114 HOVA TOMBS 



villages were defended. These show very conspicuously from 

 a great distance, and are from ten to twenty feet deep ; and 

 as they are often of considerable extent they must have 

 required an immense amount of labour to excavate. These 

 elaborate fortifications are memorials of the " feudal period " 

 in central Madagascar, when almost every village had its 

 petty chief or mpanjdka, and when guns and gunpowder 

 were still unknown. These old places are now mostly 

 abandoned for more convenient positions in the plains or 

 on the low rising grounds ; and the fosses or hddy are 

 often capital hunting-grounds for ferns and other wild 

 plants. 



Perhaps more noticeable even than the old towns are the old 

 tombs, as well as more modern ones, which meet one's eye in 

 the neighbourhood of every village. The Hova tombs are 

 mostly constructed of rough stonework, undressed and laid 

 without mortar ; they are square in shape, from ten to twenty 

 feet or more each way, and generally of two or three stages of 

 three to four feet high, diminishing in size from the lowest. 

 This superstructure surrounds and surmounts a chamber 

 formed of massive slabs of bluish-grey granitic rock, partly sunk 

 in the ground, and partly above it. In this chamber are stone 

 shelves, on which the corpses, wrapped in a number of silk 

 cloths or Idmba, are laid. The tombs of wealthy people, as well 

 as those of high rank, are often costly structures of dressed 

 stonework, with cornices and carving ; some are surmounted 

 with an open arcade, and have stone shafts to carry lightning 

 conductors. Within the last few years some large tombs have 

 been made of burnt brick (externally), although no change is 

 made in the ancient style of interior construction, with single 

 stones for walls, roof, door and shelves. Near some villages 

 are a large number of these great family tombs ; and at one 

 place, on the highroad from the present to the old capital, a 

 long row of such tombs, from thirty to forty in all, may be seen. 

 In many places a shapeless heap of stones, often overshadowed 

 by a Fdno tree, resembling an acacia, marks a grave of the 

 Vazimba, the earlier inhabitants of the country. These are 

 still regarded with superstitious dread and veneration by the 

 people, and offerings of rice, sugar-cane and other food are often 

 placed on them. 



