the Third World, see Lee et al. 1991; and Silverman, Lee, and Lydecker 1982, 1986; Silverman, Lydecker, and Lee, 1990).

Malagasy distinguish between beneficial and harmful medicine, the latter being especially important within the context of fanafody-gasy or Malagasy medicine. There is fanafody tsara (“good medicine”) and fanafody raty (HP: ratsy; lit. “bad/evil medicine/magic”); sometimes the latter is translated into French by Malagasy speakers as magique or poison. Fanafody tsara is used to cure, while fanafody raty is used to harm one’s adversaries. It is sorcerors and witches (mpamosavy)^[2] who use fanafody raty most frequently, although moasy (herbalists) and tromba mediums (like Marivola in the previous chapter) dispense it occasionally as well. The difference here is that the mpamosavy (sorceror or witch) uses fanafody raty for his or her own sake, whereas the healer dispenses it to clients so that their well-being may improve at the expense of someone else’s misfortune.

I wish to stress that each of these categories of good and bad medicine include substances with known medicinal qualities (pharmaceuticals as well as herbal substances that may be curative or poisonous), as well as other (and what are often referred to in the anthropological literature as “magical”) properties that are transferred to them through actions made or words uttered by the healer. For simplicity’s sake (and in order to reflect Malagasy ways of thinking) I will use the blanket term medicine (fanafody) when referring in general to substances that are used to bring about a change in health or well-being. Good medicine (fanafody tsara) refers to those substances taken willingly by a client seeking a cure, and the term bad medicine (fanafody raty) refers to those substances that are used to cause harm to or to influence the behavior or well-being of another person, unbeknownst to the victim. The terms poison and magic will only appear in the text where informants themselves used them. I wish to stress here that these are definitions developed for specific application within a Malagasy context, because more standard definitions, especially of magic (cf. Evans-Pritchard 1937; Frazer 1976 [1911]; Malinowski 1948; also Favret-Saada 1980) do not coincide with Malagasy conceptions of illness. (For more details on Sakalava concepts of sorcery and magic, see Gardenier 1976.)

The presence of clinical medicine in Madagascar has not led to major distinctions being drawn between substances that have a physiological as opposed to a psychological (or magical) effect. The efficacy of both fanafody-gasy (Malagasy medicine) and fanafody vazaha (foreign medicine) is recognized by Malagasy regardless of their level of education, even if they are trained as clinicians. Rather than rejecting fanafody-gasy, Malagasy intelligentsia often struggle to make sense of what they perceive to be conflicting yet coexisting systems of thought. Similarly, non-Malagasy, especially missionaries and clinicians who have lived in Madagascar for a decade or more, are often equally confused and perplexed not only by the persistence of beliefs in fanafody-gasy, but also by what they themselves perceive to be effective and powerful properties.^[3]

Tromba mediums and clinicians generally respect each other’s attitudes toward healing. They do not seek to discredit each other’s methods or knowledge, but view them at times as complementary, at others as distinct or as providing different solutions to the same sorts of problems. The point of view involved changes with each situation. As will be shown in chapter 10, the rejection of explanations associated with fanafody-gasy is a stance taken only by extremists such as Protestant exorcists (and, as I have argued elsewhere, psychiatrists; see Sharp, in press). This is not to say that specialization does not occur. For example, it is only through clinicians that Malagasy have access to many pharmaceuticals, since strict laws prohibit their sale by nonregistered persons. On the other hand, clinicians in Ambanja never repair broken bones, because the bonesetters of the rural north are famous throughout the island for their skills in fixing even the worst compound fractures. In addition, some tromba mediums are skilled diviners who specialize in sikidy divination, using seeds, stones, or playing cards.

Indigenous^[4] healers specialize in other problems as well. Those associated with possession are generally considered the exclusive domain of tromba mediums. For example, possession by njarinintsy spirits is a common affliction of adolescent girls, but few clinicians in Ambanja have heard of this disorder unless they grew up in the north, and even they rarely see it since it is spirit mediums and other healers who specialize in treating it. Clients may go to the clinic complaining of headaches and stiffness, but this usually occurs before they have been alerted to the possibility that a spirit might be making them ill. If there are any rules directing a hierarchy of resort (Romanucci-Ross 1977), they are very loosely defined. Roughly speaking, they are as follows: if someone feels physically ill in a way that is unfamiliar, he or she usually goes to the clinic first to receive a vaccination or a prescription, usually for antibiotics. If the treatment is unsuccessful (or prohibitively expensive) they will try other means. Sakalava are an exception to this rule. They prefer to consult moasy and tromba mediums over clinicians. Sakalava say this is because they are wary of being treated by Merina doctors.

Clearly, Ambanja’s inhabitants have a wide variety of healers to consult. None, however, is so widespread and so numerous as are tromba mediums. Choices made regarding treatment and more general assistance are very personal. These depend on individuals’ past experiences, their faith in (or, as noted earlier, their sentimental ties to) a given healer (or spirit), and the cost of their services, rather than simply the nature of the problem. The proliferation and professionalization of tromba mediums and other indigenous healers is, I believe, evidence of the limitations of clinical medicine in Madagascar. This includes its inability to solve problems that extend beyond physical ailments into the social realm (cf. Janzen 1978); the severe shortage of drugs and medical supplies needed to guarantee quality care; and, finally, Sakalava reluctance to consult with clinicians who are from the high plateaux.

In Ambanja, healers—be they moasy, tromba mediums, or clinicians—are thought to be skilled if they are able to cure problems that extend beyond physical ailments. Well-being is defined in broad terms and extends into the social and economic realms of human experience. Tromba mediums are especially adept at this. They serve as gatekeepers between the world of the living and the dead, and between the present and the past. When they reach the boundaries of their knowledge, they may refer to other ancestors of the spirit world for guidance and advice to assist the ailing client.^[5] As ancestors it is their duty to watch over the living. They have not only a keen awareness of what comes to pass in the local community, but also the power to bring about change.

A medium’s knowledge overlaps with that of clinicians: they can treat, for example, infections, malaria, sore eyes, and diarrhea. Throughout the past decade, Madagascar has become a country of scarcity, as is evident by the bare shelves in the country’s pharmacies and public hospitals. In Ambanja, patients who require surgery must purchase their own gauze, bandages, and anesthesia, and then go elsewhere to have the operation performed. Often the required materials are unavailable locally, and people with serious emergencies may die before they can reach Nosy Be. The workers’ and Mission’s clinics are better stocked than public pharmacies. Still, sometimes as much as half of what has been ordered (and paid for) may be missing from the packages. This is what Malagasy refer to as risoriso, or corruption (HP, lit. “to zig-zag,” “wander,” or “weave in and out”), and it is very much a part of everyday life. Unlike clinicians, tromba mediums rely on local sources of ancestral power and knowledge, and they draw from an extensive and readily available pharmacopoeia of local plants.^[6] Tromba mediums also rely on the power and sacred knowledge of royal ancestors.

Healers in Ambanja are problem solvers and not just curers. Because of the authority and stature that accompanies their knowledge and abilities they are often asked to assist in a variety of crisis situations. They give loans and advice, and they are frequently called upon to mediate in personal disputes among kin, between employees and employers, and between private citizens and local public authorities. They may be elected to serve on neighborhood committees, where one of their main duties is to hear local disputes. In this way, their social duties may overlap with those of enterprise directors, elected political officials, judges, and the Bemazava king. The town’s judge reports that sometimes tromba spirits possess their mediums and appear in court to defend or threaten a party or order him to make a particular decision.

Sickness and Death

Ny aretina dia toy ny akoho: mahita làlana hidirana nefa tsy mahita làlana hivoahana: lit. “Sickness is like a chicken: it can find the way in but it can not find the way out,” that is, sickness comes easily; it’s getting well that is difficult.

Sickness and death are times when tromba mediums play crucial roles in the lives of their clients. In Ambanja, the concern for one’s well-being is reflected in the greetings people use: “Mbola tsara?” (“[are you] still well?”) and “Salama, Salam-tsara” (“[ go] in good health”). Since many of this town’s inhabitants are wage laborers, economic stability hinges on good health. Sickness may interfere with productivity or it may threaten an individual’s ability to hold on to a job. Given this, it is not surprising that many of a tromba medium’s clients are vahiny laborers (see plate 7).

Tromba mediums assist clients who suffer from a variety of ailments. Among the most common are sore eyes, stomachaches, bad headaches, and stiffness in the limbs, back, or neck. Mediums such as Marie, for example, possess an extensive knowledge of the local pharmacopoeia. When Marie is in trance her tromba spirit often instructs her clients to use certain medicinal plants. If these are unavailable, the spirit tells Monique, the rangahy, to go to the forest nearby to retrieve them, or the spirit might write a prescription so that the client can purchase the herbs from a moasy. Sometimes the client goes home to administer the treatment or returns later to have the tromba spirit do it (or so that the spirit can give further instructions). For most of these private consultations Marie’s clients are young adults in their twenties and thirties. Marie also participates on a regular basis at ceremonies for other mediums. When she is in trance she is often asked to treat infants and young children who suffer from such problems as fever, chills, diarrhea, eye infections, or crankiness.

Death is especially frightening for migrants who are away from home, because to be far from the ancestral land means risking being separated and lost from one’s primary kin. As explained in chapter 4, some migrants have established burial societies in Ambanja. These societies ensure that the dead will be transported safely back home so that they may rest with their ancestors. Again, tromba mediums may be important actors in this context. They may be called upon to help the living understand the causes leading up to the death of a loved one, or they may even fall suspect themselves.

In Ambanja, a clinical diagnosis generally is not sufficient to explain a sudden death. In a manner reminiscent of Evans-Pritchard’s Azande (1937), one must determine the underlying causes: why this person at this particular time? Generally, it is one’s neighbors who are suspected of being sorcerors of witches (mpamosavy) or having used bad medicine (fanafody raty) against the victim. Most often old women fall suspect because they remain at home throughout the day. If they care for their own grandchildren they also develop intimate ties with their neighbors’ children, coddling and scolding them and offering them snacks while they prepare their own meals. Old women are most frequently blamed, ostracized, and shamed as witches following the death of a neighbor’s child, accused of having killed the child with fanafody raty because they are jealous of another’s prosperity. These older women are quite vulnerable, since they often live only with their grandchildren, without any adult kin nearby to protect them.

Witchcraft Accusations against Old Mama Rose

In one neighborhood where I lived temporarily, a two-year-old child died. Although two doctors in town agreed malaria had been the cause of death, the mother, Alice, who was a nurse herself, sought out a moasy and later a tromba medium to discover the identity of the person who had brought death upon her child. For this mother, the medical prognosis was not enough—the child may have died of malaria, but she needed to know why this had happened so suddenly and at that time and place. Mama Rose, an older woman who lived next door, was identified by both healers as a witch (mpamosavy). Mama Rose’s daughter, fearing for her mother’s well-being and safety, took a leave of absence from her own job in a distant town to watch over her elderly mother and to make sure no harm came to her. She also called up Mama Rose’s own tromba spirit to ask for advice and protection from the fanafody raty that they assumed Alice was now using to harm her. Mama Rose was an older woman in her sixties, and so this in itself was a sign of their desperation, for she had not been active as a medium for nearly ten years. After approximately six months the animosity between Mama Rose and her neighbors subsided but only after Alice had moved out of her house, leaving her husband and his child by a former marriage behind. Three months later Mama Rose’s daughter finally returned to work at her job full-time. She continued to visit her mother every weekend until Alice moved away.

This story reveals the value—and the power—of tromba spirits and their mediums. As Alice seeks to make sense of a tragedy in her own life, it is a moasy and later a tromba medium who give her answers that extend beyond those that her own medical training can provide. Mama Rose, as an old woman who lives alone, is a vulnerable target and she, in turn, relies on her own tromba spirit for comfort and support in time of crisis. As the stories that follow reveal, tromba spirits and their mediums provide a host of other services to clients who struggle with the problems of daily urban life and plantation work.

Work and Success

Ny asa no harena: “Work is wealth.”

Work or, more specifically, wage labor, is central to the lives of the majority of Ambanja’s inhabitants. It is Sakalava who are most resistant to working at the enterprises, whereas vahiny, out of necessity, hold the majority of these jobs. As described earlier, most workers express the desire to be freed from the constraints of plantation labor. For many, however, these jobs are a matter of survival. Since employment activities occupy a large proportion of daily life for the majority of Ambanja’s inhabitants, well-being at the job is essential. Tromba spirits answer clients’ needs by providing work medicine (ody asa). Clients request this, for example, to encourage their bosses to grant them raises or to change the disposition of an unkind supervisor or employer.

Doné and His Troubles at Work

Doné is a forty-one-year-old Antaisaka man from southeastern Madagascar. He came north ten years ago, having been encouraged to do so by an older brother, who had been living in Ambilobe for three years. Shortly after Doné’s arrival, his brother left, and Doné decided to move to Ambanja because he had heard that it was easier to find work there. Since he knew how to drive a car, he soon found a job as a truck driver at one of the larger concessions.

After working there for four years, Doné saved up enough money to pay to have his wife come join him. She brought with her their first child, who was five years old at the time. They have since had four other children. Doné and his family live in a two-room house made of corregated tin and located on land owned by his employer. They also have access to a small field where his wife grows such subsistence crops as manioc and garden vegetables. Doné finds it harder each year to earn enough to support his family. He says that they do not starve, but now he rarely has enough cash to buy clothing for his children. (As long as parents can not afford to buy clothing for their children they are reluctant to let them attend school.)

In 1986, two of Doné’s sons were caught stealing cocoa pods from his boss’s fields. Although workers and passersby are permitted to take one or two pods (which one can break open, eating the seeds as a snack), these boys were found with a gunny sack filled with nearly twenty pods, which ostensibly they were preparing to sell. The foreman who found them brought them to the boss, who took them to the local jail to be fined. As Doné reported, “I did not have the cash to pay the fine, and so I went to my boss and asked him to drop the charges. Instead, he offered to help bribe the judge, but only if I promised to pay him 50,000 fmg up front” (this amount was ten times the fine). Doné felt paralyzed: “I didn’t have the money to pay either the fine or the bribe.…I was so afraid, I thought I’d lose my job. A friend [coworker] later lent me the money…then I consulted a tromba spirit and asked for medicines to help me [counteract the boss’s cruelty].…”

“I told my story to the tromba. He told me to go collect certain types of herbs and bring these with a package of cigarettes and a small bottle of rum. I went back a second time and the spirit prepared the medicine: he blew smoke and sprinkled rum on it, and then he tied it in a small bundle. He then told me to place the bundle inside my boss’s car one night, under the driver’s seat.”

This was not difficult for Doné to do, since he was often in the garage tending to the cars and trucks that were kept there. “A week later my boss found the bundle, and he became very frightened. He was sure that one of his workers was trying to poison him.…For the next month he rarely left his house and only allowed his wife or daughter to prepare his meals, even though he had several house servants! Ha ha! Later he gave all of us a small raise!” Doné felt he had triumphed. When he received his next paycheck, he used part of it to buy a bottle of beer, which he brought to the medium’s house as payment for the spirit’s services.

Doné’s story is important because it illustrates several key issues. First, work is essential to the well-being of migrants, and their survival may depend on the actions of their employers. Second, in times of crisis a tromba medium, drawing upon local Sakalava ancestral power, may solve their clients’ problems. Doné’s case is not one involving impotent medicines, because Malagasy believe in the harmful effects of fanafody and the power of tromba spirits. The bundle under the car seat was an apt warning for the boss, and it proved to be very effective. Third, tromba mediums are not marginal members of this community, but essential and powerful figures who cure personal and social ills. In Doné’s case the tromba medium aided the powerless and vulnerable laborer who was caught in a very sticky web of power relations with his boss.

Status, Success, and Power

In Ambanja, one can gain wealth by “working hard” (miasa mafy) and through various forms of medicines (fanafody). For the powerful, money can influence the outcome of decisions in the local court, and it brings influence in government. For the powerless, it is fanafody that can bring about change or relief from the hardships of everyday life. A brief example illustrates this point. In one neighborhood a very wealthy merchant was in the process of constructing a large building (he had acquired the land by bulldozing other people’s houses one afternoon while the police stood by and watched). He was forced to bring this construction to a halt after a local, self-acclaimed sorceror (moasy) declared in public that he had mustered all his powers to harm the merchant and his family, and he would continue to do so as long as the construction continued. The merchant met in private with the sorceror and paid him a generous sum of money to stop his actions and to keep quiet. The construction then resumed.

An important aspect of fanafody is that the client may use it to increase his or her status, success, or power relative to that of others. As in the case involving Fatima, below, acquiring this type of assistance may require a series of intense negotiations. Her relationship with Marivola was a complex one, where a long-term, reciprocal association cemented their friendship. Marivola is a master of this sort of negotiation. Since she dispenses harmful medicines, her relationship with a client must not only be one based on trust, but also one where the client remains in debt both to her spirit(s) and to her (see, again, the discussion of Marivola in chapter 7). Fictive kinship provides a means for redefining these relationships so that such negotiations are possible (and more binding).

The Case of Fatima

Fatima and Marivola were not always friends. Mme Fatima’s neighbors were amazed to see the two women visiting with each other during my stay in Ambanja, for only the year before the two had had a serious quarrel following the death of Medar, Fatima’s husband. Fatima, however, decided to make amends with Marivola, because she knew that she was a powerful medium who could help her to achieve certain goals.

Medar had been a talented and respected school principal in Ambanja. He also had a fair amount of money, which he had inherited from his father. He had died suddenly at the age of forty-two, and doctors in town were unable to identify the cause of his death. Fatima was grief stricken and was certain that her friend Marivola was responsible. She assumed that Marivola was jealous of their prestige and wealth (and she was right—Marivola was jealous). Fatima’s family lived in great comfort in a well-furnished, five-room cement house. They had such expensive luxury items as a color television,a VCR, an Italian-made sewing machine, and a gas stove. Furthermore, Marivola had the skills to enable her to cause such harm, for she was a powerful tromba medium who specialized in fanafody raty. During Medar’s funeral and for months after Fatima made it clear to her neighbors that she believed Marivola was responsible, and all contact broke off between the two women.

But Fatima is an ambitious woman: she has six children, all of whom are enrolled in the private Catholic Mission school. In 1987 she sent her oldest son to complete his last two years of schooling at the private and very prestigious French school in the provincial capital, hoping that there he would have a better chance of passing the baccalauréat exam, thus enabling him to continue on to university and thereafter get a good job. Meanwhile, she was having trouble controlling her fifteen-year-old daughter, who, being very beautiful and coquettish, had had a string of lovers, including some of the most powerful men in town. Fatima felt it necessary to take action to protect her children. For her son she wanted fanafody to help him with his studies; for her daughter she wanted, first, to prevent other women from harming her out of anger or jealousy and, second, she wanted to control her actions and felt that a good scolding from a powerful tromba spirit might accomplish this. Because Fatima was aware of Marivola’s power as a medium, she reopened communications with Marivola, visiting her on a regular basis over the course of two months. Marivola herself had much to gain from her friend. Since Fatima worked as a nurse at one of the enterprises, she could write prescriptions for drugs, and since she was well-off financially, Marivola could request loans from her friend when she was in need. Marivola eventually consented to provide the fanafody, and over the course of two months, the women met regularly to call up Marivola’s most powerful spirits. Fatima paid dearly for these services, giving a total sum of 20,000 fmg to Marivola’s spirits. I also watched her help Marivola acquire drugs and injections on four separate occasions.

In Madagascar, a country of economic extremes, an individual’s success and power draw attention and suspicion from others (cf. Favret-Saada 1980). This is illustrated by a body of folklore that was popular a decade or two ago surrounding French ex-patriots. These stories are rich in imagery that describe Europeans who live off the bodies of the less fortunate. Europeans were suspected of being “blood thieves” (mpaka-raha) and heart snatchers (mpakafo). More recently, Indian merchants have become scapegoats in times of greatest national scarcity. Occasionally, violent outbursts occur throughout the island, directed against Indians. This violence is precipitated by the spreading of an apocryphal story in which an Indian merchant kills the child of a Malagasy beggar (katramy), striking it after it has touched a morsel of food in his shop. Such a story circulated in Madagascar in 1987, and angry Malagasy destroyed Indian-owned shops throughout the island.^[7]

Love and Money, Wives and Mistresses^[8]

Tsarabe ny manambady: “Marriage is wonderful.”

As outlined in chapter 4, marriage ceremonies are infrequent and relationships more generally are extremely fragile in Ambanja. By the time most adults have reached their forties, they have been involved in a series of unions, each of which has lasted only a few years. The tenuousness of relationships today is reflected in the fact that many tromba mediums and other spiritual practitioners do a lucrative traffic in love medicines (ody fitia) for both men and women, who hope either to hold onto a wandering partner, to cause harm to a rival, or to charm a potential mate.

Any man with money in his pocket—be he married or single—is a target for seduction. In precolonial times, polygyny was a sign of success and power for Sakalava men (particularly if they were royalty). More recently this has changed in response to the effects of colonialism. The French colonial period was marked by the transition from a subsistence economy to one characterized by wage labor, with status being measured by possessions and monetary wealth. The co-wife has slowly been replaced by the mistress, who today is ironically referred to as the deuxième bureau (lit. “second office”). This name conjures up images of excessive work, referring to the fact that a man has to work harder if he has a mistress. From a wife’s point of view, it is also a reference to sabotage,^[9] since the mistress is viewed as an enemy to the stability of the man’s marriage and household. This new term has become popular within the last decade. Previously the term used was bodofotsy (“bedcover” or “blanket”), since a man’s mistress (like his blanket) is someone he takes with him when he goes traveling (en tourné).^[10]

Women who have children and who are involved in tenuous unions are particularly vulnerable economically. A woman who relies on a man for income to support her and her children may suffer greatly if she does not have another way in which to generate an income—a job, a small business, or the ownership of land. Although neighbors often help one another with short-term child care or cooperate in economic ventures, a premium is still placed on kinship. Thus, if a woman is a migrant without extended kin living in the area, her problems become even more severe. Fostering is still a common pattern throughout Madagascar (see, for example, Kottak 1980: 185 on the Betsileo, and Bloch 1971: 9 on the Merina). A common pattern in other parts of Sakalava territory is that children of divorced parents typically go to live with their fathers (Feeley-Harnik 1991b: 218).^[11] In Ambanja, however, an additional pattern has emerged: the female-headed household. Children are often left under the care of the maternal grandmother (as in the case of Mama Rose, above), while the mother lives elsewhere, working to support not only herself and her children, but her aging mother as well.

Love and money are very important themes in Ambanja society and are subjects that appear with great frequency in the form of popular sayings. These are often printed on the colorful lambahoany cloths that local women wear as body and head wraps and include such phrases as:

“I [may] love you [a man addressing his mistress] but I’m not exchanging the-one-in-the house,” that is, the legitimate wife (Tiako anao fa tsy atakaloko ny an-trano);

“I love my spouse” (Tiako vady);

“The big spouse [real wife as opposed to mistress] is the best” (Vadibe tsara);

“I’m so happy to see you, my Darling!” ’ (Falyfaly mahita anao Cheri ê!); and

“Can’t buy me love” [lit. “You don’t need money to have my love”] (Tsy mila vola ny fitiavako anao).

I know of only two crimes that inspire public outrage and mob violence against the perpetrator in Ambanja society: taking property from someone, or sleeping with another person’s partner. With the cry of either mpangalatra! (“thief!”) or vamba! (“adulterer!”), neighbors within earshot will drop what they are doing and come running. If they should catch the guilty party or parties, the mob will beat them with their fists or with broomsticks or other hard objects.^[12]

Tromba mediums and their rangahy report that a majority of their clients come seeking love medicines (ody fitia), of which there are two kinds: that used by men to charm women (ody manan̂gy) and that used by women to charm men (ody lehilahy). The first tromba consultation I witnessed early in my fieldwork involved a male client who sought to charm his wife, who had become the deuxième bureau of a richer man. This ceremony was the client’s second consultation. He had chosen to speak with Djao Kondry since this spirit is a young playboy who is knowledgeable about women, love, and romance. After recounting his problem to Djao Kondry, the client unrolled a cloth in which he had a packet of cigarettes, which he gave to the spirit as a gift. Then he withdrew a bottle of honey, some cologne, a packet of medicinal powder, and three bundles of dried leaves. The tromba poured honey and cologne on the powder and herbs, and, after saying a series of prayers, he instructed the man to put a bit in his wife’s food, her bath water, and in their bed. Then she would not be able to resist him, and she would stop going to see her lover.

Migrants who are far from home are especially vulnerable when involved in tenuous unions, as the following case illustrates.

The Story of Lalao

Lalao is a thirty-five-year-old Merina woman who came to Ambanja with her husband, Christôphe (who is Betsileo), approximately eight months ago. Previously they had been living in Nosy Be, where they met. Lalao did not work. Christôphe was an engineer at one of the enterprises and was transferred to Ambanja from the headquarters at Nosy Be. Christôphe has three children(ages five, ten and fifteen) by a former marriage. His first wife was Sakalava; about four years ago she died. Lalao, who had previously been his mistress, then moved into Christôphe’s house and assumed the role as the youngest child’s mother (she is addressed by her neighbor’s by the teknonym “Maman’i’Hervé” or “Mother of Hervé”), having claimed this role during the recent circumcision of this child. Until the night of this story many women in the neighborhood had no idea Lalao was not the biological mother of all three children.

One night when I was visiting with a Betsileo neighbor named Vero, Lalao appeared at the door, sobbing uncontrollably. She told us that her husband had beaten her and that she was afraid to go back to her house. She wanted to go home to her mother in Antananarivo, but she did not have any money of her own, since her husband was in charge of household finances. Vero was at a loss what to do—she did not know this woman well and, like Lalao, she did not have free access to household funds. She decided to go across the road to Isabelle’s house and ask for assistance, since Isabelle worked with Christôphe and thus knew the family better than she.

We assembled at Isabelle’s house and listened to Lalao tell her story in more detail. She had learned that Christôphe now had a mistress here in Ambanja. This new mistress was an older Sakalava woman(ten years his senior). Lalao said that she had consulted a tromba medium last week, asking the spirit to give her two kinds of love medicine: one she put in her bath water (fankamamy oditra, lit. “makes the skin sweet”) so that her husband would want her again. The spirit also gave her her some herbs to sprinkle in their bed, but they did not seem to have had any effect. Since her husband’s mistress was well known in the neighborhood as a tromba medium, Lalao was certain that the mistress had used more powerful medicine to make Christôphe come home and beat her instead.

When Lalao spoke of her economic dependence on her husband and his violent behavior, the other two women(and, ultimately, I, too) began to cry. We looked over her possessions and decided that she should keep her sewing machine, so that she would have a means of support. Isabelle and I then gave her some money in exchange for some of her kitchenware. Vero did the same, taking money from her husband’s till, thus giving Lalao a large proportion of their household savings (close to half a month’s worth of her husband’s wages). Isabelle then went to find Lalao’s uncle (FaBr) to ask for assistance, but he threw her out of his house. Isabelle then appealed to Christôphe, who gave her enough money for Lalao’s transportation back to Antananarivo. Lalao cried late into the night and at one point tried to poison herself by attempting to drink kerosene. Later, when she had calmed down, she fell asleep for a few hours at Vero’s house. This was done against Vero’s husband’s wishes, for he was already furious that his wife had given her so much money. Lalao left the next morning in a transport bound for the capital.

The seriousness of Lalao’s situation was evident in the other women’s reponses. Among Malagasy, in times of crisis—such as sickness or death—self-composure is essential. Except for very close female kin, one never cries at these times. I myself was scolded severely on two occasions for crying, once during an interaction with an angry spirit and the other while attending a child’s funeral. This episode involving Lalao was the first (and only) time I ever saw anyone cry, aside from a mother grieving over a child’s death. The women present not only felt great sorrow for Lalao, but they were also graphically reminded of problems they themselves had suffered. As Vero put it, “I am so sad [mampalahelo] because she is a woman and I am a woman.” Isabelle herself had suffered greatly several years ago when she learned that her husband had a mistress. This she deduced one day when she discovered that their cassette player was missing. At first she assumed that a thief had taken it, but later she realized that her husband had sold it to buy gifts for another woman. Her husband is Sakalava royalty (ampanjaka) from Ambanja, while she is Antakarana (and a commoner) from the north, and so she feels powerless to control his actions.

The following day Vero explained that she, too, had left her husband temporarily following the birth of their youngest child. An important institution associated with marriage in the high plateaux, among Merina and Betsileo, is misintaka: when a woman is unhappy with her husband she may leave him and go home to her parents. There she stays and is watched over by them. When this happens it is regarded as a separation but not a divorce (misao-bady). If the husband wants his wife to return he must approach her parents, bearing expensive gifts. The comparable institution among Sakalava is called miombiky, in which payments are made in cattle (omby). Whereas marriage ceremonies (and misintaka) occur frequently in the high plateaux, as one Sakalava informant put it, “only savage Sakalava living in the bush practice miombiky anymore.”

Although Lalao and her husband are from the highlands, both were migrants who lived far from parents and other kin. In addition, their behavior reflects an adaptation of Sakalava customs, rather than any strict adherence to Merina or Betsileo ones. Where there is no marriage ceremony, as is true for the majority of unions in Ambanja today, there is no reparation for temporary separation. According to Merina and Betsileo custom, if a couple lives far from home, the husband, who usually controls the household finances, is obligated to give his wife money to return to her parents, if she so desires. Thus, the other women viewed Christôphe’s reluctance to help Lalao as a serious breach of custom. When they pressured him, he relented and gave Isabelle some money for Lalao’s carfare home. Lalao, like many women who are unemployed (typically they are married to professional men), relied on her husband for economic support. Since, as a migrant, she was unable to find kin nearby who would help her, she turned to her female neighbors, all of whom were migrants.

Neighbor’s attitudes toward Lalao changed after she had left town:

At first, these women, and others living around her house, refused to associate with Christôphe, and they stopped buying yogurt from his brother (dairy products are hard to come by and are greatly coveted in Ambanja). Two days after Lalao left, her husband’s mistress moved into the house, enabling Christôphe to return to work, since she stayed at home to care for his youngest child. Soon neighborhood opinion changed in favor of Christôphe. A week later Vero’s husband returned from a trip to Antananarivo and told how Lalao had appeared at his parents’ house after her own parents had thrown her out on the street. He went to speak to Christôphe to learn his side of the story and was told that although Lalao appeared very upset, in fact she was the one to blame. She had squandered all of his money, insisting that it be used to buy her beautiful dresses instead of food for the children. Two months later Lalao returned to Ambanja, and tried to form a reconciliation with her husband, but he threw her out under the watchful (and approving) eye of his neighbors. She left town that afternoon.

In all of these stories, involving Mama Rose, Doné, Fatima, and Lalao, tromba mediums provide clients with a means for confronting and articulating problems they encounter in the everyday world. Through this indigenous Sakalava institution, troubled individuals appeal to the power and knowledge of local ancestors in order to make sense of and control their lives in times of chaos. It is through tromba that the living are able to cure life’s ills and uncertainties. These include sickness and death, work and success, and love and romance. Although clients usually specify these particular categories as they define their needs, the case studies provided here illustrate that these categories often overlap. As the following chapter illustrates, children, too, must cope with these and related problems.

Notes

9. The Social World of Children

Children are often invisible in migration and urban studies. Much of the literature assumes that children do not live on their own, but under the care and watchful eye of adults, who may be kin, foster kin, or neighbors. As a result, their experiences are shadowed by those of their caretakers. When children appear as a discrete category in studies of African societies, most often the themes that frame their activities are economics and health. Schildkrout (1981), for example, describes the manner in which urban Hausa children assist their mothers who are confined, through purdah, to their homes. Others focus on the more insidious qualities of the institutionalization of child labor cross-culturally (Mendelievich, ed. 1979; Minge 1986). Studies in maternal and child health demonstrates that the young are the most vulnerable in times of scarcity (UNICEF-UK 1988; see also Scheper-Hughes 1987, 1992, and other essays in Scheper-Hughes, ed. 1987). Throughout the Third World, children are portrayed as passive victims of poverty whose parents (or other kin) struggle to care for them against a myriad of obstacles. Among the most vivid portraits of the effects of urban squalor on children in Africa are those found in fictional accounts drawn from authors’ firsthand experiences (see, for example, Emecheta 1979). Other studies by Mead (1939, 1961 [1928]) and, more recently, those falling under the direction and editorship of J. and B. Whiting, explore the meaning of adolescence cross-culturally, or, more generally, the experiences associated with growing up in different societies (Burbank 1988; Condon 1987; Davis and Davis 1989; Hollos and Leis 1989; see also the annotated bibliographies of Gottlieb et al. 1966). Only a few studies have explored situations where urban children live alone and care for themselves, but these focus on the extreme margins of life, where children are the victims of abandonment, famine, warfare, or the untimely deaths of kin (see, for example, Ennew and Milne 1990; Reynolds and Burman, eds. 1986; UNICEF 1987).

Northern Madagascar provides a striking contrast. Village children who have successfully completed their studies in rural primary schools and who show promise for more advanced learning sometimes come to Ambanja voluntarily (and with their parents’ encouragement) to continue their schooling (for a similar case from Melanesia see Pomponio 1992). They are, essentially, young migrants: since there are no dormitory facilities available, they live in town without adult supervision. Many children, as young as thirteen, live alone or share a very simple one- or two-room house with a group of other students. These children must cope, on their own, with the complexities of two realms of experience. First, they must be able to make the shift from rural to town life. Second, they must face the problems that characterize the transition from youth to adulthood. Typically, they are the children of Sakalava tera-tany or non-Sakalava settlers who live in rural areas of the Sambirano. Such children experience problems characteristic of migrants in general, yet they are more vulnerable because they are children.

Outbreaks of njarinintsy possession have accompanied this recent trend. Within the last two decades outbreaks of mass possession have occurred in local schools, and the most common victims of these reckless and dangerous spirits are adolescent girls. Throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, as many as thirty students became possessed at one time. In several instances, school officials closed down the schools until the spirits could be appeased. Although the frequency of njarinintsy possession in Ambanja has decreased in recent years, several cases are reported annually in at least one of the three local junior and senior high schools. Unlike tromba possession, which is established and ordered, njarinintsy possession is erratic and disordered, and its victims exhibit behavior that expresses the chaos inherent to their daily lives.

Reports of similar outbreaks of group or mass possession appear elsewhere in the anthropological literature and, typically, these occur within such institutional settings as schools (Harris 1957) and, more recently, factories (Grossman 1979; Ong 1987, 1988). An assumption underlying these studies is that issues of power and powerlessness are central to mass possession movements. As with earlier discussions of tromba in this study, the significance of power for njarinintsy possession must be investigated in reference to two axes, one defined by a historical development from past to present and the other including different levels of social experience: the community, the family and the schoolyard, and the individual. Elsewhere I have argued that conflicting moral orders in this community give rise to an anomic state (Durkheim 1968) in these children, which may have severe psychological consequences (Sharp 1990).^[1] This chapter will illustrate, first, that children and adults have very different possession experiences, and thus njarinintsy provides additional information on the structural significance of tromba in this community. Second, the dangers associated with njarinintsy possession uncover other dimensions of disorder in this community which, in turn, have implications for the future. These children’s experiences reveal the hidden underbelly of town life, deepening the understanding of problems associated with gender, polyculturalism, and colonialism which have thus far been explored only through adults’ eyes. In order to resolve these children’s problems, adults of diverse origins and backgrounds pulled together, drawing upon Sakalava authority to surmount chaos and reestablish social order.

The Possessed Youth of Ambanja

Although tromba possession was the main focus of this research, my attention was often drawn to the njarinintsy, volatile and unpredictable spirits whose most frequent victims are adolescent girls. No mass outbreaks occurred during 1987; thus, this discussion of njarinintsy possession in the schools is based on interviews with more than one hundred informants, including spirit mediums, schoolchildren, their parents, other family members, teachers, and other school officials. The data collected focused on three areas: informants’ accounts of mass possession occurring one to six times a year between 1975 and 1980, involving anywhere from three to thirty students; interviews with five established mediums who, in the past, had experienced possession sickness and four women who had recently been struck by possession sickness (see Appendix A); and my personal observation of five cases of njarinintsy in 1987.^[2] Although tromba possession is an experience shared by many adult women, the following generalizations can be made about njarinintsy: the majority of its victims are between thirteen and seventeen years of age; they are school migrants who have come from Ambanja from neighboring rural villages; and they are female and, usually, pregnant and unmarried at the time of possession. The stories of Angeline (chapter 5) and Monique (chapter 7) are typical of njarinintsy victims. Sosotra’s story, which follows, provides yet another portrait.

Sosotra and the Njarinintsy

One afternoon, while my assistant and I were interviewing a medium in her home, we suddenly heard the sound of wailing coming from a small house made of palm fiber which was located directly across the yard. Two women who were sitting with us exclaimed simultaneously that there was a njarinintsy (“misy njarinintsy é!”) and so we all quickly stood up and went outside to see what was happening. It was Sosotra, a young Sakalava woman of nineteen who lived next door. She had joined us on previous occasions while we discussed tromba and other forms of possession. At these times she was generally quiet and sullen and often complained of nightmares(nofy raty), headaches, and dizziness. Although my informant had counseled her to consult either a moasy or a tromba medium for these problems, Sosotra did not pay much attention, often rising abruptly (and rudely) in the middle of conversation and walking home without saying goodbye. Neighbors often commented that she was odd (adaladala), but they pitied her because she was clearly troubled by possession sickness. During the last month or so it had also become clear to all of us that she was pregnant. No one had any idea who the father was.

On this afternoon Sosotra behaved in a manner that was very different from what I had witnessed previously. She suddenly burst from her house and fell on the ground, thrashing about, wailing and then shouting fragmented words that were impossible for any of us to understand. When we tried to get near her to calm her down she only became more violent. Finally, a friend of hers, along with two older women in their fifties, lept upon her and held her down until she became quiet. Eventually her aunt (MoSi), with whom she lived, came home, and she immediately arranged to take Sosotra in a taxi to a nearby village in order to consult with a tromba medium who specialized in possession sickness. She also sent for Sosotra’s mother, who arrived the next day, accompanied by two young children. Two days later I saw Sosotra and she appeared quiet, but still sullen, unwilling to talk to me or my friend, who was her neighbor, about what had happened.

Sosotra’s aunt then gave the following account, while Sosotra’s mother was at the market buying food for the evening meal: “These last few months have been very difficult, very hard [sarotra be,mafy be]. Sosotra lived here in town by herself for two years, sharing a room with two schoolmates. She started to get in trouble, staying out all night and skipping classes. When I moved here last year she came to live with me.…Her parents had hoped that she could finish her schooling this year but she soon became very agitated and unhappy in school. Her teachers and neighbors said sometimes she would refuse to go to classes at all; on other days she would come home by late morning.…She wouldn’t eat all day and then she’d go to the disco with her friends and stay all night. Three months ago the njarinintsy started, and she had to drop out of school a month before the term ended. I haven’t known what to do.…Njarinintsy is very difficult and it is dangerous.…We took her to a tromba [medium] and the njarinintsy came out [miboaka] and spoke to [the tromba spirit]. The tromba said, ‘My grandchild [zafiko], why are you bothering this girl? Leave her alone, leave her in peace! What do you want from her?’ I was frightened [mavozobe] for her, but now it all seems pretty funny…the njarinintsy said he wanted Sosotra for his girlfriend [sipa]! but when he saw how unhappy we were, he promised to leave if we gave him some presents. We promised to leave some honey and soda pop near a sacred madiro tree for him, and then he departed. Then Sosotra fell on the ground, delirious but calm, and in the past few days she has slept soundly, without any signs of possession.”

Sosotra’s story parallels that of many other njarinintsy victims: she is under twenty, a school migrant from a village, and pregnant. Her story also parallels those of other girls who were involved in outbreaks of mass possession.

Schoolyard Posssession

Today njarinintsy possession is most common at home; it assumes its most dramatic form in the schoolyard, however, where it also has widespread impact on the community. This is a relatively new phenomenon in Ambanja. The earliest report that I have recorded from northern Madagascar occurred in 1962 in a school in Diégo. Most informants say that they first heard of njarinintsy in the 1970s and that it was brought by Tsimihety migrants. Of the seventeen teachers and school officials interviewed who had either grown up in the area or who had come to Ambanja within the last ten years, all but two reported that they had never heard of this type of possession elsewhere. Of the two who had, they both said that njarinintsy behavior has changed considerably: fifteen to twenty years ago njarinintsy were, for the most part, clowning spirits. As one teacher, who grew up in the north, said, “When I was much younger I would occasionally see [students possessed by] njarinintsy sitting outside a school and playing guitars, calling to passersby to come and sing and dance with them.”^[3] In more recent years, however, they have become increasingly violent. Within the last decade, possession in Ambanja’s junior and senior high schools has become so commonplace that two of the three school principals have formulated policies for handling it.^[4]

A typical scenario^[5] reads as follows: a teacher asks a student to perform a task, perhaps an assignment at the board. The student, instead of responding, will suddenly start to wail. Eventually the sound will grow louder, and she will sob, scream, or yell obscenities. She also might stand up or run about the room. As one teacher who witnessed a case in class explained: “I had asked this girl to read a passage from a French book. Instead she started to cry and then scream! I didn’t understand what was going on—I come from Antananarivo and I had never seen such a thing. When she stood up I became scared.…Two students ran out of the room and a third told me to come, too, so I left and went to look for help.” Often four or five boys will struggle with the njarinintsy victim in an attempt to hold her down. Word travels fast when such an outbreak occurs, so that usually a school official will arrive to help. A school principal explained: “If the girl fails to answer any questions and it is clear that she is possessed, sometimes the only thing to do is to slap her across the face.…I remember I had to hit one student three times! Then she was suddenly quiet and confused, calmly asking me where she was and why she had just been struck.”^[6] After the incident is over, or at least once the girl is under control, a group of friends will escort her to the home of her parents or other close kin (who most often live in the neighboring countryside), so that these family members may take over. Even though the girl may appear calm, the spirit will stay with her, shifting from dormant to active states until a healer coaxes it to leave.

Njarinintsy is thought to be very contagious, and from 1975 to 1980, mass outbreaks of njarinintsy possession were common. When a njarinintsy victim starts to wail, other students will run from the classroom or be ordered to do so by a well-informed teacher or school official. On several occasions fifteen to twenty students became possessed at one time. Sometimes up to four boys were affected, but in all cases the outbreak was initiated by a girl, and girls always formed the majority. Angeline (see chapter 5), for example, became possessed four times in one month, and during two of these episodes as many as ten other students also became possessed, including one boy. At the height of these outbreaks in Ambanja, njarinintsy spread from the junior high school and moved across the street to the primary school.

After attempts to treat njarinintsy possession on an individual basis failed to eliminate this problem in the schools, a group of concerned parents responded by requesting that school officials also become involved. This group of adults decided to call in a powerful moasy to visit the school and determine the causes of mass possession. He said that local ancestors (tromba, razan̂a, and other spirits) were angry, for when the school was built by the French no regard was paid to the sacredness of ancestral ground. During construction several tombs had been moved, and a few were destroyed. This specialist insisted on the necessity of performing a joro ceremony to honor these ancestors. This decision was an unusual one, for school grounds were hardly considered an appropriate setting for this ceremony. Nevertheless, school officials consented. An ox was sacrificed and members of the community gathered to sing to and praise the ancestral spirits, asking forgiveness and permission to continue to work at the school. A photographer was also hired to take a series of pictures to commemorate the event. Following these actions, the frequency of njarinintsy possession dropped considerably that year, with only a few students still experiencing possession fits. Eventually school officials, the possessed students, and their parents met once more with a kalanoro medium, this time in secrecy at night in one of the classrooms, to appease the njarinintsy one last time.^[7] This collective response came from adults of diverse origins, including Sakalava and vahiny parents and schoolteachers and officials, several of whom were from the high plateaux. Their chosen course of action reinstated social order and cohesiveness in the schools. It also led to the reassertion of local Sakalava ritual authority over domains previously usurped by a foreign colonial power.

Njarinintsy Possession and Social Status

As discussed earlier in chapter 5, the causes for, behavior of, and responses to tromba and njarinintsy spirits are quite distinct. Njarinintsy is a form of possession sickness that requires immediate action. Kin must step in to care for the victim before serious harm befalls her. They may need to take her to a series of healers in order to have the spirit (or spirits, since njarinintsy may occur in groups of seven) driven from her. She must be watched closely, and great care must be exercised to ensure that the spirit has departed permanently. If not, she may go mad or die. Most often njarinintsy posssession is caused by fanafody raty or bad medicine. As a result, it is necessary to determine whether possession was brought on by an adversary or if the victim accidentally came into contact with fanafody that was intended for someone else. Another cause may be that the njarinintsy has been sent by a tromba spirit because the victim has been resisting possession (as was true of Angeline). If this is the case, additional steps must be taken to instate her as a tromba medium.

A comparison of the qualities of tromba mediums and njarinintsy victims reveals that gender, age, and other aspects of social status vary for these two forms of possession. Adult female status in Ambanja is defined by crossing thresholds marked by marriage (common law or otherwise) and childbirth. Women who have attained this status form the majority of female tromba mediums. Marriage also provides the idiom for describing tromba possession, since a spirit is said to be the medium’s spouse. Furthermore, through tromba possession a woman’s social ties are enhanced, so that she joins a wide network of other mediums of diverse ages and backgrounds. Also, if she chooses to become a healer, her status in the community is elevated.

The majority of njarinintsy victims, however, have never been married and have had no previous possession experience. Instead, many of these girls are single and pregnant at the time of possession (as was true with Angeline, Monique, and Sosotra). In addition, unlike tromba, njarinintsy possession is a temporary, incomplete form of possession. It is a type of possession sickness in which the possessed is a victim who requires assistance from others at a time of personal crisis. Njarinintsy spirits are not accepted companions of their victims, nor do they assist them in times of need, as do tromba spirits. They are malicious and destructive.

The data recorded in figure 7.1 (chapter 7) and Appendix A reveal several trends regarding njarinintsy. Common themes emerge in the histories of women who have experienced both possession sickness and tromba mediumship and those who have experienced only the former. These two groups can be compared in terms of age of onset of possession, schooling, tera-tany or vahiny status, and history of fertility-related traumas.

First, five of the eighteen female tromba mediums (Angeline, Leah, Marie, Beatrice, and Mariamo) have been afflicted with possession sickness (two of them have experienced it twice). In the case of all five women, possession sickness precipitated mediumship status, which followed shortly afterward: all five have Grandchildren spirits, and the fifth and oldest (Mariamo) has a more prestigious Child spirit. Leah and Marie have each been struck a second time since instating tromba spirits. Year of birth is another determinant for this group: possession sickness has not been experienced by mediums who were over the age of thirty-four in 1987, reflecting that this is a relatively recent phenomenon in Ambanja, that it affects younger women, and that recently it has begun to precede tromba possession.

Age, school experiences, and problems involving romance and fertility also affect the timing of episodes of possession sickness among these (now) established mediums. Angeline, Leah, and Marie were first struck with possession sickness between the ages of seventeen and twenty; Beatrice and Mariamo at thirteen and twenty-six (or thereabouts), respectively. Marie experienced possession sickness three months after the difficult birth of her first child. Angeline was struck after falling in love with her teacher, who left to continue his studies elsewhere while she was expected to stay behind and finish school. Finally, social status is a factor. The women in this first group are either tera-tany or the children of settlers: Angeline, Leah, and Beatrice are Sakalava from a village near Ambanja, Ambanja, and Nosy Be, respectively. Marie is the child of Tsimihety settlers, whereas Mariamo was born of a Comorean father and Sakalava mother in Ambilobe. Four of these five women have completed at least some level of junior high school and the fifth completed primary school.

The second group (Vivienne, Sylvie, Victoria, and Sosotra), composed of women who have been struck by possession sickness only, are predominantly Sakalava: Sylvie was born in Ambanja and Victoria and Sosotra are from nearby villages. Vivienne is the child of a Sakalava mother and Tsimihety father and originally came from Ambanja.^[8] The ages at which njarinintsy episodes occurred for this second group of four women range from fourteen to early thirties; two out of four (Vivienne and Sosotra) were in junior high school. In reference to fertility, Sylvia was struck by njarinintsy one week after a miscarriage, Victoria following an abortion, and Sosostra following her first pregnancy by a secret lover when she was still single.

Several themes emerge if these two categories of women are compared. First, three out of five mediums (Angeline, Leah, Marie) were first struck by possession sickness while they were adolescents enrolled in junior high school. Among those affected to date only by possession sickness, two out of four (Vivienne and Sosotra) were also in junior high school. For all five women questions surrounding female adult status or fertility were important issues at the time. If the specific school experiences are compared between these two groups, three of the five students were what I refer to here as “child” or “school migrants”: Angeline, Vivienne, and Sosotra each came on their own from villages to continue their education in Ambanja. As will become clear below, the relationships between school migration, adult status and fertility, and possession sickness are part of a larger picture framed by historically based national and community forces. Likewise, the responses to these possession episodes are linked to the internal logic of local culture, in which Sakalava customs provided an appropriate response to problems that arise from powerlessness.

The Disorder of a Fragmented World

The members of this community, be they tera-tany or vahiny, young or old, must struggle at some level to cope with forces that challenge notions of cultural and, ultimately, personal identity. The combined forces of colonialism, polyculturalism, and subsequent métisization have led both to the erosion of Sakalava cultural values and to a blurring of ethnic boundaries. Newly arrived migrants must become enmeshed inlocal networks, seeking out friends and relatives who come from the same region of the country. Others attempt to become Sakalava through changes in behavior, dress, and dialect and by participating in such Sakalava institutions as tromba ceremonies. The dilemmas associated with economic survival and social integration frustrate many vahiny. As earlier descriptions of settlers’ stories show, even those who feel content (tamana) in Ambanja continue to be regarded as outsiders by local tera-tany. The most vulnerable group in this context consists of children living alone, since they have neither adult guidance nor the skills to solve the problems associated with town life. The young girls who become possessed by njarinintsy are the most visible victims of this process because they suffer the consequences of unexpected (and unwanted) pregnancies.^[9] They are faced with a complicated and tangled set of desires and expectations; in their possessed states they mirror the problems inherent to schooling on the coast.

Colonial Policies and National Trends: Educational Dilemmas

Problems associated with education characterize the lives of children. In Ambanja, they run beyond those associated merely with high performance in school. In recent times, severe constraints levied by political and economic forces have imposed new frustrations on students. These problems are rooted in changes that occurred during the colonial period. A comparison between today’s schoolchildren and those of past generations illustrates this.

Under the French, schools were built to serve Malagasy students. Primary (FR: primaire) education was mandatory, and the first school for Malagasy in Ambanja was built in 1908, only a few years after the town was founded. An extensive network of primary schools was established throughout the island, with schools located even in the smallest villages. A few students were able to continue on to junior high (collège), high school (lycée), and, ultimately, to professional schools. These children joined a privileged group of students who were groomed to form a future elite class of civil servants. In the Sambirano, special preference was shown for the children of local royalty and others whose parents already worked for the colonial administration (see Crowder 1964, and Gifford and Weiskel 1974, for discussions of French colonial education policies elsewhere in Africa; see also Fallers 1965, especially chaps. 5 and 7ff).

Junior high and high schools were few in number and were generally located in urban centers so as to serve the region. As Malagasy children moved beyond primary school they left home to live in the provincial or national capitals. They were housed in dormitories, where they were placed under the strict supervision of members of a French ruling class. The school was regarded as the primary arena for the application of colonial assimilation policies, whereby French values were promoted and local culture was undermined (cf. Crowder 1964). The education of girls, for example, was comparable to that of French finishing schools, for they were taught homemaking skills and became well versed in the manners that were thought to be essential for women living in a cosmopolitan French society. As Alima, a member of the Bemazava royal lineage explained:

When I was a young girl I was sent to Antananarivo to complete my studies there.…My father was an important man in Ambanja because he was in the direct line of succession.…They were very strict with us at school: we had to learn to sit and act like ladies, dressing and behaving like proper Parisian women.…Our studies were very rigorous, too. In addition to learning how to sew and cook French cuisine, we were instructed in math, geography, French, [and other subjects].…We were both raised and schooled by French matrons.…I hated it there, though. We Sakalava did not like living in dormitories with borzany [derogatory term for Merina]; they are not like us: Sakalava like to bathe three to five times a day, but the Merina girls were very modest, and so they only bathed on the weekends. It was so cold there, too—we had to wash with ice cold water in the winter.

Alima and her peers are now the better educated parents and grandparents of many of the children who live in town today, filling local and provincial adminstrative posts. In spite of the difficulties she faced as a student, Alima’s education served her well in the early days following Independence: under President Tsiranana she was appointed to a ministerial position and was highly regarded in the province of Antsiranana as someone who kept a watchful eye on the needs of people in the north.

In some ways, the policies established under the French have continued since Madagascar’s Independence in 1960 and throughout the period leading up to the Socialist Revolution of the early to mid-1970s. Primary education has remained mandatory, and additional schools have been built in an attempt to accomodate the increasing numbers of children in both urban and rural areas. A characteristic of this French-based educational system is a series of standardized examinations that students must pass if they are to proceed to the next level. Failure and subsequent repetition of school years is not uncommon, and the numbers of enrolled students decrease dramatically as one moves up in the grades into junior high, high school, and the university.

Funds earmarked for education are limited. Schools are unable to accomodate an ever-increasing population of youth, since they lack the funds to cover costs for teachers’ salaries and the maintenance and construction of buildings. As a result, schools remain overcrowded and many students are turned away. The rate of construction of new junior high and high schools continues to be slow. When they are built, they are centrally located in the larger towns. Village children are still forced to leave home if they are to continue their schooling beyond the primary level. In Ambanja, the first public junior high school was built in 1960, the year of Independence, and since 1981 there has been a high school (a new building was completed in 1987; see chapter 6). There is also a private school run by the Catholic Mission, which now extends through high school, with a small men’s seminary attached. Under the French system, there was dormitory housing, but this is no longer provided except for seminary students. When teachers are asked about the problems faced by Ambanja’s youth, the lack of housing is the most commonly cited factor.

The problems that confront Ambanja’s youth are complicated by the contradictions between their aspirations and the political and economic realities inherent to Madagascar today. Because of the difficulty of progressing through the system, success in school is regarded with great pride by adult kin, and so students may stay enrolled in school to please their parents. Nevertheless, employment opportunities are extremely limited in Madagascar. Positions for the better educated, when they are available, often go to those who live in the capital or who have strong connections there. Well aware of these circumstances, students in Ambanja often mock their teachers publicly, asking why they should work hard when there are no jobs to be had. They often state that their parents, the peasants of the Sambirano, are rich because they own land, while the teachers, who hold university degrees, do not make enough to care adequately for their families. Should they wish to attend university, coastal students have a much lower chance of passing the national exams. In addition, it is difficult for coastal students to acquire decent scholarships because of the favoritism that characterizes the educational system. Attending university often is a painful experience because of the hostility between highland and coastal groups.

Children and Polyculturalism

As Gifford and Weiskel state in their review of French colonial educational policies in Africa, “Both in imagination and in fact, the colonial period brought into being a civilisation m[é]tisse: a jostling, a juxtaposition of values. The indelible education, imbedded in the mind and felt through the senses, was a blend of contrasts” (1974: 710). The emphasis on French values continued during the first administration of the government of Madagascar, from Independence until the Socialist Revolution. After the Revolution it was no longer appropriate to strive to be French. Schoolchildren experienced—and suffered the consequences of—the transition during the early years of new malagasization educational policies. These were implemented in Ambanja by 1975 (they will be described in more detail below). It was during this year that the first outbreaks of mass njarinintsy possession occurred.

I have discussed elsewhere (Sharp 1990) the manner in which mandatory education in Madagascar gave rise to adolescence as a new category of experience (cf. Ariès 1965; Lasch 1977: 12ff; Minge 1986), and how this is relevant to the moral education (Durkheim 1961) and subsequent experiences of Ambanja’s schoolchildren. In essence, their preparation for adulthood, which occurs in the village, is cut short as they move to town to continue their schooling. As students under the present state system, they lack the socialization that their predecessors, such as Alima, had, for they are socialized neither by kin nor French school authorities. Instead, they fall between the cracks. Amiability between teachers and students is often blocked by interethnic hostility and prejudice: the majority of their teachers are Merina, whom many Sakalava tera-tany regard as their enemies. This prevents school teachers from being guardians, caretakers, or agents of socialization for their students.

As noted in chapter 6, malagasization has become a cornerstone of government policy following the Socialist Revolution of the 1970s, advocating the supremacy of Malagasy customs (fomba-gasy) over those of foreign origin (fomba vazaha). The effects of malagasization on education, however, have only exacerbated local tensions in schools. Whereas in the past all subjects were taught in French, today this is only true of the last year of high school and at the university. Students enrolled in public schools learn all subjects in official Malagasy, which is based on the Merina dialect, and study French only as one of many subjects. The sudden switch to an all-French curriculum is overwhelming for most students and has led to strikes throughout the country at high schools and the university. Teachers are handicapped as well. As members of the last generation that was schooled in French, they often do not know the technical terms in official Malagasy relevant to the very subjects they are trained to teach. The problems that arise through the use of different dialects can also be severe. Many teachers in Ambanja are not Sakalava (see Mme Razafy in chapter 4, for example), so that not only do teachers and students experience severe communication problems, but coastal students are at a disadvantage when compared to their counterparts in the high plateaux who are familiar with this dialect. Sakalava students also resent having to learn what they perceive as being the Merina dialect. In turn, their own values and experiences often conflict with those they are expected to advocate to the younger generation of students.

Beyond the borders of the schoolyard, these children from the villages face additional problems associated with urbanization and polyculturalism. Like adult migrants, who have come to Ambanja temporarily or permanently in search of work, students from rural areas are responsible for such basic needs as their food and shelter. Some children manage to live with extended kin (this most often involves staying under the care of maternal classificatory mothers and grandmothers). Those without relatives in town must rent a room or a small house made of palm fiber that is paid for by their absent parents, since townspeople are very reluctant to take non-kin into their homes. For example, a friend of mine had such a dwelling in her backyard which she had rented to students for three consecutive years. She explained that the boy who lived there in 1987 was quiet and studious, but he rarely had much to eat. Losing a pad of paper or set of pens could be a severe hardship. When I asked if she fed him or helped him sometimes in other ways she said flatly, “Oh no, he’s not my child, he’s not kin [tsy tsaikiko,tsy havan̂ana izy]…why should I feed him? I have five children of my own to care for.” Thus, these children often live without direct adult supervision, unlike those of a previous era, who were supervised by the teachers of a foreign regime.

Today, many of Ambanja’s children are, in essence, child migrants faced with adult problems. In addition to keeping up with their studies, they are responsible for housekeeping, cooking their own meals, and carefully maintaining monthly budgets. They often face severe economic pressures, since the present constraints of the Malagasy economy on individual households make it difficult for many parents to give more than the bare essentials to children living away from home. If parents own land, it is easier for them to supply their children with rice and other staples. Nevertheless, these students may need to have a supplementary income to pay for extra food and school supplies, and so some turn to stealing to support themselves. In addition, since they have been freed from the constraints that would normally be set by older kin, many of these children fail to resist the attractions available in town. These include going to the cinema, drinking, dancing, and early sexual experiences. In practical terms, not only does their schoolwork suffer, but it is also a severe drain on their pocket money. Girls face the additional problem of pregnancy. Through their involvement in adult town life, Ambanja’s children are often faced with dilemmas that can seriously affect their chances for higher education.

Self-Advancement and Fanafody

Just as Ambanja’s adults are in competition with each other for scarce resources—work, money, and lovers—students, too, compete with each other in the schoolyard and in the classroom. For them, as with adults, fanafody is a major source of control. As mentioned above, the most frequently cited cause for njarinintsy possession is that the victim has come into contact with fanafody raty. Fanafody is acquired by consulting tromba mediums or other specialists and is usually prepared for use with a specific individual in mind. It is placed either where the intended victim will touch or walk over it—on a doorknob, on a personal item, or in a doorway—or it may be put in food or bathwater. Fanafody may affect anyone who comes into contact with it. When attacks of njarinintsy occur in school, those concerned must determine where the fanafody was placed and whether it was prepared by an adversary of the child or child’s kin, or if, perhaps, the afflicted inadvertently came into contact with something that was intended for someone else. Another explanation was illustrated by the 1980 outbreaks of mass possession cited above. When possession continued even after repeated individual consultations with healers, eventually human forces were ruled out and angry ancestors were identified as the direct cause.

As described in previous chapters, fanafody is used by adults to control their own lives; they also use it to assist their children. On numerous occasions I watched worried parents consult tromba mediums for problems related specifically to their children’s performance in school (see, for example, the case of Fatima in chapter 8). Examination time in particular is one of great worry for many parents. This is not very surprising, since the performance and success rates for Ambanja’s students fall well below the national average. Class rank is an important indicator of a child’s success, so that parents may use fanafody not only so that their children will succeed, but so that others will fail. Following patterns set by adults, children also use fanafody against one another, but in a setting particular to their own experience: the schoolyard. For children, the use of fanafody raty is very closely tied to jealousy and fear of one another. As one young informant said when asked about tensions between students and their patterns of association, “I have no friends, I only study. The students in Ambanja are not nice people—if you do well they accuse you of using magic [magique] to succeed and then they use magic against you to make you fail.”

In addition to scholastic success, social competition is also a major preoccupation of young students. Village children who have come to town for their schooling and live alone, unhampered by adult supervision, are likely to be more socially active than their town-based counterparts. Such children, in general, form the majority of those seen out at night in the streets on promenade (mitsangantsangana) or in bars and discos. Ambanja’s youth are also sexually active at an early age—for girls this may mean as early as thirteen, whereas boys lag behind by a few years. Young students and teachers both report that competition among girls for male attention can be fierce. Teachers agree that when fights occur in the schoolyard they often center on disputes of this nature between two girls. The frequent use of fanafody raty on school grounds accounts for the common occurrence of njarinintsy attacks in school. As proof of this, informants point out that it is the “prettiest girls” (tsara tarehy) who most often become possessed. One of two reasons is generally given to support this observation: other students are more likely to be jealous of them and wish to cause them harm, and njarinintsy prefer them because they are so attractive (thus Sosotra’s spirit wanted her to be his girlfriend or sipa). School officials are also quick to point out that, in almost all cases, it is later learned that these girls, like Sosotra, were in the early stages of pregnancy when they became possessed.

Coping with Pregnancy

Pregnancy among these girls throws the nature of these children’s dilemmas into high relief, since it is an obvious sign of participation in the adult world. Cross-cultural comparison reveals that Ambanja’s students share experiences with children in many other countries, where changing social patterns affect the rates of premarital pregnancy among adolescent girls (cf. Lancaster and Hamburg, eds., 1986; Worthman and Whiting 1987). In recent years, this topic has also become a concern for such international agencies as UNICEF, the World Health Organization, and Planned Parenthood International (Kulin 1988).

In Ambanja, girls tend to become sexually active before boys their own age do, sleeping with older boys or men. In addition, these village girls who live alone and unsupervised in town are more likely to become involved in the town’s nightlife than town-based girls, whose relatives monitor which boys they see. Although students interviewed insist that it is unlikely that a girl who is sexually active is working as a prostitute (makarely), it is likely that she is someone’s mistress (deuxième bureau). A sign that a man treats his mistress well is that he buys her expensive gifts, such as perfume, imported fabrics, and gold jewelry. He will also be expected to take her places, such as the cinema or discos, or to the more cosmopolitan centers of Nosy Be or Diégo. A schoolgirl who receives such attention is thus easy to recognize. She may become an object of envy, either for other girls who wish to have a similar relationship or who are fond of the same man, or for boys whose attentions go unrequited.

Responses by kin to adolescent pregnancy are often marked by severe sanctions. As one girl explained, “My parents were very angry and refused to speak to me for weeks.” For Malagasy, a refusal to speak to the injuring party is an extreme response in moments of great anger or sadness. This can, literally, go on for weeks. It is a form of social death for the transgressor, since a refusal to communicate serves as a denial of the other’s existence. In most cases, the parents will eventually accept the pregnancy, for Malagasy value children very highly. Also, this response from parents is not that unusual when viewed more broadly and historically. It parallels patterns set by adults in Ambanja, among whom short-term marriages are common.

For children in school, however, pregnancy adds special hardships for girls and it is regarded as a very serious matter. Village parents are often reluctant to send their daughters away to school, because they worry that if they live unsupervised in town they might become pregnant. A decision by parents to allow a daughter to attend school away from home is proof of their confidence in her. If she does indeed become pregnant, it is a breach of this confidence as well as a disappointment. Furthermore, school policies and economic constraints will force her to end her schooling prematurely, since it is the policy of all schools to expel the girl if officials discover that she is pregnant. Youth of Ambanja say that school officials rarely look for the boy who is responsible. (I understand, however, that at the new high school these girls may finish the term, but it is generally assumed they will leave school after the baby is born.)^[10] A pregnant girl undergoes extreme hardship if the father of the child refuses to support her and the child. In response, close kin—especially the girl’s mother—will usually step in and help raise and care for the child. The girl, in turn, may choose to remain in town where it will be easier for her to make a living.

As the data shows, njarinintsy spirits attack their victims in times of personal conflict. Most often they are associated with an incomplete transition to womanhood and, more specifically, with problems of fertility. Possession provides the idiom and the human body the vehicle for expressing such conflicts. From a Sakalava point of view, tromba mediumship marks a sanctioned transition to adult female status: typically it occurs among women who are in their twenties or older and who have already borne at least one child. In contrast, njarinintsy occurs at thresholds where this transition is incomplete. These experiences parallel Boddy’s descriptions of northern Sudanese women who are possessed by zar spirits (1988, 1989). Njarinintsy occurs at junctures where fertility is sudden and problematic: njarinintsy victims are adolescent girls who are confronted with unwanted pregnancy and motherhood. They have not been issued into this status by supportive kin. Rather they are alone in town, and this event carries serious consequences for them. Thus they stand on the brink of adult female status without having achieved it in culturally sanctioned ways. Were they in the village, a mate would be expected to declare paternity and support the child. They, however, are schoolgirls, sent to town to complete their studies, and they are expected to postpone motherhood. Contrary to their parents’ expectations, they have become involved in the town’s nightlife, sleeping with men who treat them as mistresses but not as wives.

Children and Social Change

The victims of njarinintsy possession comprise an unusual group, whose status is defined as marginal from a multiplicity of angles. They are caught in limbo between childhood and adulthood, forced prematurely to become adults before they have been fully socialized. This has the most severe consequences for schoolgirls. Should they choose to participate in the sexual realm of town life, they risk becoming targets for scorn, jealousy, and fanafody raty. If they suddenly find themselves pregnant, they must face the anger of their parents, often, abandonment by their lovers, banishment from school, and, finally, the economic necessity of finding work so that they may support their children. These dilemmas—which result from recent political, ideological, and economic changes—may be overwhelming, since these girls are young, inexperienced, and alone.

Displaced Sakalava and Invading Spirits

Themes of displacement and disorder are reiterated in concrete and symbolic ways in the context of njarinintsy school possession. As Feeley-Harnik explains (1991b, chaps. 4 and 5), the movement or displacement from village (antsabo, “at the crops”) to town (ampositra, “at the post”) is a disturbing aspect of recent history for the Bemihisatra-Sakalava of the Analalava region. Among the tera-tany of Ambanja, however, those who move frequently are not so much adults in search of work, wealth, or spouses (Feeley-Harnik 1991b: 279), but children who are sent on their own to further their educations and hope to draw on their training to assist their kin financially in the future. Thus, these children define an unusual category of migrants. Most often they are tera-tany or the children of settlers; but while their parents may feel established and content (tamana) in rural villages, these children must cope with problems similar to those of other newly arrived migrants in town, including the shortage of housing and the high cost of living. Their problems are compounded by those that exist at school, most notably involving the consequences of malagasization.

Marginality is a central aspect of njarinintsy possession. By contrast, to become a tromba medium, one must be well integrated into the community. Young women like Basely (chapter 7) can not become mediums unless they can afford to host the appropriate ceremonies and situate themselves within a locus of supportive kin and close friends already familiar with tromba possession. Such a status shift is not possible for adolescent schoolgirls, first, because they have not yet achieved adult status in a socially sanctioned way and, second, because they live isolated in town, far from kin. The responses to individual cases of njarinintsy possession—as with any form of sickness—reflect the necessity of collective action, in which family and friends congregate to care for and socialize with the afflicted. The responses to repeated cases of group possession were a bit different in that they involved participation that went beyond kin and friendship networks. The cooperative actions of parents and school officials eventually stabilized these girls’ social positions and reintegrated them into a community of caring adults.

Disorder and fragmentation are concepts that are communicated symbolically through njarinintsy possession (cf. Lambek 1981; Ackerman and Lee 1981). Again, a comparison between tromba and njarinintsy clarifies this. First, although dialogue is a very important aspect of tromba, direct communication is not characteristic of njarinintsy. During fits of njarinintsy possession, a message of chaos and dysfunction is conveyed through the actions of the victim’s body. Njarinintsy spirits express rage, taking the form of insults and physical violence directed at people and objects. The spirits’ actions are sporadic and unpredictable and the words they utter consist of incomplete phrases and swearing, so that their messages are vague, fragmented, and garbled. There is a dynamic at work here between communication and power. Tromba mediums may wield much control through their words, both in a household and in the community at large, but the power of njarinintsy possession is short-lived, leading only to the temporary closing down of schools while parents and authorities seek explanations for the causes for these events. In addition, njarinintsy is an incomplete form of possession: the lifetime training and self-exploration so characteristic of tromba is not part of the njarinintsy experience. Instead, njarinintsy is a temporary state that is frightening and confusing for both victims and witnesses. This type of dangerous spirit must be driven from its victim; only then perhaps may she anticipate becoming a tromba medium sometime in the future.

In addition, njarinintsy spirits, like the displaced children they possess, are in some sense migrants themselves. They are viewed as being a problematic and marginal category of spirits in Ambanja (and, more generally, in northwest Madagascar). Most mediums state that njarinintsy are either like tromba, referring to them as “little tromba” (tromba hely) or “bad tromba” (tromba raty). Others (such as the medium who assisted Sosotra) view them as the “children” or “grandchildren of tromba.”^[11] Local concern over the effects of polyculturalism and métisization are reflected in njarinintsy as well. As described earlier, Bemazava royalty are emphatic in their statements that njarininintsy are of foreign origin, brought by Tsimihety migrants from the south. From a purist stance, these are invading and troublesome spirits that belong neither in Sakalava territory nor in Sakalava royal lineages. In essence, they are perceived to be a threat to the continuation of Sakalava power and succession.

Displacement and confusion also characterize the geography of the schoolyard, the locus of outbreaks of njarinintsy possession. Here the “jostling” and “juxtaposition of values” to which Gifford and Weiskel (1974: 710) refer take on a more disturbing tone. Eventually the cause of mass outbreaks was identified as angry ancestors whose tombs had been displaced by French colonial officials. The subsequent use of the schoolyard by the community continued this disregard for Sakalava sacred space. This breach of local custom was in turn exacerbated by the presence of non-Sakalava students, Merina schoolteachers, and the programmatic curricular changes that occurred through malagasization. Thus, as indigenous and proper ancestral spirits were displaced, these njarinintsy of foreign origin began to dominate the schoolyard, sent by the ancestors to harm the living.

Additional actions by schoolchildren themselves complete this image of displacement in the schoolyard. In this setting, children compete with each other for success in school; they also compete for romantic partners. Whereas the use of fanafody is a factor of everyday adult life in the town at large, the frequency of use is especially high in the schoolyard. This is compounded by the fact that the space is small and its borders clearly demarcated. Thus, potentially everyone runs the risk of being affected. Victims of njarinintsy are often those who accidentally come into contact with substances left to harm someone else, and so, like these children and their spirits, the dangerous effects of fanafody raty may be displaced onto an unintended victim. Anger and frustration underlie this world of children, who must cope with interethnic hostilities and the problems brought on by national educational policies. Their powerlessness is aptly expressed by their frequent use of fanafody raty and through the volatile actions of the njarinintsy spirits.

In this setting, njarinintsy possession has not assumed a static form. Instead, it has changed in response to localized social and political forces. Whereas in the 1960s these were mild-mannered and clowning spirits, by the mid-1970s they had become violent and uncontrollable. Njarinintsy possession communicates marginality, as young, displaced migrants are seized by foreign entities whose erratic behavior operates as an expression of their fragmented world. Ironically, it is the actions of these marginalized children that led to the reassertion of Sakalava power. Such an outcome, however, was possible only through the active participation of adults.

Responses to Schoolyard Possession: Sakalava Revivalism

There is no question that njarinintsy disrupts the social order in school and even in the community at large. The solutions chosen were varied. At first, kin were responsible for ensuring that individual children were treated by a local healer. By 1980, however, mass possession occurred with alarming frequency in the junior high school, involving at least one outbreak each week for over a month. The more intensive solutions that followed were embedded in a local, dominant cultural logic, prompted by the actions of a culturally and socially alienated group of youth. In essence, Sakalava traditionalism provided the appropriate responses at a time of acute personal and community crisis. Prior to these mass possession events, schools and other buildings constructed by the French or the state were not viewed as appropriate settings for joro ceremonies for honoring ancestors. Thus, the boundaries of sacred space were broadened as a result of these events.^[12]

Malagasization played an important role in the incidence of and responses to outbreaks of njarinintsy in ways that at first appear contradictory, since, in part, malagasization may be viewed as the root or cause of the problem—but it also provided appropriate responses and solutions. Mass outbreaks of group possession coincided with the institutionalization of malagasization in Ambanja. This policy was formulated at a national level to foster a sense of national identity and culture among all Malagasy speakers. Those students who were affected by njarinintsy were members of the first classes that took their exams in Malagasy, and their possession can be viewed in part as a form of symbolic protest against this new educational policy. Yet another aspect of malagasization, however, is an emphasis on the need to respect local customs, and so the hosting of a joro ceremony on school grounds was a logical application of this policy. By 1980 this aspect of local Sakalava culture provided the appropriate answers for children struggling with the problems of urbanization and state education. Since it involved the participation of adults and school officials, tera-tany and vahiny (among whom there were Merina) came together to honor and recognize the authority of local Sakalava ancestors.

The effects of this decision were eventually felt beyond the confines of the town’s schoolyards, since it set in motion a chain of events that led to the institutionalization of Sakalava authority and power over the local tanindrazan̂afa. When the decision was made to build a new high school in Ambanja, living and dead royalty held sway over all major decisions. Similarly, the approval of the royal tromba spirits was—and continues to be—required if state-owned boats wish to fish in the sacred waters off Nosy Faly (see chapter 6; for an interesting contrast see Ong 1988).^[13] Thus, it was a fragmented, incomplete form of possession, involving non-Sakalava spirits, which led to the reintegration of alienated youth and the reassertion of local Sakalava power.

The question that remains is what form njarinintsy possession will assume in the future. Njarinintsy has begun to become an integral part of tromba, often preceding mediumship among the younger women of Ambanja. It already appears to be taking a dominant role in ushering girls into womanhood in cases where their female social status is problematic. In addition, the playboy Grandchildren—whom some say were at one time njarinintsy—now frequently possess Ambanja’s children. Perhaps they will replace the royal spirits of Nosy Faly in dictating the direction of local culture through this future generation of mediums, who must make sense of new tensions shaped by this ever-changing world of urbanization and polyculturalism.

Notes

10. Exorcising the Spirits: The Alternative Therapeutics of Protestantism^[1]

I wish to end this study with a discussion of an alternative form of healing offered by an unusual group of vahiny in northwest Madagascar. Protestant exorcists serve as a final option in a locally conceived hierarchy of resort (Romanucci-Ross 1977), especially for problems associated with spirit possession and madness. A wide array of indigenous practitioners (including tromba, kalanoro, moasy, mpisikidy) play key roles in diagnosing and treating the symptoms associated with these categories of experience.^[2] However, if their repeated efforts fail to improve the health status of a patient she (usually with her kin) may seek treatment from other healers whose training is derived from nonindigenous (Western and Christian) sources.

Two factors account for this reluctance on the part of Sakalava patients and their kin to consult with Protestant exorcists. First, ethnic factionalism is key. Although exorcists working in northern Madagascar are all Malagasy, they are rarely Sakalava, and many come from the high plateaux. The fact that they are strangers creates an interesting dynamic in the context of therapy. Second, Protestants embrace a competing view of reality and, more specifically, of possession. Since they consider tromba spirits to be evil, few Sakalava are willing to seek out their treatments. In some cases, however, the exorcists’ healing approaches and philosophy offer a welcome escape from the otherwise unavoidable problems that accompany possession.

The therapy offered by Protestants also carries important implications for the study of the ongoing dynamics of identity and power. As shown throughout this work, tromba is a mainstay of social life in Ambanja, yet a minority of women eventually choose to opt out of mediumship. One’s social status is raised by virtue of being a medium and healer, but the possession experience has its problems. As all mediums say, their spirits make them “suffer” (mijaly). From a Sakalava perspective, once a spirit is instated, possession is permanent, and a medium must accept the suffering that accompanies this status as part of her fate. A few, however, find the associated hardships to be intolerable. Exorcists offer these mediums a way to be freed of their spirits. In order to do so, however, a medium must reject Sakalava respect for and beliefs about royal ancestors. Exorcists also expect their clients to convert to Protestantism, thus permanently embracing a worldview contrary to that of their own culture.

Sakalava Perceptions of Possession and Madness

In Ambanja, when mediums and other informants describe possession they sometimes compare it to madness (adala, adalan̂a; also, marary saina,very saina/jery, “sick” or “lost mind”). Even though possession and madness are regarded as distinct categories of experience, they overlap somewhat in their causation, symptomatology, and treatment. According to Sakalava informants, possession and madness define a spectrum of symptoms where severity is an important distinction. In this model, tromba possession and madness occupy opposite poles, and possession sickness falls somewhere in between (see figure 10.1). This spectrum of experiences ranges from a good, powerful, and inescapable state to a destructive, dangerous, and frightening illness.

Tromba possession is distinct in that it is an accepted form of behavior and experience, involving periodic changes in personality, dress, and other characteristics as the medium moves in and out of trance. Although tromba spirits periodically may cause harm to a medium—making her sick if they are angry, for example—they are generally regarded as sacred, powerful, and beneficial entities that look after the medium, her kin, and her clients.

Njarinintsy, masoantoko, shay-tuan and bilo are evil, reckless, and uncontrollable spirits. Since they simultaneously are forms of spirit possession and sickness (marary), they occupy a position somewhere between tromba and madness. As described in chapter 9, a njarinintsy, for example, is a generic spirit that has no personal name. Although it possesses and controls the body of its victim, this (as well as other forms of possession sickness) is temporary, and it is regarded as a special form of illness that ceases when the spirit is driven from its victim. During fits of possession a victim may be described as being temporarily mad, suffering from a “sick mind” or “sick spirit” (marary saina) because she periodically and uncontrollably shouts obscenities, attacks people, or wanders aimlessly through the streets. If the harmful spirit(s) is not driven from the victim it may have long-lasting effects, ultimately driving her permanently insane or even killing her.

Madness is a general illness category defined very broadly by more serious forms of deviant behavior which are fairly constant and long-term. Madness is a frightening problem, for, as an extreme illness category, it is very difficult to cure. It is defined in reference to possession, but it is not the same. Madness may be caused by an angry spirit, brought upon its victim by a tromba because she is resisting possession, or by a malicious spirit, such as a njarinintsy, which has been allowed to stay too long within her. One of the primary problems with madness, however, is it does not necessarily result from a foreign entity that actually resides in the victim. The intangibility of the problem is part of what makes it extremely difficult to treat.

Possession offers other clues for understanding Sakalava conceptions of madness. Whereas tromba is good (tsara) and sacred (masina), madness, like possession sickness, is bad (raty). Communication is also an important factor in distinguishing these categories from one anther. Tromba spirits have full-fledged personalities that enable them to converse and interact with the living. The speech of njarinintsy and similar spirits, on the other hand, is angry and garbled. The mad occupy the other polar extreme: they speak nonsense and this is a constant state for them, unlike the fits that characterize possession sickness.

Although madness may sometimes be confused with possession sickness (especially at onset), it is a distinct category because it is viewed as an extreme and potentially permanent state of being. In Ambanja there were two individuals who were often seen in public places and who were labeled as mad (adala, adalan̂afa). One was an Antandroy man who wore women’s clothing and who carried a stick, which he would swing at passersby. The second was a Comorean woman who, even though she had kin in town, preferred to sleep outside and eat out of garbage heaps. In contrast, the behavior of a victim of possession sickness may be very odd or frightening, but after a fit has ended she appears normal and does not remember what happened. The significance of the breaking of social norms in labeling the mad is evident in the manner in which the diminuitive term adaladala is applied. It is used, in a teasing way, to describe anyone who acts odd or silly. As the following story illustrates, a person must be seriously ill to be called adala or adalan̂a.

The Case of Victoria

One of the more spectacular public displays of njarinintsy violence that I witnessed occurred one afternoon on the main street of Ambanja. As this case illustrates, the application of the label of possession sickness became increasingly problematic, eventually leading those who knew Victoria to relabel her as mad (adalan̂a).

One afternoon I was standing in line in the Peasant’s Bank. Suddenly all three bank tellers ducked behind the counter just as a rush of water flew through the air and hit a crowd of people to my right. I spun around and saw a woman in her thirties standing on the veranda. It was my neighbor Victoria, who often suffered from attacks of njarinintsy. She was soaking wet, holding a bucket in the hand of her limp right arm, and she had a faraway stare. I also noticed that she had one black eye. An older woman started to yell at Victoria, telling her to get away from the bank and leave her alone. Instead, Victoria suddenly made another rush for the interior of the bank, threatening the woman with her empty bucket, waving it in her direction as if to pitch more water on her. Two young men escorted the older woman out, and Victoria, after wandering around the bank for a minute or two longer, departed, walking aimlessly, as if drunk, down the main street and past the post office. The three bank employees, giggling nervously, peered out from under the counter and, then, cautiously, stood up and continued their work. When the older woman was out of sight two customers explained to the rest of us in line that the woman whom Victoria was aiming for was her nasty (masiaka) mother-in-law.

Victoria had been plagued by njarinintsy for over a year; as she told me once, “I suffer too much” (Izaho mijaly loatra). She could often be seen wandering through the streets of Ambanja, wailing and crying, and she argued on a daily basis with her spouse and his kin. Within the last three months her fits of possession happened so frequently that some of my neighbors joked that you could tell the time of day by when Victoria would wander by. Others were disturbed by her behavior: as an old schoolteacher of hers sadly explained, these days it was more common to see Victoria in a possessed state than out of one. He and others stated that njarinintsy should not be like that—generally the victim has fits and then she is fine, but Victoria always seemed to be possessed. One of her friends speculated that perhaps Victoria had been sick for so long from njarinintsy possession that it had started to drive her insane (adalan̂a), that she had started to lose her mind (very jery).

All who knew Victoria agreed that her story was very sad (mampalahelo). Victoria was Sakalava from a nearby village. After completing two years of high school she had met her (common law) husband, who was a truck driver for a northern transport company, and she dropped out of school to accompany him to Diégo where he lived. She had been a gifted student and soon found work at a local business as a bookkeeper. Victoria had always hoped to finish her studies at the private French School there, something that her husband had promised he would help her do if she came to live with him. But ten years later and after having had three children, she was still working long hours. She still dreamed of learning more French and studying Italian. Two years ago her husband had lost his job and he had insisted that they return to Ambanja, a town she hated. There had been much tension (and violence) in her marriage during the last four years. This had increased within the past eighteen months, after her husband had learned that she had secretly had an abortion. As a neighbor explained: “Her husband became very angry with her, and he beat her on and off for several days. The noise was terrible!…Two neighbors had to go to the house to stop him.…Now her mother-in-law is angry at her, because she won’t do anything she is told.”

At this point the attacks of njarinintsy began. Her in-laws took her to two healers, but neither succeeded in driving the spirit(s) from her. They then summoned Victoria’s mother and sister, who lived in a village thirty kilometers from Ambanja. As Victoria’s sister later explained, they took her to a series of expensive healers, but all were unable to encourage a spirit of any kind to speak. Even when a kalanoro made all sorts of promises to leave very expensive items at a sacred spot for the spirit to consume, the only signs that Victoria was troubled by spirits were that she would sob uncontrollably and thrash about on the floor during the healing sessions. Her kin had become increasingly worried, because now they were not sure how to cure (mitaha) Victoria. Her mother and sister went home, leaving her in her husband’s care.

Two nights after the episode in the bank Victoria struck again. She had wandered aimlessly into a bar where her husband was drinking with his brother, some friends, and two women reputed to be prostitutes. As the proprietor later explained in disbelief, Victoria had suddenly rushed behind the bar, grabbing bottles of expensive imported whiskey and rum and smashing them on the floor. Her husband jumped up and grabbed her, dragged her out into the street, and then he began to pound her with his fists. His brother and two other men finally stopped him, and Victoria was escorted home. The next day her in-laws again summoned Victoria’s mother and sister, and told them to take her home to their village. By this time everyone who knew Victoria was certain that she was not sick with possession sickness but was insane. Within the week her sister and mother came from their village and, after spending the night, they took her to the provincial hospital in Diégo. I later learned from her sister that Victoria had spent one month in the asylum and that she was now “quite content [tamana] living by herself in Diégo.…She has not suffered from an attack since we brought her there.”

Victoria’s story reveals how kin, as well as members of the community at large, were actively involved in assessing Victoria’s problem and, ultimately, relabeling it as madness rather than possession sickness. Several factors led to this reassessment of her condition. First, her fits were not short-lived, but instead had begun to dominate her life—to see her out of a possessed state had become an unusual event. The level of violent behavior was typical of njarinintsy, but the frequency of her unusual social misconduct led others to believe that it was more than this. Even the most gifted healers of the region could not drive any spirit from her. Furthermore, if she had a spirit, it was odd that it would never talk, even in fragmented speech. The decision to take Victoria to the asylum was one of last resort, only after the efforts of a series of indigenous healers had failed.

The Limitations of Clinical Medicine

As Victoria’s story illustrates, clinical medicine (and, more specifically, psychiatry) provides one option of last resort for extreme cases of possession and madness. The choice to go to the psychiatrist or the exorcist is a personal matter and the actions of patients and their kin reveal no particular trend of favoring one over the other. More often, however, patients leave the asylum for the exorcists, rather than the other way around.

As I have argued elsewhere (Sharp, in press), the efficacy of psychiatric medicine in northern Madagascar is hampered by a multitude of factors. Problems in part result from a reliance on drug therapy in a country where prescribed medications are often unavailable in local pharmacies (cf. Sachs and Tomson 1992; Vogel and Stephens 1989; for contrast see Lee et al. 1991; Silverman, Lee, and Lydecker, 1986; and Silverman, Lydecker, and Lee, 1990). The practice of isolating patients from kin while they are in the asylum also runs contrary to indigenous therapeutic practices.^[3] In turn, as others have argued (Zola 1978; see also Dunk 1989; Lock 1984; Ong 1988; Pappas 1990), the medicalization of disorder often empowers the doctor while silencing the patient. To quote Taussig (1980b: 8), this leads to “the alienation of the patient’s self-understanding and capacity” to articulate the causes of her suffering. In Madagascar, a reliance on Western-derived clinical approaches means that the psychiatrist and patient have radically different perceptions of illness. In essence, they suffer from what I have referred to as “conflicting epistemological realities” that block treatment.^[4] Clinical medicine denies the legitimacy of the subjective experience of possession.

Ethnic differences between patients and clinicians are also significant. Malagasy doctors working in the north are generally strangers to the region and rarely see possession (or know that a patient is possessed). Several factors account for this: some informants stated that it is taboo (fady) for njarinintsy victims, for example, to receive injections, and mediums are generally reluctant to mention their spirits to doctors for fear of being ostracized. Also, Sakalava—regardless of whether or not they have spirits—generally avoid clinics because they do not want to come into contact with Merina doctors.

As this chapter will show, exorcism is likewise an extreme choice of therapy, yet a few Sakalava opt for it because it offers powerful alternatives for those who have endured great suffering. Even though exorcisms are painful and frustrating for patients, exorcists are successful healers because they first accept and then transform the patient’s explanations for and experiences of possession and madness. During Protestant healing rituals possession is viewed as an appropriate idiom for describing illness, and madness is redefined as normative, not deviant, behavior. Ultimately this approach carries significant implications for the empowerment of both the patient and the healer and it may lead to a permanent transformation of the patient’s identity.

Catholic and Muslim Perspectives on Possession

Ambanja, a large town, is a religious center for Catholics, Muslims, and Protestants. To a large extent the membership of these faiths is defined by the ethnic and geographic divisions that exist in Madagascar. The majority of Sakalava belong to no church (tsy mivavaka; “don’t pray”). Those who do are either Catholic or Muslim (the latter is true especially if they are royalty). Rarely are they Protestant—Sakalava generally define themselves in opposition to those other ethnic groups whose members are. Since it is the Protestants who specialize in exorcism in Madagascar, they will be the primary focus of this chapter. Before discussing their activities, however, I will first provide a brief overview of Catholic and Muslim ideas about possession, many of which overlap. In addition, Catholic and Muslim points of view throw into high relief the relative severity or strictness of the Protestant stance.^[5]

Catholic Enculturation and Attitudes toward Possession

As a response to enculturation policies, the Catholic church in Ambanja takes a laissez-faire attitude toward possession. Although it does not openly condone tromba possession, it does not prohibit it either, as do the Protestants. Among Ambanja’s Catholics, Sakalava religion is a subject of intellectual interest. During interviews that I conducted with priests and nuns (who were European as well as Sakalava) their collective approach to possession was generally philosophical or theological in nature. They would return my questions by asking: “What is it—is the spirit real, or is it a delusion that people believe in? How do we explain it? Is it psychological? What is its social and cultural significance?” (cf. Estrade 1979). Several Sakalava clergy have written their theses in France on Sakalava religion, with a special emphasis on tromba (see, for example, Jaovelo-Dzao 1983, 1987). Clergy who show an interest in local culture may be invited periodically by Sakalava parishioners to observe tromba ceremonies. Given these attitudes, it is not surprising that the majority of mediums I interviewed over the course of a year were Catholic, and many sent their children to the local mission school. Just after Easter I visited several mediums in their homes where I found palm frond crosses that they had acquired at mass. In several instances Grandchildren spirits identified themselves as Catholic, as were their mediums (although this news of Catholic spirits shocked church officials). As mentioned earlier, mediums sometimes call on the Christian God, Andriamanitra (“The King of Heaven”), rather than using Zanahary, the collective name for ancestors, when they invoke their tromba spirits.

All priests are trained exorcists, but the Catholic church in Ambanja does not offer this service to its parishioners. Instead, the diocese has an official exorcist who lives in a remote town on the east coast of the island. Whereas Protestants view tromba and other spirits as demons and possession as the work of Satan, the Catholic point of view is more compatible with the Sakalava one. As one Italian priest stated, “It is a matter of faith…if a woman comes to me and says that she is troubled by spirits, I encourage her to pray with me, because this seems to help.” In those cases where a parishioner seeks greater assistance from a priest, she may be told to go to the Protestants to be exorcised and then to return to her own church to pray. This is what happened in the case of a woman named Vivienne (see below).

Islam

Muslims in Ambanja are fairly tolerant in their attitudes towards possession. Islamic tolerance is also due, in part, to the fact that in Ambanja men are most active in Islam. Possession is common cross-culturally within the context of Sunni Islam, which recognizes the possibility of possession by jinn (see, for example, Crapanzano 1973, 1977b, 1983; Eikelman 1968; I.M. Lewis 1986, especially chap. 6; I.M. Lewis et al., eds. 1991; Nimtz 1980). Among the Muslims of Ambanja, tromba and other Sakalava spirits are relabeled as such, and are called jiny or devoly (devils, demons).^[6] Although all mosques in town have an area or separate building set aside where women may pray, ordinarily no more than ten women attend on a regular basis, and so few members would be mediums. It is not unusual for Muslim men, who are active at themosque, to have spouses who are not Muslim or who are observant only during Ramadan (Ramzan). Some Muslim men have wives who are tromba mediums, and many Muslims consult mediums, moasy, and other indigenous healers when they are ill. Muslims in Ambanja also have their own specialists called badry (so named after the text they use and the ritual they perform), whose healing powers are derived from books written in Arabic.^[7] In Ambanja, exorcisms are occasionally held at mosques to drive out spirits from the possessed, but more often adherents see no conflict between possession activities and Islam. The few who seek to have jiny exorcised tend to be men and not women. In such cases it is the priest or fondy (also referred to sometimes as the mwalimo, from the kiSwahili word mwalimu) who performs the exorcism. This generally involves the burning of incense and group prayer at the mosque.

The one exception is a reformist group that I will refer to as Modern Islam. Modern Islam was formed in 1979 by members drawn from an assortment of mosques who found the attitudes of Muslims in town to be too lenient—and syncretic—for their tastes. Members of this group view themselves as more literary and “pure” in their approach to Islam. They stress the necessity of learning how to read and write Arabic (most members of other mosques learn prayer strictly through memorization). Also, more recently, Modern Islam has sought to impose greater restrictions on women by introducing the veil and purdah. So far this has been met with great resistance from local women, so that the female membership of this group lags far behind that of men (there are approximately ten women to sixty or seventy men). Modern Islam also stresses the need to be “scientific.” Its leaders are vehemently opposed to the work of moasy, tromba mediums, and other indigenous healers. If njarinintsy possession is suspected, for example, the afflicted is instructed to go to the hospital first to make sure that her shaking is not caused, perhaps, by malaria. As one member put it, “If it is truly possession, we believe that it is the work of the devil; we are like Christians in this respect.”

Leaders of Modern Islam are able to perform exorcisms, but as of 1987 only one possession case had ever been treated. This involved a tromba medium named Berthine (see Appendix A) who chose to convert because her new husband was a Muslim; it was necessary to rid her of her spirit before she could join. The exorcism involved the following steps. First, she had to break the tromba’s taboos (fady). Second, all of the spirit’s paraphernalia were burned in the mosque. Third, she was asked to pray with others in the mosque. When the tromba spirit cried out, the Koran was placed on her head and the spirit was driven out of her through prayer, as if it were a jiny. Afterward, she was instructed to pray for five days, five times a day. As will be clear from the discussion below, these rituals parallel those that occur during Protestant exorcisms.

The Fifohazana or Protestant Exorcists

Nearly all Protestant sects in Madagascar conduct exorcisms. Some have special curing retreats where exorcists work full-time; two of the mostactive groups are the Lutherans and the FJKM.^[8] The exorcist movement and its associated specialists are referred to as fifohazana (HP: “awakening,” “revival”; from the verb mifoha, “to wake,” “to arise”); they are also called mpiandry (HP: “shepherds”). Since I am specifically interested in those activities that are related to spirit possession, I will refer to them here as exorcists. Satan (Satany) and devils (devoly) are thought to cause misfortune, and so the exorcist’s goal is to drive spirits out of the bodies of their victims. In general terms, individuals usually fall ill because they have no faith in Jesus (Jesosy).

Exorcists have received special training as healers and they form a special branch of their respectives churches. The majority are Malagasy, and they include pastors, evangelists, and parishioners. They are male and female, and they come from a wide variety of backgrounds, including peasants and educated professionals. Ethnic affiliation reflects the geographical distribution of Protestant missionary activities throughout the island: typically they are Merina and Betsileo from the highlands. There are also Antandroy, Antaisaka, and Antaimoro from the south and southeast and Tsimihety from the west and north. Rarely are they Sakalava or Antakarana. In Ambanja, several churches hold exorcism ceremonies on a regular basis. The FJKM church, which is by far the largest Protestant church in town, is most actively involved in this, and has more than a dozen trained specialists. Others include the Lutheran church and a small Pentecostal group that calls itself the Fifohazana Church, which broke off from the FJKM over a decade ago.

Exorcists gain inspiration and guidance from prophets, and each church has its own. According to FJKM records, the fifohazana movement was started in the 1880s by a Betsileo man from the high plateaux named Rainisoalambo. He was a diviner (mpisikidy) who suffered from severe and incurable skin problems. He had a dream in which he was told to go to the church, and so the next day he threw away his medicines (fanafody-gasy) and went there with his children. Eventually he built his own church in Soatanana, near Fianarantsoa, where he began to heal others. Soatanana is now a major center for fifohazana training and healing activities for numerous churches (Anonymous 1962; Rasamoela 1975; Trexler 1989). Although each church has its own prophets, the Lutherans pride themselves on having the only living prophet, who is named Nenilava (“Tall Mother”). Nenilava is Antaimoro and is the daughter of an herbalist (HP: ombiasy) who converted to Lutheranism when she was young. Her visions and wisdom concerning the teachings of Christ make her a central figure in her church (cf. Trexler 1989).

The style of dress and methods of healing are fairly standard among different Protestant groups. The clothes they wear during exorcism sessions reflect a blending of Calvinist dress of more than a hundred years ago, combined with high plateaux styles (see plate 8 and the last two photos in Estrade 1977). Exorcists always dress in white and keep their bodies well covered. Men generally wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants, and women wear long-sleeved blouses and ankle-length skirts. Both men and women sometimes wear long white robes that have puffy sleeves and dog-eared collars that are tied close to the throat. Some also wear bulky white shawls, reminiscent of the lamba worn by Merina. Many wear a wimple, wrapping a white cloth around their foreheads and then tying it at the back of the head. These clothes may be worn every day like a uniform or only during healing sessions. The quality and elaborateness of clothing often reflect the amount of church treasury funds available for exorcism activities.

The role of an exorcist can be a part- or full-time occupation. Some exorcists assist only during healing sessions that occur on Sundays after regular services, while for others it is a way of life, such as those who live in healing retreats (see below). The majority became exorcists after they or someone close to them was healed. Exorcists treat all forms of illness, including physical ailments such as blindness, headaches, lameness, troubled thoughts, restlessness, madness, and possession. Satan and devils cause illness and suffering, and the exorcist heals by driving them out of their victims through the laying on of hands (HP: fametra-han-tànana) and through prayer (vavaka). The exorcist’s strength and power are derived from the Holy Ghost (ny FanahyMasina) and for this reason Lutherans refer to exorcisms as asa sy fampaheresana (“work and empowerment”). Exorcists prefer to work in groups of three, reflecting the power of the trinity. Groups of other sizes are acceptable, but exorcists avoid working alone. As one put it, “When you work alone you may think that the power is in you, forgetting that it is derived from the Holy Spirit…if you are too proud you might fail in your work.” Exorcisms occur frequently in Ambanja: throughout 1987 I witnessed approximately a dozen, and I heard of more than twenty others. Five of the sessions I witnessed took place at the Lutheran church where I lived, where one of the pastors was trained as an exorcist.

The purpose of these healing sessions is to cure specific ills as well as to ensure general well-being in the congregation. Some churches schedule sessions on a regular basis, such as on the first Sunday of each month. Private, intensive sessions can be arranged for those who suffer from serious problems. Exorcists may apply their powers at home as well, treating themselves and members of their households, or they may be called into a patient’s home to work. Some patients come on their own, but most often they are accompanied by kin. The majority of patients are adolescent girls who are plagued by njarinintsy and other forms of possession sickness; older women (thirty or older) who wish to rid themselves of tromba spirits; and those whom kin label as mentally ill (adala). Serious problems can not be cured in one session but require a number of visits to ensure that the spirit(s) has left permanently. If the patient is not a Protestant she or he is also expected to convert and become a regular member of the church.

Exorcism as Therapy

Exorcism sessions are electrifying events that are exhausting for both exorcist and patient, and they can be frightening for young children and for the uninitiated. During these sessions a patient’s kin may also be present, as may parishioners, who have been encouraged to attend so that they may assist by praying and singing. Parishioner participation is necessary for several reasons. First, prayers and hymns are imbued with the power of the Word of God. Second, spirits enjoy music and so hymns help to draw them out of their victims. Third, by participating in these sessions parishioners are witnesses of God’s work.

Exorcisms have several stages. If the exorcists are not in their robes, they will don the proper attire before they begin (often this is done with great ceremony at the front of the church). All church services open with the singing of hymns, and this is also true for exorcisms. The session then proceeds with readings from the Bible and most often these include the following passages:^[9]

Then he said to them: ‘Go forth to every part of the world, and proclaim the Good News to the whole creation. Those who believe it and receive baptism will find salvation; those who do not believe will be condemned. Faith will bring with it these miracles: believers will cast out devils in my name and speak in strange tongues; if they handle snakes or drink any deadly poison, they will come to no harm; and the sick on whom they lay their hands will recover.’

^[10]

[Ary hoy Izy taminy: Mandehana any amin’izao tontolo izao hianareo, ka mitoria ny filazantsara amin’ny olombelona rehetra. Izay mino sy atao batisa no hovonjena; fa izay tsy mety mino no hohelohina. Ary izao famantarana izao no hanaraka izay mino: hamoaka demonia amin’ny anarako izy; hiteny amin’ny fiteny izay tsy mbola hainy izy; handray menarana izy; ary na dia misotro zava-mahafaty aza izy, dia tsy hampaninona azy izany; hametra-tànana amin’ny marary izy, dia ho sitrana ireny.]

Jesus repeated, ‘Peace be with you!’, and said, ‘As the Father sent me, so I send you.’ Then he breathed on them, saying, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit! If you forgive any man’s sins, they stand forgiven; if you pronounce them unforgiven, unforgiven they remain’

[Ary hoy indray Jesosy taminy: Fiadanana ho anareo; tahaka ny nanirahan’ny Ray Ahy no anirahako anareo kosa. Ary rehefa nilaza izany Izy, dia nanisy fofonaina, ka hoy Izy taminy: Raiso ny Fanahy Masina; na helok’iza na helok’iza no avelanareo, dia voavela izany; ary na an’iza na an’iza kosa no tsy avelanareo, dia tsy voavela izany.]

In addition to these passages, which speak of the laying on of hands and the healing powers of God, exorcists may read others that refer specifically to the problems of those who have come to be cured. These people are asked to form small groups at the front of the church and sit on the ground on a mat. Amid the singing, the exorcists lay their hands upon the heads of these people and pray quietly for their health and well-being. Patients with more serious problems are then called before the congregation and are healed separately.

The tenor of sessions directed at helping more serious cases is very different, especially when possession is the cause of the problem. During sessions for tromba possession, for example, the spirit is first reidentified as a demon or as Satan. The spirit must be encouraged to come forth so that it may then be driven from the body of its victim. These actions echo and draw from those of a tromba ceremony, where the spirit arrives by possessing the medium, announces its name, and converses with the audience. An exorcism, however, it not a joyful event but a frightening and volatile one because the spirit is quickly angered when confronted by the exorcists. If there are several exorcists present, they divide into groups (preferably into threes) and they work together with each patient; periodically they change places, rotating from one patient to another. In this way the intensity of the healing power directed at each person is great and is varied. As parishioners sing, the exorcists shout at the spirits in the imperative voice, a form that in most cases is used in Malagasy only to address naughty children, animals,^[11] and demons: “Voka!” (“Get out!”), “Mivoka amin’ny ianarana Jesosy!” (“Get out in the name of Jesus!”).

As the exorcism progresses, the language becomes more powerful and the volume increases as exorcists shout their orders and parishioners sing louder and more intensely. This is usually when the spirit arrives. If it is a tromba, curses may suddenly issue forth from the mouth of the patient; if it is a njarinintsy, the victim will start to wail loudly, scream, and sob. Possessed patients usually collapse periodically on the ground, at which point the exorcist orders them to “get up!”(mifoha!). The exorcist speaks directly to the spirit, encouraging it to engage in a dialogue. He asks, “Who are you!? Why have you possessed this person!? What do you want?” and, in hearing the answers, he shouts back again, “Get out! get out you devil!” (Voka! Voka devoly!) or “Go back to the desert from whence you came!” (Handeha amin’ny tany karakaina!). These sessions can be violent, not only because the patient may fall or thrash about but because the exorcist, in wrestling with the spirit, may push at or tug on the patient’s body. Sometimes an exorcist repeatedly pushes a patient to the ground and then orders the patient to “get up! Rise up in the name of Jesus!”^[12]

Eventually, the wailing will stop and the patient will regain consciousness, feeling exhausted. The hymns become quieter, and the session will end with a prayer to bless all who are present. This session will be followed by at least one more session, generally later that week, to ensure that the spirit has departed permanently. One unusual case that I witnessed involved three members of an Antandroy family (mother, father, and thirteen-year-old son). It was the mother who originally requested to have a tromba exorcised, but soon it was clear that the father, too, had a bilo spirit. Each time the father’s spirit was driven from him it would then move into the body of his wife or son, so that each person in turn had to have this spirit exorcised. This required several weeks of intensive work, involving six exorcists who worked with the patients two or three times each week.

Following these healing sessions, the exorcists, pastor, or congregation members visit patients in their homes to make sure they are well. If a patient had a tromba spirit, she will be instructed to bring all of the spirit’s paraphernalia to the church, so that it can be burned or otherwise destroyed. Patients are also expected to return to the church for Bible study and prayer and they are encouraged to join the church as permanent members.

Being an exorcist is difficult and involves great dedication. As one confided:

One of the problems in being an [exorcist] is that people here [in Ambanja] think I’m like a moasy [herbalist]—they want to be able to come just once, be cured, and leave. Maybe they think I am more powerful than most moasy but, still, I am the same to them. If they ask me to come to their house to help them, I always ask them if they use fanafody…that is our [the fifohazana’s] way. They may say no, but sometimes I think they are hiding that they do use it, because they are afraid to say yes. For us, we are not like the moasy, because we expect the person to become a member of the church,to choose to be Christian. It is no good if I come and exorcise them and then I don’t see them again.…I think some people think, “he is an exorcist, so why don’t we have him come and see what happens?”…One time a well-known woman here in town…had me come to her house.…I think her husband had a tromba [spirit], or maybe he is a little crazy [adala]?—but I am not sure. His wife had me come exorcise him—and I gave him a book to study, but they didn’t come to the church.…Being an exorcist is difficult—people will come to you at any time—sometimes in the middle of the night—because they are afraid and they ask if they can sleep here in our house. We take them in, we share their problems.…I am not as strong as they think I am, I have my faults, I sin, too, sometimes. But this is why I have chosen to be an [exorcist].

The Protestant Toby (Camps) or Curing Retreats

Several Protestant churches have centers for faith healing which are called toby (HP, lit. “camp”) and which I will refer to as “curing retreats.” The Lutherans are most famous for this, having established a large retreat in the high plateaux near Fianarantsoa. The mother church, which is located in a suburb of Antananarivo, also hosts regular healing sessions. In 1987 a new retreat was being built in the outskirts of this city so that there would be a second hospital that was more centrally located on the island. Many patients come to the Lutherans seeking the guidance of the Prophet Nenilava, who moves back and forth between the two centers. Smaller, usually rural retreats, can be found throughout the island.

Exorcists and their patients live full-time at these curing retreats. Primary curing activities involve the laying on of hands and intensive prayer sessions. Sometimes the kin of seriously ill patients will come and request that the exorcists accompany them home. A group of them (preferably three) will join the household temporarily to watch over and heal the sick person, and room and board is provided as payment for their services. Because the bonds that develop between the exorcists and the patient’s kin can be strong, sometimes an exorcist later marries someone from the patient’s household.

In northwest Madagascar, near Ambanja, there are three FJKM curing retreats. The closest was established in 1986 and lies eight kilometers from the town (and one kilometer off the main road). The work of these Protestant exorcists tends to be ecumenical in nature, reflected by the fact that although all those living at the retreat are members of the FJKM church, the deacon (HP: iraka), who moves between the threeretreats, is Anglican, as is the Antaimoro planter who donated the land. The FJKM church also has sought to combine efforts with other churches in order to establish an additional center in Ambanja.

The retreat near Ambanja occupies one-third of a small village, which has a total population of approximately two hundred people. It consists of a large open area about the size of a soccer field, surrounded by numerous structures, including an outdoor kitchen and shaded eating space; an unfinished (roofless) church; a long rectangular building that has four apartments in which the exorcists live; and three small, two-room houses that are for patients and their kin. The church is constructed of concrete. All other buildings are modest structures made from traveler’s palm.

Eight adult exorcists (four men and four women, including two married couples), and about a dozen children are the retreat’s full-time residents. At any given time there are three to five patients living there who are usually accompanied by one or two of their kin (such as parents, spouses, or siblings). The exorcists are Tsimehety, Betsileo, and Antaimoro, whereas the majority of the villagers are Sakalava as well as Antaimoro settlers. Patients are of diverse backgrounds and include fairly equal proportions of tera-tany and vahiny: when I visited in April 1987, they were Sakalava, Antakarana, and Tsimehety from the north; Comorean; and Antaimoro migrants from the south. Flanking the settlement on one side are fields, where the exorcists grow manioc, rice, maize, and greens. On the other are the villagers’ dwellings, a Catholic church, a schoolhouse, and a playing field.

Like the majority of their patients, exorcists are poor, yet therapy itself is free and thus practical, since they rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to heal. Exorcists live solely off donations and the bit of food they can eke out of the land. As is true for hospital care throughout Madagascar (and elsewhere in the Third World) patients are expected to cover all of their own expenses, so kin accompany them to make sure they have clean clothing and food to eat. The cost of a long-term stay at the retreat can create serious hardships. Such was the case for an elderly Antakarana couple who had been living at the retreat for six months so that their son could be treated for madness. As the father explained:

Here it is very hard for us, we have five other children…two, who live nearby, come to visit and bring us rice when they can. Here rice is very expensive, half again as much as it is in the market in Ambanja. I must work in other people’s coffee and cocoa fields for money, and my wife helps othersin their houses. We always need money to buy rice and other food, nivaquine [for malaria] and aspirin. Since there is no car that goes to Ambanja, it is very hard for us to travel to and from this village. We are not sure how much longer we can stay.

Most patients who come to this retreat are adults. They suffer from an assortment of problems. The majority (male and female) are mentally ill. The second largest group consists of single women who are suffering from tromba and other forms of possession. There are also those who are crippled (kalemy) and, finally, those with more general ailments, the most common being skin problems. When I visited the retreat outside Ambanja in April 1987, there were five patients there: two Sakalava women who suffered from tromba possession; a young Antaimoro boy, about age ten, who appeared to be mentally handicapped (as one exorcist said, “When he first came here he didn’t even know how to use silverware”); a Comorean man in his late thirties who was diagnosed as mentally ill (marary saina), who sat and talked to himself; and the young Antakarana man whose father is quoted above and who was also said to be mad. The majority of patients who come here have previously sought help from indigenous healers but found no cure. Some patients may stay for months, while others have remained for years.

Each exorcist is responsible for several patients, who in turn have three exorcists assigned to them. The treatments they administer take several forms. First, everyone is expected to pray (mivavaka) three times a day, since prayer weakens Satan. Second, laying on of hands (fametrahan-tànana) occurs twice a week. The notion of community is constantly stressed, and thus fictive kinship is a key defining principle for social relations among exorcists and patients. The pastor and deacon are referred to as “father” (papa or baba), and exorcists refer to each other as siblings, expecting patients and their kin to address them in this manner as well.^[13] There is also a strong emphasis placed on the importance of work, and so patients labor in the kitchen, fields, and elsewhere according to their individual abilities and strengths. When one Sakalava villager was asked to describe the exorcists, she said “they work very, very hard” (miasa mafibe izy).

Three times a year the FJKM fifohazana exorcists hold reunions, and the location rotates between the three curing retreats in the northwest. One of my assistants went to observe a reunion during Pentecost, which lasted for two days. Much time was spent praying and singing hymns or working in the compound, and a communal feast was held wheremeat was served. This meal was a great luxury that the exorcists at this retreat could ill afford: since they receive little if any money from the mother church, their daily diet generally consists of a meager dish of boiled manioc and bananas, often with no rice. In all, 695 people attended. This official head count included the ten patients and their kin. The patients consisted of the five currently in residence at this retreat, plus five others who came from the two other retreats. These patients included three women who were suffering from tromba possession (see accounts of Vivienne, below, and Mona, who appears later in this chapter; also Appendix A); two men who were mentally ill (marary saina); and a woman with a child who had a severe case of diarrhea. The other participants consisted of seventy exorcists, other novices training to be exorcists, and congregation members, including those who had come for first communion.

Throughout the night the exorcists healed through the laying on of hands. Participants were split into two groups, so that the majority stayed outside while the ten patients were taken to be healed separately inside one of the houses. As one exorcist explained to my assistant, this was done because healing sessions can be upsetting to watch, since sometimes Satan can make patients act violently.

Seeking Cures for Possession: Three Case Studies

The stories that appear below all concern extreme cases. The first involves a woman who, like Victoria, suffered from problems that shifted between possession sickness and madness. The other two are women who refused to accept tromba mediumship as a permanent manifestation of their lives. Although all three of these patients are Sakalava, they each took a radical step in the therapeutic process, seeking assistance from non-Sakalava Protestants for their problems. Two of these women have chosen to convert, thus abandoning Sakalava culture for a new religious system.

Vivienne

Vivienne is from a family where many of the women are tromba mediums. Her older classificatory sister is an established medium who receives many clients in her home and who was one of my key informants (see Alice in Appendix A). Another classificatory sister is Berthine … (see above) who had her spirit exorcised by members of Modern Islam.

Vivienne is the daughter of a Sakalava mother and Tsimihety father. She is fifteen years old and she attends junior high school to the north in Ambilobe. She was raised by her mother, who was Catholic and who died when Vivienne was twelve. Her father lives in Diégo. Following her mother’s death he arranged for Vivienne to live with his brother and his brother’s wife, who are both members of the FJKM church. Throughout the summer Vivienne has been living with her aunt (MoSi) in Ambanja. Although her aunt is not Christian, she decided to bring Vivienne to the Pentecostal retreat that my assistant attended.

For one year Vivienne has been very sick, troubled by a njarinintsy spirit. As her aunt explained: “Sometime she is crazy [adala izy é]!…If I ask her to set the table, she puts spoons under the tablecloth; at other times she cooks with hair!…She swears [vetaveta] and she has tried to hit her uncle! Now she lives with me.…Sometimes she cries and laughs suddenly—this even happened when she was at school! I took her to the Catholic priest and he told me to take her to the Lutherans [around the corner]. We went there one Sunday, but nothing happened. So then I took her to the FJKM church. Her father’s relatives want her to come and stay here [at the retreat], but Vivienne refuses, saying that she is Catholic and that she has no intention of changing her religion.”

Vivienne and her aunt later returned to the retreat, where they lived for four weeks. Here Vivienne took part in healing and prayer sessions several times each day. After two weeks she felt stronger (hery) (and, as her aunt and the exorcists noted, she had also become more cooperative) and she started to work in the fields. Three months later she returned to school. Vivienne occasionally attends Sunday services at the FJKM church. When her Sakalava friends tease her about this, she states flatly that she goes for her health and she insists that she has not converted.

I later asked one of the Lutheran exorcists about Vivienne, who stressed that, in his opinion, she was not possessed, but was mad (marary saina):

She doesn’t look at you when you talk, but she gazes around and talks to herself. That is not like someone with njarinintsy. I remember I asked her if there was anything troubling her and she said yes, that there was a boy who had tried to harm her with fanafody—he pretended that he loved her and sweet talked her, but she later realized he didn’t care about her at all. This is so common!…With these young girls it is always a problem with a boy. I told her to forget about it, that there were better ones out there. I tried to heal her and to help her, stressing that she must come back with her family—I am not a doctor, I can not cure someone in just one session! But she never came back. I think that she must have gone to the FJKM church because she has relatives who pray there. This is better, because her kin will be there with her and, besides, their work is the same as mine. They know how to heal the same way as I do.

Elisabeth

Elisabeth is forty-two years old and the daughter of Sakalava parents. She was raised in a small village northwest of Ambanja. When she was very young (five years old) she had already begun to show signs of tromba possession, and by the age of seven her parents had held a ceremony to instate a fairly powerful Child spirit within her. Neighbors were skeptical of this development, finding it difficult to believe that a girl so young could have a tromba spirit; nevertheless, she soon had clients who came from other villages and towns seeking her spirit’s advice. By the age of fifteen she had two other spirits, a Child and a Zafin’i’fotsy Grandparent.^[14] As Elisabeth put it, mediumship was a very difficult (sarotra be) experience. For much of her childhood she fell sick periodically, suffering from chronic weakness, dizziness and fainting spells, terrible headaches, and frequent nightmares.

At age seventeen Elisabeth convinced her parents to let her go live with her sister in Ambanja. She had previously visited the town on many occasions, preferring it to the sleepy village in which she grew up. In Ambanja she took her first lover who eventually became a common-law spouse. This relationship lasted for three years. She later met her husband, Claude, with whom she lived on and off for twelve years. Eventually she grew tired of this relationship. As she put it, all Claude wanted was the money she earned as a medium. As in her childhood, she frequently fell ill and sometimes was unable to get out of bed for weeks at a time. This made it extremely difficult for her to carry water, go to market, or care for her two children, especially when her husband was not with her. Twice spirit mediums had diagnosed her tromba spirits as the cause, and by the age of thirty-five she had held the appropriate ceremonies to have two additional spirits instated. Each time her health only improved temporarily. She also spent much time and money seeking help from other local healers and doctors, all to no avail. Repeatedly she was told by friends and kin that her spirits were responsible for her bouts of illness, and she had become frustrated nearly to the point of panic. Unable to earn enough money to host additional ceremonies to appease her spirits, her health only worsened.

In 1984, Elisabeth’s sister took her on the ferry to the nearby island of Nosy Be, where they sought out the Protestant exorcists at the FJKM church there. After several weeks of intense healing sessions (three times a week for four weeks), Elisabeth was finally freed from her spirits. Like the majority of mediums, she did not recall what took place during these interactions between her spirits and the exorcists, but she described the process as frightening and exhausting (mavozo aho,kajobe aho), followed by a sense of elation after each session. She has since converted to this church, and is now among their most highly respected exorcists. She lives in Nosy Be, two blocks from the pastor’s house. She has not, however, visited with her kin since this time. Only her sister comes to see her, since others, especially her parents, are ashamed that Elisabeth keeps the company of Merina Protestants.

Zaloky

Zaloky is approximately fifty years old (although, as described in chapter 2, she is easily mistaken for a woman who is much older). Zaloky’s life as a medium is fairly typical for older Sakalava tera-tany women. She wasmarried at age sixteen and, at age thirty-two, after the births of three of her four children, she became possessed by the transitional Child spirit Zaman’i’Bao(see chapter 5). Within two years she had become a respected healer in the area and she had a steady flow of clients. At age thirty-five her husband died. She describes the next five years as difficult and bitter ones because of struggles with her children over land rights (again, see her story in chapter 2). She eventually married (by common law) her second husband Marcel, a Tsimihety migrant laborer who had been a regular client of hers when seeking guidance from Zaman’i’Bao for problems related to work or physical ailments.

Zaloky describes her past activities as a medium as very difficult: “Zaman’i’Bao is a very powerful spirit, and his mediums must be strong [mahery]. It was a difficult life: I had many [clients]! too many! [bemaro! beloatra!]…they would come whenever they wanted, it didn’t matter how I was feeling.…You know, Zaman’i’Bao, he is hard on his mediums, he spits up blood.…Some days I would not be able to get up after a session [with a client]…my back and neck would be so sore; one day I saw black spots for three days! It was terrible…when a tromba spirit gets angry, he makes you sick.…I didn’t have the money to host a ceremony to make him happy, and this really frightened me. I wondered, is he going to kill me?…Marcel, who had gone to the FJKM church as a child, told me to go there to have the spirit driven out, but I didn’t want to. I was so afraid! [mavozo é!]. We live near the newly built Lutheran church, and my spirit didn’t like that either. They would start to sing and I could hear them in my house. I’d get scared, because sometimes Zaman’i’Bao would arrive suddenly and be very angry, especially when they sang the hymn “Jesosy Tomponay” [“Jesus our Master”].…Then one day I just wandered into the church, [possessed by] the tromba [spirit]! Can you imagine! I don’t remember what happened, but Marcel and the pastor say they stopped the service right there and drove out the spirit.…that was ten years ago.…Now Marcel and I pray there every week.…They take care of me; they are my family [HP: fianakaviana].” Zaloky is now a respected elder in the church. She and Marcel have fallen into economic hardship within the last few years and they continue to be troubled by land disputes with her children. The Lutherans give them food and she in turn has decided to will her land to this church (unless a disco next door overruns her homestead first).

Vivienne, Elisabeth, and Zaloky have each suffered from a form of possession which is fairly typical for Sakalava women their respective ages. Vivienne is an adolescent troubled by problems of love and romance, and she suffers from njarinintsy possession. Elisabeth and Zaloky were established mediums for Child and Grandparent spirits that commonly appear among women of their backgrounds and ages. All three are also unusual, however, and even marginal, in other ways. Vivienne’s problems with possession are extreme, now bordering on madness. Elisabeth’s career as a medium began at an exceptionally early age. Rather than accepting her fate, she has suffered terribly throughout her life, unable to cope with her status as a spirit medium. Regardless of her actions, she continued to be plagued by illnesses caused by her tromba spirits. For Zaloky, an older woman, the more mundane forms of suffering associated with mediumship eventually were intolerable. Although she had many clients, trance exhausted her and she found demands of visitors to her house to be too great. This was compounded by the terrible conflicts with her children over land rights.

These three women present extreme cases for yet another reason: although they are tera-tany, they eventually sought solutions through a nonindigenous institution dominated by peoples from the high plateaux. In the case of Vivienne, the Protestant exorcists may be able to help her through a serious illness—whether it is possession sickness or madness—coaxing it to leave and then giving her continued support. Elisabeth and Zaloky, on the other hand, are women who have rejected the role of tromba medium, choosing instead to be freed permanently from possession. They have come to the exorcists hoping to have their spirits driven from them because they find the suffering they experience as mediums unbearable. This is a pattern that has emerged in the Lutheran church, where, in addition to Zaloky, two other Sakalava have joined for reasons associated with tromba. The first is an old man (in his sixties) who, like Zaloky, had a tromba spirit exorcised and who later joined the congregation. He and Zaloky felt their ties to the local community were fragmented: Zaloky was embroiled in a bitter quarrel with her children over land inheritance, and this older man was unmarried and had no children. Another Sakalava convert was a twenty-year-old man who joined because he was deeply distressed by the suffering that he saw his mother and ex-wife endure as tromba mediums.

Seeking the assistance of the exorcists reflects a deliberate choice to opt out of and thus be free from the institution of spirit possession, which in many ways epitomizes what it means to be Sakalava. This involves embracing, at least in part, Protestantism as a new faith, either by drawing on the power of the exorcists for convenience’s sake to drive out unwanted tromba spirits, or through the more permanent act of conversion. In choosing this route, however, one becomes, in a sense, less Sakalava, not only because one rejects tromba, but also because Sakalava look disfavorably upon Protestant vahiny. As the stories of these three women show, this choice may also mark a shift away from kin and Sakalava identity: two of these former mediums have chosen to become members of new Christian communities that in many ways are like newly found kin.

The Power of Protestant Healing

Exorcists’ clients are drawn from a variety of backgrounds; one thing that they all share in common is that they are desperate. Other healers—indigenous and clinical—have failed to relieve their suffering. Their distress may be compounded by their marginality within the local Sakalava community. Pertinent factors here include understanding the following: the manner in which practitioners of this alternative healing system cope with a competing epistemological reality derived from Sakalava culture, the significance of power in the therapeutic context, the relevance of structural shifts in identity, and the meaning of community.

Redefining the Symbolic Order through an Alternative Epistemological System

As I have argued elsewhere (Sharp, in press), understanding the therapeutic efficacy of Malagasy exorcists is a difficult task. Csordas, in his work with charismatic Christians in the United States, stresses that efficacy and outcome hinges on an assessment of procedures (such as rituals) used by therapists as well as the process (or experiences) undergone by patients. Anthropologists need to have a clearer understanding of patients’ subjective experiences of “encounters with the sacred, episodes of insight, or changes in thought, emotion, attitude, meaning, behavior” (1988: 121). An analysis of exorcists in Madagascar reveals the relevance of their approaches and epistemological model to therapeutics. A key aspect here is that exorcists use invasive conversionary tactics that require the active participation of the patient and, if possible, her kin. Through this process the meaning of suffering is transformed and often, in turn, the patient’s definition of self is also altered.

Patient and healer may have radically different perceptions of illness and personal disorder. As Taussig (1980b) has argued, medical care may serve as a method to silence the patient rather than one through which to communicate with and comprehend her perceptions of her illness. In northwest Madagascar, ultimately therapeutic success or failure hinges on the healer’s ability to comprehend the patient’s epistemological reality. To rely on the knowledge of indigenous healers to solve problems associated with possession and madness means to embrace the logic of the cultural system from which they originate. For example, established mediums typically specialize in tromba possession because they grasp the deep-rooted internal cultural logic that shapes the significance of royal ancestors and the nature of their needs and whims (cf. Lévi-Strauss 1963a). For the exorcist, on the other hand, an oppositional stance to this internal logic is central, since conversion is the ultimate goal. Paradoxically, to achieve this goal, the sharing of ideas must be part of the process. The exorcist helps the patient by redefining her conception of reality (and, ultimately, her identity). The patient, in turn, must embrace the Protestant belief system to be fully healed.

This is a dialogic process, one that is clearly evident in cases involving possession. Ironically, exorcists do not deny the existence of spirits; rather, they refuse to distinguish between different categories, relabeling all spirits (tromba, kalanoro, njarinintsy, and so forth) as demons (devoly). As Greenfield (1992) illustrates, the strength of a group of Spiritist healers in southern Brazil lies in the syncretic nature of their healing practices. They rely on an assortment of models of illness causation, including the teachings of the spiritist Allan Kardec, modern physics, and Candomblé, Umbanda, and other Afro-Brazilian religions. Their work attracts clients because their ideas make sense to people of diverse origins who populate the polycultural, urban world of Brazil. Protestant exorcists in Madagascar are not nearly so liberal (or eclectic) in their approaches. Nevertheless, within the therapeutic context there is still a sharing and overlapping of information between Sakalava and Christian systems. Exorcists would never, for example, draw on the power of a tromba spirit to heal, yet they do rely on a form of possession involving the Holy Spirit to achieve a similar end. In addition, the exorcist’s approach is participatory, designed to engage the patient in a continuous dialogue about her life and the meaning of spirits for her. Prayers, hymns, and sermons serve as didactic tools to transform the patient’s way of perceiving her illness as well as the world more generally.

In contrast to the tolerance of Catholic enculturation policies, Protestant churches in Madagascar have always made conscious and deliberate attempts to define their doctrines in reference—and opposition—to indigenous beliefs (fomba-gasy) (Gow 1979; Mutibwa 1974; Trexler 1989; see also entries authored by Sibree, Pearse, Dahle, Haile, Davidson, and others in the journal of the London Missionary Society [LMS] 1881–1900). As zealous evangelists, the ultimate goal of these exorcists is to undermine a patient’s beliefs by simultaneously acknowledging their legitimacy. In reference specifically to tromba possession, they accept the pervasiveness of these spirits’ taboos (fady), and then, in turn, they declare that “tromba [itself] is taboo” (fady tromba), an expression that operates like other fady in Madagascar to mark difference, distinguishing ethnic groups from one another.

The power of communication is central to the act of exorcism, especially when exorcists engage the spirits themselves. Just as an accordionist or valiha player entices tromba spirits to arrive in their mediums, Protestant healers use their own music to encourage the spirits to possess patients. Their style of interaction with these spirits parallels that of tromba mediums, or other indigenous healers, who seek to placate or cajole a spirit into staying (in the case of a tromba) or departing peacefully (as with a njarinintsy). Exorcists, however, take this one step further: they taunt, scold, and lecture spirits and then they drive them, with force, from their victims. Exorcists fully comprehend the meaning of possession in the lives of their patients, and they seek to alter their ways of perceiving their experiences. Thus, on the one hand, exorcists successfully integrate two seemingly divergent or conflicting epistemologies. On the other, through conversionary tactics, they undermine indigenous cultural logic.

Work, Independence, and Empowerment

Protestants draw on the indigenous symbolic order in other ways to heal as well as transform the patient’s sense of the world. For example, they supply new meanings for the concept of work (asa). As described in previous chapters, ideas surrounding work are highly charged for the Sakalava, whose lives are shaped by the plantation economy of the Sambirano. Preferably, work should be framed by economic independence involving such activities as caring for one’s own fields. If one works to serve another, this should only be done for Sakalava royalty, and not in the sense that characterizes the enterprises, where work means alienated wage labor.

In the healing retreats of the northwest, a new Protestant work ethic has emerged (cf. Weber 1991 [1930]; see also Comaroff and Comaroff 1991: 140ff). When patients have the strength, they are expected to assist with daily chores, cooking in the kitchen, cleaning the church and other structures, and assisting in the fields. Such participation serves to integrate them into daily community life. It also stresses the duty that one has to serve God, the master of us all, a concept aptly expressed in the hymn mentioned by Zaloky, “Jesosy Tomponay,” or “Jesus our Master.” Women who have abandoned mediumship continue to perform sacred work, but for a Christian deity rather than for royal ancestors.

The significance of work carries over into other exorcist activities, where themes of power and dominance are important. For example, healing sessions are referred to as “work and empowerment” (asa sy fampaheresana). The exorcist’s conversionary tactics are invasive, requiring the patient to submit to God’s power. Exorcism also may be empowering for the patient, however, since she is required to become actively involved in the therapeutic process (cf. Taussig 1980b). Elisabeth, in choosing to be trained as an exorcist, has taken the final step. Her “work” is what will shape her new identity as a Sakalava convert and as an active Protestant.

Structural Shifts and Redefining Identity

As noted above, those who opted for exorcism were already marginalized for a variety of reasons, including madness, alienation from kin, or cultural dislocation resulting from migration. A final factor contributing to their marginality is especially notable. Even though all mediums I interviewed considered tromba possession to be a difficult experience, the majority accepted it as their lifelong fate. During the course of this research, however, I met five women who had opted for exorcism. Vivienne, Elisabeth, and Zaloky sought respite from tromba mediumship, possession sickness, or madness. A fourth woman was Mona, who attended the Pentecostal retreat. She was thirty-four and had three tromba spirits. Mona had suffered immensely during the previous six years from a host of problems for which no indigenous healer could find a cure, and she hoped that if her spirits were driven from her, her health would return. Finally, Berthine chose another route: she had a tromba spirit exorcised as part of her conversion to Islam. The afflicted may already be marginal even before becoming a Christian. Vivienne shared many of the problems of school migrants (chapter 9); in addition, she suffered from the complex problems associated with madness. Others already felt somewhat alienated from Sakalava kin or friends, as was true for Elisabeth and Zaloky (and the two men who converted to Lutheranism; see above). Thus, in at least three of these cases, it is not spirit possession that marks a Sakalava woman’s marginal status (I.M. Lewis 1966, 1971, 1991, and essays in I.M. Lewis et al., eds., 1991) but her inability to cope with it.

The exoricist’s power plays a pivotal role in the process of redefining such a woman’s identity. This is evident in the style of social interaction that occurs during healing sessions, where the exorcist and patient assume dominant and submissive positions. While an exorcist stands, the patient kneels before him or her. Exorcists will often touch the head of the patient, either with their hands or the Bible (see plate 8). This is a highly charged, symbolic gesture, that violates Malagasy rules of status etiquette. As noted in the story of Marie (chapter 8), the head is sacred and should not be touched. This is especially important if the patient is a tromba medium (and, even more so, if she is in the process of entering trance), since these royal spirits are said to sit (mipetraka) in her head. Only elders and royalty can raise their heads about others. Thus, the patient, in accepting the exorcist’s mode of treatment, submits to Protestant authority. Only once the patient embraces Christianity through conversion is the relationship between patient and exorcist defined as an equal one.

Thus, the power of the exorcist to transform a patient’s identity is rooted in the manipulation of the indigenous symbolic order. Structural shifts in identity may be partial or complete. Nevertheless, they define a central aspect of this therapeutic process, since a Sakalava patient must embrace beliefs that run contrary to her own culture if the therapy is to work. A medium must deny the existence of royal ancestors and be willing to relabel them as demons. She also must accept that the Holy Ghost is more powerful than tromba and that a Christian God is her savior and guardian. Finally, she must submit to the power and authority of a community peopled by non-Sakalava vahiny. Should she convert, her identity no longer hinges on her ethnicity; rather, she is relabeled as a Christian. If she is trained to be an exorcist, like Elisabeth, her new work (asa) as a shepherd (mpiandry) (rather than a tromba medium) defines who she is.

Joining a Community of Strangers

The concept of community is generally assumed to be central to religious experience (Durkheim 1965 [1915], especially Bk. 1; V. Turner 1969: chaps. 3 and 4), and, more specifically, in charismatic Christian communities, where the collective provides a supportive environment for those who otherwise feel socially, culturally, politically, or economically disenfranchised (see, for example, Comaroff 1985; Finkler 1985; Jules-Rosette 1975; Kehoe 1989; La Barre 1992 [1962]; Lawless 1988; McGuire 1982; for a fictional account from Africa see also Achebe 1959). An important dimension of the healing methods used by Malagasy exorcists is that, in severe cases, the patient must live apart from her original community and within the confines of the curing retreat. Thus, the concept of the Protestant community itself is viewed as therapeutic. Here patients are accompanied by kin and they are under the constant, watchful eye of exorcists. This practice is rooted in Malagasy culture, regardless of ethnic origin: throughout Madagascar, the room where a sick person convalesces can quickly become overrun by a constant stream of kin and other visitors. Similarly, patients at Protestant curing retreats are never left alone.

On a grander scale, the retreat is also simultaneously a model Sakalava village and an alternative Christian community. The retreat near Ambanja, for example, has been built in the middle of an already existing village, and the dwellings of other inhabitants are indistinguishable from those of the exorcists. Only the Protestant church and an outdoor communal kitchen stand out. Patients are expected to become active members of this community, taking part in the prayer sessions that occur several times a day and, as mentioned above, assisting in the work that keeps the retreat operating.

In the retreat, the notion of “cure” is relative and is subjectively defined, the concept of community playing a key role. Although (ex-)patients may continue to be troubled by their illnesses, they find that their eccentricities are usually better tolerated by others if they join a Protestant congregation or if they continue to live at the curing retreat. For example, the symptoms of madness that originally were viewed as extreme forms of social deviancy are redefined as the normative behavior of individuals who have been blessed. The assessment of therapeutic success also hinges on the healer’s subjective point of view, for in this context the cure is conditional, based on conversion to a new faith. It is, however, highly unusual for Sakalava to convert to Protestantism. Although such a choice is viewed as a major triumph for the exorcists, among Sakalava, converts such as Elisabeth are anomalies and even pariahs. Since they risk being abandoned by kin, mediums who choose to convert will stay close to the Protestant community. In so doing, they gain, as Zaloky said, new “family.”

Just as fictive kinship was pivotal in the context of tromba, it is also operational in these new Christian communities. Those who embrace Christianity are defined as “brothers” and “sisters” of one another, and all are children before God, the Father. Through exorcism rituals, patients break from Sakalava structural relationships and adopt new, Christian ones. In addition, a subtle shift in ethnic affiliation occurs: since the majority of Protestants are from the high plateaux, the kin terms used are not those of Sakalava village or town networks, but others derived from highland dialects. This shift is reflected in Zaloky’s choice of language, since she uses a high plateaux term (fianakaviana) when she says that the Lutheran church is her new “family.”

Even though the final step of conversion may relieve the suffering of these Sakalava women, it nevertheless raises other questions about the future of tera-tany identity in the Sambirano. Karp, for example, reports that within a year’s absence from Tesoland in Kenya, all of the mediums he knew had converted to Christianity and no longer practiced possession (personal communication; see also Karp 1987, 1989). In Ambanja, however, I do not anticipate that Protestantism will make major inroads into the community of Sakalava tera-tany, because for them this faith is too strongly associated with French colonial and Merina enemies. At present, conversion is rare and is a last resort, for the price one pays is very high. Elisabeth and Zaloky are extreme cases that involve women who desperately sought relief and found it only by joining this isolated community of strangers.

Notes

Conclusion: Toward a Reassessment of the Possessed and Dispossesed

This has been a study in the politics of culture. Against this backdrop of a polycultural community, I have sought to show that identity is not static or “one-dimensional.” Rather, as Cohen (1976) has argued, there exists an interdependence between power relationships and symbolic action. Furthermore, the dynamic nature of identity in Ambanja is part of a historical process shaped by such forces as colonialism and voluntary migration. Tromba possession provides a rich terrain for exploring how identity is experienced in private, social, economic, and political realms, since it mediates between the competing categories of tera-tany and vahiny, or insider and outsider. In order to understand the complexities of this problem, this investigation has required, as Apter (1992) advocates in his study of Yoruba religion, an exploration of the “deep meanings” (cf. Geertz 1973) embedded in ritual form. Such meanings reveal the links between knowledge and power: through the realm of tromba possession one may gain access to the most potent formsof local knowledge, which are sacred and linked to the royal ancestors. Ultimately, such knowledge affects personal and collective well-being.

In concluding, I would like to reevaluate a number of assumptions (or questions) that have been critical throughout this work. First, this study has sought to explore the manner in which symbolic power may extend beyond the temporary realm of ritual. Thus, how might religious experience be politically charged (again, see Cohen 1976; also Apter 1992 and Lan 1985) and have long-term effects on everyday life? Second, who exactly are the “dispossessed” members of what some might label a “peripheral” society of the world?

These two questions are especially pertinent to studies of possession and, more specifically, the relevance of social status for determining participation patterns. If we assume the perspective of Ambanja’s inhabitants, tromba possession is not a peripheral experience, but a significant force within indigenous culture. Similar to Giles’ study from the East African coast (1987), the data presented here contradict the assumed impotence of the possessed. This case from Ambanja reveals the manner in which ritual form may be used to manipulate oppressive forces that affect the personal lives of migrant laborers or the collective experiences of Sakalava. In this context, the human body provides a powerful medium for the articulation of problems that characterize urban life.

In this vein, the significance of tromba can only fully be understood if it is explored in relation to indigenous notions of identity, which operate on personal, social, and cultural levels. As this study has shown, tromba mediumship alters identity and may be permanently empowering for tera-tany and vahiny. Today saha for royal spirits maintain considerable control over the production of local knowledge and the manip-ulation of power structures. More recently, they have been able to direct economic development that threatens to alienate them of their tanindrazan̂afa. So long as the sacredness of ancestors is honored in the Sambirano—and by the state—Sakalava may be able to maintain their controlover the use of local territory. Such was the case that Lan (1985) described for Zimbabwe in the 1970s; the questions to be addressed in Madagascar are what roles will new generations of mediums play in this arena, and what will be the future of the Sambirano?

In the popular realm, tromba possession is pivotal for understanding concepts of alienation and well-being. Tromba offers the potential for first-generation female migrants to strengthen their personal networks and become recognized as tera-tany in their own lifetimes. Through this process, mediums gain access to an extensive and locally embedded network of relationships based on equality and reciprocity. These they may exploit to find work, gain access to local resources, and acquire assistance in times of need. As healers, they may also extend their networks to include clients, freeing themselves from the requirements of wage labor. Thus, mediumship offers migrant women a means to overcome the greatest difficulty or social affliction they face. Tromba enables them to become tamana, or content, in Ambanja.

Spirit mediums, in turn, mediate the migration experiences of others in several ways. First, even though tromba mediumship is primarily a female experience, men may also extend or strengthen their personal networks through sisters, wives, and lovers who are mediums. Second, tromba possession ceremonies and, more specifically, healing rituals, have been a central focus of this investigation since they reveal the nature of local power and the problems of the vulnerable. Tromba simultaneously provides a setting for expressing individual and social ills and a means to alleviate them. Polyculturalism and a plantation economy shape the most common forms of affliction—physical, romantic, and economic problems.

Throughout this work I have sought to place women as well as children in more visible positions vis-à-vis migration studies. Migration as a process may involve the active participation of women: not all remain in homesteads for the primary purpose of reproducing labor (Meillassoux 1982; Richards 1951). Many, like their male counterparts, branch out on their own in search of work and economic independence. This is a worldwide trend (Little 1973; Ong 1987; Nash and Fernandez-Kelly, eds. 1983; Schuster 1979) and warrants continued scrutiny. As I have shown, children define an unusual category of migrants who must cope with the challenges of this social process. In Ambanja, njarinintsy may be a pervasive force in their lives, operating as a culturally sanctioned form for expressing the chaos that characterizes contemporary urban life (cf. Taussig 1987). Thus, the experiences of children as well are in need of more careful cross-cultural study.

More generally, I have advocated that analyses of the migration process will remain shallow if symbolic realms are overlooked. Material considerations are certainly an essential aspect of the problems associated with relocation, since survival hinges on one’s ability to find housing, work, and so forth. In addition, kin who remain behind rely on a migrant’s economic success. As this study from Ambanja shows, however, other factors come into play and may be just as significant as purely material matters. The first involves the manner in which identity is defined, since different social categories enjoy different levels of access to local power structures. Second, there are subgroups of migrants, each defined by the manner in which indigenous Sakalava perceive them as well as by their personal, sentimental ties to a particular region. There also are several other key concepts involved here. Land and work, for example, are symbolically charged and are significant concerns for tera-tany and vahiny alike. Put another way, it is not simply access to land or labor that assures well-being or success for the migrant—in Madagascar or elsewhere—but also the sentimental and symbolic values assigned to these and other realms of experience.

In returning to the questions asked above, what I have sought to prove is that ritual form, and, more particularly, healing rituals, supply a rich and varied ground upon which to explore problems inherent to everyday life. Historical analysis reveals the dynamic nature of tromba: as local perceptions of what it means to be Sakalava have changed, tromba has altered in form yet remains a central defining principle for local identity. Thus, in northwest Madagascar, participation in tromba is not evidence of powerlessness or marginal status. Rather, as the work of Protestant exorcists show, it is those who are unable to cope with Sakalava identity and mediumship status who are truly dispossessed.