248 MARRIAGE RESTRICTIONS. 



anklzy, is also used to denote " servants," being thus some- 

 what analogous to the French garqon and to the German 

 kellner.) 



Prom the (until lately) common practices of polygamy 

 and divorce, half-brothers and sisters are much more nume- 

 rous among the Malagasy than in European nations, but there 

 is no distinctive word for this half relationship, except that 

 they say that such an one is miray ray, " of one common 

 father," with another, or miray tam-po, "of one common 

 mother," or literally, "joined from the heart." There are 

 special words for an elder or younger brother or sister, viz., 

 zdky and zandry, words also applied widely as " senior " and 

 "junior" generally;* and there are also words for brother- 

 in-law, zaodahy, and sister-in-law, zaobavy. Zazampimihira 

 are brother and sister whom the father claims as his own 

 before divorcing the mother. Zazasary (literally, " image of 

 a child ") is a natural child, a bastard. 



Marriage between brother's children is exceedingly com- 

 mon, and is looked upon as the most proper kind of connec- 

 tion, as keeping property together in the same family (the 

 marriage of two persons nearly related to each other is called 

 Ibva-tsi-miflndra, i.e., " inheritance not removing ") ; and there 

 does not seem to result from such marriages any of those 

 consequences in idiocy and mental disorder of the offspring 

 which are frequently seen in European nations as arising 

 from the marriages of first cousins. It is possible, however, 

 that to this marrying in and amongst tribes and families is 

 due, in part at least, the sterility so frequent in Malagasy 

 women, although this is no doubt also largely caused by the 

 too early marriage of young peoples, and the licentiousness 

 allowed until very lately among the young, and even among 

 mere children. 



Marriage between brothers' and sisters' children is also 

 allowable on the performance of a slight prescribed ceremony, 

 supposed to remove any impediment from consanguinity ; but 

 that of sisters' children, when the sisters have the same mother, 

 is regarded with horror as incest, being emphatically fddy or 



* Sadnjo rnihbatra alcdndro, i.e., "The arum exceeding the banana," is a 

 phrase used to express preferment given to a junior brother by his senior. 



