EXPENSIVE FUNERALS 203 



hardly anyone who does not wash his clothes, and has not white 

 dress. Not long ago, when it was evening, the young men in 

 the villages used to form into two parties, and had violent 

 boxing-matches all through the village, the women also often 

 joining in the fray. But now no one practises this rough sport. 

 Not long ago rum was what the people chiefly delighted in ; and 

 if any strangers who visited them were not made thoroughly 

 drunk, the owner of the house was looked upon as inhospitable, 

 although he gave them the best of everything to eat." 



We left Marosalazana at one o'clock, and found outside the 

 village something which gives the explanation of its name, 

 " many poles " viz. a group of more than twenty poles stuck 

 in the ground close together, and holding ox skulls and horns. 

 This was the largest group we had yet seen, and there also were 

 many more lying mouldering on the ground. Besides these, 

 there were several very high poles with forked tops, such as 

 we had already seen at almost all the Sihanaka villages. These 

 lofty poles are called jiro, a word which in Hova Malagasy 

 signifies a " lamp." We had already seen these on our journey 

 northwards, but here was a larger number than we had hitherto 

 met with. These jiro are only raised in memory of a male 

 Sihanaka ; to eulogise a woman, the rush mats and baskets 

 which she made and possessed while living are arranged on poles 

 by the wayside to meet the public gaze. These people spend 

 a large amount of money and property on the funerals of their 

 relatives. Mr Pearse gives the following account of what was 

 expended at that of a man dying at a village called Man- 

 galaza : Thirty silk Idmbas, to wrap up the corpse, value two 

 hundred and sixty-nine dollars ; a hundred oxen, value three 

 hundred dollars ; drink and food, principally the former, 

 thirty-nine dollars' worth ; showing an expenditure of more 

 than six hundred dollars on this particular funeral. (At that 

 time a dollar was worth as much or more to the Malagasy as 

 a pound would be to us.) 



After returning home from Antsihanaka, I heard many other 

 particulars about the people and their habits, and aniong them 

 the following curious, and cruel, custom with regard to widows ; 

 and as this is so utterly different from anything practised by any 

 other Malagasy tribe, as far as I am aware, it is well to put 

 it on record. It is much more like a Hindu custom than a 



