182 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
small baskets; they sing and chant during the time they 
are thus employed; and the baskets, when finished, are 
suspended in a line extending northward, the basket 
intended for the eldest child being placed first. 
While the females are employed making the baskets, 
the master of the ceremony kills a sheep in front of his 
house. This is called fahazaza. # After cutting off the 
head of the animal, the body is given to the multitude, 
who scramble for it, and in a few minutes tear the whole 
to pieces. The use of a knife or any sharp instrument 
is forbidden, as contrary to the order of the ceremony. 
Every female obtaining a portion is supposed to obtain 
with it the blessing of fruitfulness. No sheep, however, 
possesses this potent efficacy, that is not of a certain kind 
and colour decided by the sikidy, or divination. 
The children on whom the rite is to be performed are 
next led across the blood of the animal just killed, to 
which some idea of sacredness is attached. They are 
then placed on the west side of the house, and as they 
stand erect, a man, holding a light cane in his hand, 
measures the first child to the crown of the head, and at 
one stroke cuts off a piece of the cane measured to that 
height, having first carefully dipped the knife in the blood 
of the slaughtered sheep. This knife is again dipped in 
the blood, and the child measured to the waist, when the 
cane is cut to that height. He is afterwards measured to 
the knee, with similar observances. The same ceremony 
is performed on all the children successively. The 
meaning of this, if indeed any meaning can be attached 
to it, seems to be the symbolical removal of all evils to 
which the children might be exposed,—first, from the head 
* Causing fruitfulness. 
