IMMORALITY. 253 



other tribes, on the contrary, as the Bara and some neighbour- 

 ing races, there is a shameless and open indecency of speech 

 and behaviour which would shock the Hovas, although many 

 of them would, in secret, act quite as immorally. Thus there 

 is a Hova word, saodr&nto (saotra, " divorced ; " ranto, " traded 

 in "), to express the leave given to a wife to have intercourse 

 with another man during her husband's prolonged absence 

 from home. On the other hand, there are certain ornaments 

 worn by a wife during such absence to denote that her person 

 is sacred. Then there are also phrases, such as miaro- 

 vdntotra, to express refusal to allow a near female relative to 

 be taken for immoral purposes, showing, as is well known 

 from other evidence, that the opposite of this was a not 

 infrequent practice. It also used to be usual among the 

 Hovas for the most shameless licentiousness to be allowed by 

 custom on certain occasions, such as the birth of a child in 

 the royal family : but Eadama I. prohibited this, owing to 

 the urgent remonstrances of Mr. Hastie, the British resident, 

 who threatened to proclaim to the world what vileness was 

 carried on in his dominions. Radama, who earnestly wished 

 to be well thought of by Europeans, was so affected that he 

 gave peremptory orders to stop such practices, and even put 

 to death some persons of high rank who were found to have 

 been guilty of disobedience. Such days were called dndro- 

 tsi-maty, " days-not-dead," that is, not involving death for any 

 offence {History of Madagascar, vol. i. p. 150). 



A wife is sometimes called anddfimandry, "the one lying 

 beyond," close to the wall ; a second wife is vddy kely, " little 

 wife," while if there are three or more wives, the wife or 

 wives between the first and the last are called masdy, a word 

 whose meaning is not clear. * The wives of chiefs among 

 the Sakalava are termed biby, a word which in Hova means 

 " animal." A present made to a first wife upon marrying a 

 second is called dso-pandriana, a corruption of iso-pandriana, 

 from isotra, " cleared, removed," and fandrlana, " bed." The 

 privilege (?) of having twelve wives was reserved by the 



* A French writer, M. Desire' Charnay, says that among the Betsimisaraka : 

 "Les sceurs de ces trois femmes [d'un chef] appartiennent de droit a l'epouz 

 jusqu' a ce qu'elles soient mariees." (Tour du Monde, x. liv. 247 ; p. 208.) 



