SACRED OX. 271 



made about the latter animals, ordering their removal to a 

 distance of several miles from the capital city, and some 

 tribes and families will not eat their flesh, considering it 

 unclean. 



The most valuable and plentiful of all the animals found 

 in Madagascar, the large-humped buffalo, has some curious 

 legendary history connected with it. A king called Ealambo, 

 the eleventh on the list of Hova sovereigns, is held in memory 

 as the first who ventured to use it as food. It is said that 

 before his time it was called jambka, a word which is still in 

 use as an adjective, meaning " gentle, easy, not harsh." But 

 since then it has been called omby. This name is said in the 

 story to be derived from the circumstance that Ealambo said, 

 " Omby, omby ! " (" Enough, enough ! "), when the folds were 

 filled with cattle. But it looks very much as if the story 

 were invented to account for the word, which is most likely 

 the same as the Swahili ngomhi. It has been conjectured that 

 before Ealambo's time the ox had retained (in that part of 

 Madagascar, at least) the semi-sacred character which it still 

 bears among many nations, as with certain Himalayan tribes, 

 the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Kaffirs, and some peoples in the 

 valley of the White Nile. The correctness of this supposition 

 is confirmed by the fact that amongst several Malagasy tribes 

 the office of killing an ox is one which belongs only to the 

 chief, who was, it must be remembered, a sort of high priest 

 among his people. Thus, Drury says, " Few in this part of 

 the island [south-west provinces] will eat any beef unless it 

 is killed by one descended from a race of kings. My master 

 and his brother, to execute these high offices were sometimes 

 obliged to go five or six miles to kill an ox." Among the 

 Taimoro people, on the south-east coast, the writer found the 

 same custom to prevail At a large village called Ambotaka 

 we were told that no bird or animal must be killed for food 

 except by some one belonging to the family of the king. A 

 relic of this custom still remains among the Hovas, for at the 

 landrdana, or New Year's festival, the fattened oxen to be 

 killed are driven into the royal courtyard to be blessed by the 

 sovereign. An ox without blemish is killed, and the hump 

 being cut off is brought to the sovereign to be tasted, as a 



