174 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



are carefully fanned to keep away the flies/"" and, in the case of the 

 Vazimba, are given a double burial like the Khasi of Assam, where the 

 belief in the snake monster known as the thlen is analogous to beliefs 

 of the Vazimba.^"^ Like the Lushei, the Betsileo and Sakhalava draw 

 off the putrefying liquors from the corpse.^^^ 



Stones are dragged from a distance with a rope ^®^ and, besides menhirs, 

 spoken of as ' male stones ' and put up as cenotaphs,^®* a wooden post 

 is erected as a circumcision memorial, clearly having some fertility 

 association. Stone platforms ^"'^ are made and there is a cult of sacred 

 stones on which, for instance, the Madagascar prince must stand, like 

 the Rajah of Manipur. Monumental stones are erected in front of 

 houses.^"" A taboo is found on a chief's bedstead.^®'' As among the 

 Konyak Nagas, royalty must contract marriages within the clan which 

 would, except for royalty, be incestuous, though in Madagascar ^"^ the 

 clan is matrilineal instead of patrilineal as in the Naga hills. We find 

 again a precisely similar belief in Madagascar to that in Assam, that the 

 camera abstracts the soul.^®^ I remember myself making the pretty 

 daughter of the Chief of Philimi most unhappy by taking her photograph, 

 and she refused to be comforted until she got a print which she took to 

 be the original. The possession of this secured her, in her opinion, from 

 her soul's being taken to the hot plains, which would cause her sickness 

 and death. Precisely as in the Naga hills among all tribes the Madagascar 

 medicine-man ^"^^ cures illness by simulated extraction of ' dirt,' which 

 the patient believes to have really come out of his body, though it is in 

 fact palmed or ' mouthed ' by the operator. The opprobrious names so 

 often fancied in Madagascar are sometimes identical in meaning ^^^ with 

 those popular among Sema Nagas. The punishment of oifences against 

 society by the plundering of the offender's house is as popular in 

 Madagascar as formerly in the Sema and Angami Naga country ,^^'^ and 

 oaths are taken in exactly the same way as by many Nagas, by drinking 

 water in which a bullet or some other metal weapon has been infused.^^^ 

 In Madagascar also the Milky Way appears as the sign of the division 

 of the seasons.^'* 



Turning to material culture, we find the Hova using spears shod with 

 a point at the butt-end for sticking into the ground ^^^ like all those in 

 the Naga hills. Putting the weight is found as an indigenous sport,^^^ 



IS" Ellis, II, 260. 1" Sibree, 293, 297 ; Gurdon, 98, 141. 



IS* Wake, 25 ; Shakespear, 84. "^ Sibree, 301 ; Osborn, 345. 



1" Sibree, 26, 300, 315 ; Hutton, IV, XI. 



165 EUis, II, 451 ; Hutton, V. 



166 Ellis, II, 24, 249 (plate) ; MiUs, I. 23. 

 16' Sibree, 157 ; Hutton, II, 243 ; X, 42. 

 168 Ellis, II, 81, 199, 201. 



i6» Ellis, II, 340, 344 ; Hutton, I, 251 ; II, 200. 

 1'" Osborn, 314 ; Hutton, II, 231. 

 I'l Osborn, 307 ; Hutton, II, 236. 



1" Ellis, II, 309 ; Mills, II, 193. Cf. also Samoa (Frazer, II, 160) and the 

 Maori (Old New Zealand, ch. vi). 



1" EUis, II, 333 ; Shaw, 68. i'* Sibree, 71, 79 ; Mills, II, 302. 



1'^ Sibree, 243 ; Hutton, I, 34. 



i'6 Osborn, 257 ; Hutton, I, 103 ; II, 109 ; Hodson, 76. 



