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.