236 BETSILEO HOUSES 



variations ; and so lately as 1897 a high French official made 

 a somewhat similar covenant, with a principal chief in the 

 extreme south of the island. The fdto-drd has doubtless been 

 observed by the various tribes in all parts of Madagascar, but 

 there appears to have been a good deal of difference in the 

 details of the ceremonial attending it. 



We spent a day at Imahazony, the last Hova military post 

 in this direction, before plunging into the unknown route 

 across the forest to the coast. The people from the little vdla 

 (homesteads) came running out to see us as we went by, most 

 of them having never seen a white face before. We noticed 

 how different the Betsileo dialect is from the Hova form of 

 Malagasy ; the n in the latter is always nasal (ng) in the former ; 

 while numerous words are shorter than their equivalents as 

 spoken in Imerina ; and the consonantal changes are numerous. 

 Besides this, the vocabulary is very different for many things 

 and actions. About two hours' ride on the following morning 

 brought us to the large village of Ivalokianja. We went into 

 a house, the best in the village, for our lunch ; it was the largest 

 there, but was not so large as our tent (eleven feet square), and 

 the walls were not six feet high. The door was a small square 

 aperture, one foot ten inches wide by two feet four inches 

 high, and its threshold two feet nine inches from the ground ; 

 so that getting into most Betsileo houses is quite a gymnastic 

 feat, and it is difficult to understand how people could put 

 themselves to so much needless inconvenience. Close to it, at 

 the end of the house, was another door, or window (it was 

 difficult to say which, as they are all pretty much the same 

 size !), and opposite were two small openings about a foot and 

 a half square. The hearth was opposite the door, and the fixed 

 bedstead was in what is the window corner (north-west) in 

 Hova houses. In this house was the first example I had 

 seen of decorative carving in Malagasy houses ; the external 

 faces of the main posts being carved with a simple but effective 

 ornament of squares and diagonals. There was also other 

 ornamentation, much resembling the English Union Jack. The 

 gables were filled in with a neat plaited work of split bamboo. 

 The majority of the houses in this and most of the Betsileo 

 villages are only about ten or twelve feet long by eight or nine 

 feet wide, and the walls from three to five feet high. Here- 



