The beginning of the XX th Malagasy century was marked by the history of aviation. Between 1911 and 1938, Le ciel malagache saw "Flying Apparatus Imitating the Natural Bird" fly.On July 7, 1911, 15 years after the annexation of Madagascar by France, a small plane transported by a boat and brought up on the spot landed in Madagascar. Piloted by Jean Raoult, the plane moves in the skies of the Capital. It is the first time that a plane has flown in the Malagasy sky. We had to wait 15 years to see another “flying device imitating the natural bird” land on Tananarivian soil. Indeed , the Big Island accommodates the seaplane “H-194 Lioré and Olivier” of the lieutenant of Vaisseau Marc Bernard , left from the pond of Berre on October 12, 1926, with another seaplane piloted by Guilbaud and Bougault, lands in Mahajanga November 21, 1926, after 20 stages and 41 days of flight.January 21, 1927, “Breguet XIX” piloted by Commander Jean Dagnaux and mechanic Paul Dufert landed in Antananarivo after having flown 55 days from Paris. Two years later, on October 27, 1929 at 11 am, a “Farman-192 F-AJJB” piloted by the Goulette-Marchesseau-Bourgeois trio made landfall after having crossed West Africa, the Sahara, Niamey and the Belgian Congo (DRC), in English Rhodesia, before finishing its African land journey in Mozambique. The journey to the South West Indian Ocean region is inevitable for the aircraft. In addition, Madagascar is a large island favorable to a stopover. Thus, tired and weakened by his pneumonia complicated by malaria, Marcel Gouttelette decides to seek treatment in Madagascar. Then, in Madagascar, the crew delivers mail to Antsirabe and Toamasina.
Marcelle Gouttelette at left , the pilot
http://www.midi-madagasikara.mg/culture … -malgache/
THE HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR INCLUDING CULTURE AND CUSTOMS.
Path of the past: Foreign companies established in the North-West of Madagascar
Once Madagascar became a French colony, mainland France called on foreign companies and concessionaires to exploit the country's wealth. In the Northwest, economic activities are in the hands of foreigners. This region has commercial ports, the customs services ensure the transactions of regional products.
The main existing European companies are: Compagnie Lyonnaise de Madagascar (CLM), Compagnie Marseillaise de Madagascar (CMM), Compagnie Franco-Malgache, Compagnie Franger, which monopolize the collections of livestock and agricultural products. In addition, the Pereapolis shipping company ensures the comings and goings of Analalava-Majunga and Analalava-Antsohihy. In addition, as the interior of the region is isolated, aerodromes are installed from 1948 for small planes that connect the small remote villages. The airline operates interregional flights. The road company facilitates the movement of products (Tananarive-Analalava-Diego-Suarez).
To facilitate the collection of products, each canton capital organizes a large market day during the dry season or main-tany and during the harvest season between the months of July and October. D-Day is Friday, the end of working days. This large market institution allows taxpayers and intermediaries to buy these agricultural products, Vokatra ny tany. Each year, regional fairs are held in August, for a week.
Productive coastlines.In addition, the natives who also have their share of agricultural concessions settle for the most part in the countryside because the latter belong to families, typical examples: the Rama, Vita, Omar ben Abdallah and Abdallah Achimo (mixed race Indians) concessions. In addition, the European concessionaires, especially the Reunionese prefer the lands along the coast for example, the Dusseau family, MM Mathieu, Maisonneuve, Dubosc, Balli, and others. However, the sandy coastal region favors the cultivation of coconut palms, the main plantations in some districts. In the cities, it is the Indians who determine the price of these products and meet the needs of the population especially in imported goods. Despite everything, Malagasy concessionaires are subject to fiscal constraints. Finally,
Festivities . During these economic days, the administration organizes Morengy (traditional boxing), cultural events (traditional dances) and film screenings to entertain the locals. On the one hand, the products sold are: rice, coconut, raffia, paka, oxen, goats, sheep as well as seafood. On the other hand, the region imports finished products. (clothes, food, adornments…) sold at Indian and Arab wholesalers.
http://www.midi-madagasikara.mg/culture … adagascar/
History: “Mpaka fo” and “mpaka rà” from the beginning
The skirmishers, here Malagasy people, took part in two Great Wars, used by France to serve as cannon fodder according to several historians.
Urban legends in black and white, Antananarivo is full of them. Going back to colonization, the first traces of these are found. To cite only the terms "mpaka fo" or "mpaka rà", heart extractor and blood sucker, would indeed be linked to fascination, coming to be inserted with contempt, towards the colonists.
1913, in the capital. While the colonial administration strove to strengthen the educational system, "since religion has not been able to civilize the natives in several centuries, which science has only taken more than ten years" to bring to light. A French doctor who was investigating "malaria prophylaxis" had to take blood samples from children chosen from schools.
This was enough to create a rumor that the settlers were harvesting the blood of the little ones to make powerful talismans. Because of this, the doctor was ordered to stop his experiments. This did not prevent the noise from swelling and becoming a real urban legend in Antananarivo. Not to mention that the use of "ody" was still alive in the capital. A practice frowned upon, but little diverted, by the Protestant and Catholic Church of the time.
Thus was born the legend of "Mpaka rà". A legend that became modern and urban until the 1980s. Especially in rural areas, where the foreigner was sometimes suspected of being a blood taker. This period of "vampirism" is also related to the birth of the legend of "Mpaka fo". According to period testimony, many Malagasy believed that "whites" were great wizards.
An example of a Malagasy amulet, where several materials (iron, wood, etc.) are found.
Yesteryear and today. Seeing the Christian statues and icons, the natives believed that they were the powerful “ody”. Rumor had it that the foreign wizards were taking children's hearts to use it in their evil makeup. A testimony was even reported by a settler, "a native came to his home and offered to kill a child and take his heart to make a talisman".
If the pre-colonial monarchy in turn more or less prohibited and granted the use of "gris-gris", the colonial and racist French administration banned it by highlighting the benefits of civilization and science. . In a way, vain efforts, since when the Malagasy riflemen left for the Great War, a wave of fetishists had come to the outskirts of Antananarivo to equip the Malagasy soldiers with “ody bala”, an anti-bullet fetish.
When the settlers had therefore left, the legend remained. This time, the "white" was replaced by a car with tinted windows, by ferocious people or by chained beasts with red eyes. The political power was even accused of being behind these “thieves of blood and heart”. In the eighties and until the end of the nineties, these rumors were still heard in rural areas, sometimes in towns. The so-called disappearances of unexplained persons and children also maintain these legends.
http://www.midi-madagasikara.mg/culture … -origines/
July 30 was the World Day dedicated to the victims of trafficking, knowing that one of the largest human deportations was the one that affected Africa. The figures speak of more than 40 million forced displaced people (men, women and children) of the great continent from the XV th century or more. These “goods” bought and sold, the historical responsibility of which is still subject to debate between Europeans, Arabs, Africans and internally in the victim countries. These deportations thus created a large drop in the African population, without forgetting the impacts to be suffered several centuries later.With another look, this demographic break would not be foreign to the situation in Africa today. Madagascar was also the lucky child of this commercial wave of “human cattle”. It is a Dutchman named Pieter Van den Broecke who would have been the first instigator of the slave trade in the Big Island. It was in 1642 that his ship docked at "Antongil Bay". The destination of these deported Malagasy was Insulindia and Mauritius. But the numbers, aside from deaths and leaks, aren't that staggering. Between 1641 and 1647, no more than 367 slaves left Madagascar.However, the country already had four "zones of influence", trading posts for all types of goods, even human. The most extensive was held by France, decidedly a nation of slavery for a long time, to name only Colbert, the one who wrote the famous "Black Code", Holland, England and Arab countries. These areas were spread over the western and eastern coasts of the country. This is probably the reason for the hypothesis that the powerful human group Sakalava was not inclined to invest the center. Since the ports had more advantages, and history recalls the great expeditions from the northwest and northeast to control the ports.At that time, to the XVI th and XVII th century, the relationship with the kings of Europeans in these regions was already highly diplomatic, with well codified protocols and trade "win-win". Hence some equally surprising anecdotes such as the establishment of the "kabary" to fix among other things the price of slaves, a kind of open-air purse in the counters of the East; or a deputy called "Lou Lou", speaking English, whose paw had to be greased in order to obtain the favors of the local king in the northwest; or the famous Anthony Seraha, a Malagasy who lived in Lisbon in Portugal for ten years before 1720. He became a trusted man of the emissaries of this kingdom in Madagascar.Intermediaries like Anthony Seraha played an important role in the trade linked to the slave trade. It was through them that the orders passed, the kings also trusted them, while free men, “blacks” according to the writings of the time, were also attracted by this highly coveted role. Since they were rarely "condemned to death" despite the mistakes they made. At the time, royal sanctions in business were mostly final. For example, for a European who complained of not being well received by the king's intendants, they risked capital punishment.
On March 29, 1947, the Malagasy people rose to free themselves from the colonial yoke.
This insurrection with a severe repression lasted a year and a half.
It is often considered, after the Indochina crisis which broke out in 1944, as one of the signs before decolonization in French-speaking Africa.
1947, a French colonial massacre in Madagascar
Wednesday March 29, 2017
Seventy years ago today, the Malagasy people rose to free themselves from the colonial yoke. To this insurrection, France responded with a major crime, which left tens of thousands of deaths.
https://www.humanite.fr/1947-un-massacr … car-634021https://savoirs.rfi.fr/fr/comprendre-en … BwtezsMR98https://www.herodote.net/29_mars_1947-e … s%20autres
I have a guardian at my school who is Antandroy. His wife's sister died and so he is responsible to pay for the zebu for the family ritual. He was unable to do so and so the custom is that if another man pays and give the Zebu to the family ritual then the guardian's wife becomes the wife of the man who gave the Zebu to the family. The man I hear is very happy because the guardian's wife ( now ex wife) was pregnant and the baby will be the baby for the man who bought the wife in exchange for a Zebu for the family ritual. This man is happy because he always wanted children. This is the custom that all the family agrees about. in this Antandroy custom.
The forgotten queens of Malagasy history
Redaction Midi Madagasikara
Many Malagasy citizens know the queens of Imerina, but few do know the queens of other regions. As part of World Women's Day, we gathered information on some little-known queens who nevertheless marked the history of the Big Island.
Betty, the mulatto. Queen of the island of Sainte-Marie, Betty is the daughter of King Ratsimilaho and granddaughter of the American pirate Thomas Tew. She marries an adventurer Jean Onésime Filet. By his marriage to the queen, the latter becomes prince consort of the island of Sainte-Marie. On July 30, 1750, she ceded Île Sainte-Marie to France.
Tsiomeko, the insightful sovereign. Grand-niece of Andriantsoly, king of Sakalava de Boeny, she was elected queen in 1836 at the age of 8 when her great-aunt Oantitsy died, who had succeeded her brother Andriantsoly. Chased by the Merina, in June 1837 she had to leave her region to take refuge in Nosy-Komba, then in Nosy-Be where Captain Passot met her in 1839.
Tsiomeko was the daughter of Tahosy, daughter of Anitsaka, sister of Andriantsoly. Princess Soazara, Queen of Analalava is Tsiomeko's great-granddaughter. The kingship of Analalava comes from the three kingdoms of northern Madagascar including the Sakalava Zafinimena Bemihisatra by Tsiomeko, Sakalava Zafinifotsy by Derimany, brother of Tsimiaro, husband of Tsiomeko. Their son Tehimbola took for wife Anjaka, daughter of Tsiresy, queen of the Sakalava Zafinimena Bemazava of Sambirano. The latter also bears the posthumous name of Andriamanohiarivo (the princess who binds miles).
Binao, the princess who reigns above the thousand. Queen of the Sakalava Bemihisatra (1880-1923), still a child, she succeeds her mother Safy Mozongo, Andriantsoly's youngest daughter and reigns under the regency of her father Bebaka. Leaving the Kisomany islet which was her mother's residence, she settled in Ampasimena, on Grande Terre, and took part in the two Franco-Merina conflicts (1883-1885 and 1894-1895) by deploying men to reinforce the French troops from the northwest coast. During the uprising against the settlers in the Sambirano region, she entrusted Mataopiso with the leadership of the sakalava Bemihisatra attackers. Following this affair, she was kept in a fixed residence in Ambato, under the surveillance of Captain Laverdure, commander of the place. After the Antananarivo agreement in 1900, having no children, an intelligent and generous woman, she knew how to make benefit to her close relations of her right to the attribution of the concessions. When she died, she was buried in Tsinjoarivo, royal cemetery (Mahabo) of Nosy-Komba, in violation of her will. In 1941, for the respect of this desire, his body was transferred to Manongaro on the island of Nosy-Be, his name posthumously is Andriamanjakamboniarivo.
Ravahiny and his prosperous kingdom. Towards the first half of the 19th century, the kingdom of Boina was under the reign of Queen Ravahiny. Daughter of Andriamandisoarivo, she controls economic activities and her years of reign as Ravahiny were years of prosperity. The Antalaotra and the Sakalava of Boina saw their economic growth soar. In addition, Queen Sakalava had an excellent relationship with King Andrianampoinimerina. Because in 1808, that is to say two years before the death of the sovereign Merina, Ravahiny made an official visit to Antananarivo.
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