BETSILEO BURIAL MEMORIALS. 231 



resembles a dwelling-house, except that it has no window 

 or hearth, from which fact it is called trdrw man&ra, " cold 

 house," as well as trano vn&sina, "sacred house." In this 

 house valuable property is often deposited, and when King 

 Kadama I. was buried, and also the late Queen Basoherina, 

 an immense quantity of costly articles of dress and furniture 

 and other valuables were placed in their tombs, as well as 

 chests of money. Their coffins were made of plates of silver 

 formed from dollars hammered out, while many thousands of 

 dollars were also put into the coffin as a bed for the deceased 

 sovereign. There is, to European ideas, a prodigal and painful 

 waste of money. (For other curious facts connected with the 

 subject of royalty, see the chapters on the Language, and 

 " New Light on Old Texts.") 



In former times it was usual to erect poles near the tombs 

 in Imerina, and upon them to fix the skulls and horns of the 

 bullocks killed at the funeral feasts ; but this custom is now 

 falling into disuse, although still kept up by other tribes. In 

 many places a massive upright slab of rough undressed basalt 

 is erected as a memorial of distinguished personages. 



The BitsiMo. — The B^tsileo people in the southern central 

 district of Madagascar have some strongly-marked differences, 

 both in their tombs and their funeral customs, from those of 

 their neighbours in Imerina. One of the most prominent facts 

 in connection with their burial memorials is the existence of 

 a considerable amount of decorative carving in the curious 

 and elaborate timber-posts erected over or near their graves, 

 and also, to a less extent, in the massive stones set up as 

 memorials in the same situations. On the road from Anta- 

 nanarivo to Fianarantsda, I was much interested when coming 

 to an old town called Ikangara to find a large collection of 

 these burial memorials. They were well worth examination, 

 as in a small space there were grouped together many different 

 kinds of tombs and monuments, some forty or fifty in number, 

 and of the following kinds : — 



1. The largest tombs — there were two of them — were of 

 small flat stones, built in a square of some twenty to twenty- 

 five feet, and about five feet high. But around them was a 

 railing of carved posts and rails, those at each corner with a 



