Tromba as Fictive Kinship: Spiritual Polyandry and Polygyny

Perhaps a generation ago, the bonds between these women might have been legitimized by a form of fictive kinship called fatidra or “blood brother/sisterhood” (Tegnaeus 1952), yet it appears that this practice no longer operates in Ambanja. I met several Malagasy in Ambanja who had heard of fatidra but I was unable to find anyone, male or female, who had a blood brother or sister.^[7] Through tromba spirits, women establish bonds through a complicated fictive kinship system, characterized by inverted and shifting perspectives. Kinship serves as an idiom for defining relationships that a medium has with the spirits and other mediums, and those that exist between her kin and her spirits.

The most important defining principle is marriage. Lambek, in his analysis of possession in the Mayotte, compares trumba initiation ceremonies to weddings since, structurally, the two are quite similar (1981: 141). He also draws a comparison between a spirit and a groom (1981: 143). In Ambanja this relationship is a reality, for a medium’s spirit is her “spouse” (vady) (figure 7.2). An important structural component of tromba is symbolic polyandry (cf. Karp 1987 on polyandry and spirit possession in Kenya). If a tromba medium is possessed by numerous male spirits, all of these spirits are her husbands. If she has a living husband, when she is not possessed, he, too, is her spouse. When she is possessed, she becomes the tromba, and this spirit and the living husband regard each other as “friends” (kamarady) or as “brothers” (miralahy).^[8] The ranking of spouses is also important. If a female medium has more than one spirit, these are ranked according to their relative location in the spirit’s genealogical hierarchy. All spirits, in turn, are regarded as being superior in rank to the living husband. Thus, when a female medium is possessed, she becomes the dominant male in her household, and she may appeal to her tromba spirit for assistance in ways that a living spouse should help her. When I asked Mbotisoa, who is widowed and who is a saha at Nosy Faly, if she ever thought of remarrying, she replied, “I have no need for a [living] husband! My tromba [spouse] takes very good care of me.” Mbotisoa is simultaneously a widow, a woman married to a spirit husband, and the embodiment of that spirit husband. She had freed herself from what she perceives to be the constraints of marriage.^[9]

7.2. Mediumship and Kinship Bonds (terms used when medium is out of trance).

Other relationships defined by marriage are also at work here. Poly-gyny was often practiced by Sakalava royalty in the past, since having several wives was a sign of power and prestige. Since one spirit may possess many mediums, structurally all of these mediums are co-wives. When they are together at a tromba ceremony they will sometimes refer to each other as “sisters” (miravavy). If a woman has a female tromba spirit, it, too, is regarded as her “sister.” Men, too, can be mediums, yet they are only possessed by male spirits who are defined as their “brothers” (singular: rahalahy; plural: miralahy) (figure 7.2).