MARITAL JEALOUSY 155 



and elsewhere. The rights of an unmarried Malagasy 

 queen resemble them still more. She may have " a 

 family by whom she may think proper : the children 

 are recognised as legitimately royal by their relation to 

 the mother and no question made as to paternity." 

 On certain festive occasions the licence was shameless. 

 Such were the periodical times appointed by the Hova 

 sovereigns for the performance of circumcision, and 

 the celebration of a birth in the royal family. The 

 grossest practices on the latter occasion were abolished 

 by Radama I. on the urgent remonstrances of Mr. 

 Hastie, the then British resident at the capital, who 

 threatened to publish the facts in the Mauritius Gazette 

 so that they might be known in Europe to the king's 

 disgrace. 1 Among the Betsileo funerals are accom- 

 panied by general " prostitution." 2 A French traveller 

 in the earlier half of the last century gives a graphic 

 account of the way in which the hospitality of the 

 Betanimena towards him extended to the offer of a 

 young girl as temporary consort ; 3 but it does not 

 appear whether other Malagasy tribes practise this 

 custom on the reception of strangers. Their opinions 

 on the subject of chastity would certainly not stand in 

 the way. 



Brahmanism is gradually penetrating the immemorial 

 practices of the non- Aryan population of the valley of 

 the Ganges and its tributaries. By a convenient 

 fiction the tribe is converted into a caste deriving its 



1 Ellis, Hist. Mad. i. 137, 167, 172, 150; Sibree, 252, 253,254, 

 250, 217 ; Father Paul Camboue, Anthropos, ii. 983. 



2 van Gennep, Tabou, 158, citing the Antananarivo Annual. 



3 Id. Tabou, 45, quoting Leguevel de Lacombe, Voyage a 

 Madagascar 



