Bo4 REV. GEORGE A. SHAW, F.Z.S., ON 
Every effort is made by the heads of the tribe to prevent 
intermarriage with other tribes. If a Taimoro of the Anta- 
laotra (eon marries into another tribe, or even with a 
Hova, the one so doing is excommunicated, and is treated as 
a perfect stranger. The parents refuse to acknowledge them 
or their children, and they are entirely cut off from the tribe. 
‘They are mourned for as dead, and are as dead te their 
parents and kinsfolk. This is Sel to be the reason why 
none of the Taimoro women dress in the gay lamba affected 
by the other tribes, or in the soft white lamba of the Hova, 
but only in the rougher and coarser rojia lamba. They think 
that there is more danger of their wives and daughters beng 
carried off by the Hova for their wives if thus dressed, than 
if their charms are dulled by a common-looking dress. So it 
is made fady for a Taimoro woman or big girl to dress in a 
calico skirt or lamba, The upper part of the body may be 
covered with a calico jacket, as this is presumably hidden 
beneath the lamba, but the belles seem to make up for the 
other restriction by wearing the brightest-coloured jackets 
procurable. But whether the desired end is gained by the 
jfady or not, it is certain that there are but few Taimoro 
women nied to men of other tribes, and hence the distine- 
tive peculiarities of the T'aimoro have been preserved in a 
way not found in any other peoples in the island. 
If a woman does marry a man of another tribe, or of a 
branch of her own tribe which is considered beneath her 
family, a great assembly is called of all the heads of families. 
Jattle are killed to add importance to the function, and the 
woman is advised in the public assembly to repudiate her 
husband. If she does, well and good; but if, after persua- 
sion and threat, she declines, she 1s advertised as not of them, 
she is forthwith an outcast and is boycotted. No one will 
allow her to fetch from their hearths fire to kindle her own; 
no one will fetch fire from her hearth. If she has a child, no 
one visits her to congratulate her ; no one cominiserates 
with her in case of illness or death. And—the worst thing 
of all in their estimation—no one will help to bury her when 
she dies. In no tribe with which I have become acquainted 
in Madagascar is so much effort made to preserve the tribal 
distinctions and to keep themselves pure from contamination 
with other tribes. It is doubtless owing to this that the 
Taimoro are so peculiarly different from all the other peoples 
in the island. 
Like the Taifasy and other south-east tribes, the Taimoro 
