186 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
man; mayst thou be loved, loved by the sovereign and by 
the people !—may the sovereign continue to reign long!— 
may there be mutual confidence between thee and the people, 
be of good report among the people, be facile of instruction, 
and of a docile disposition !” The father exhorts the child 
to take courage, declaring, that now he has become a man, 
he should have a gun, a spear, and a shield, and should 
follow the king; that, now he belonged to the king, he 
should henceforth serve him, and do homage to him, but 
‘that if he cried, he should not be the child of the king, 
but would be stigmatized as effeminate, and respected by 
no one. 
The exhortations addressed to the children of the slaves 
at this season are of a different description. A man with a 
spade in his hands exhorts them to serve their masters 
well, to collect fuel, to attend to the culture of the ground, 
to take care of the cattle, &c.; adding, that if they did not 
serve their masters well, they would be sold, &c. 
The rano-mahery, “strong water’ , is immediately em¬ 
ployed in washing the children. While the rite is per¬ 
forming, the mothers are crawling about on the floor, 
touching the earth with their hands, and throwing dust and 
ashes on their hair, as tokens of humiliation on account of 
their children. Each mother rises from the ground at the 
moment her child has received the rite, and endeavours to 
assuage its grief, nursing it by the side of a fire made of 
the reeds which have been already mentioned. 
The rite being now performed, there is usually a distribu¬ 
tion* made by the chiefs of the district, and by the heads of 
the families, of a number of oxen, to be killed and divided 
among the strangers and visitors. The parties then return 
to their several homes, when a fowl is killed, and some 
bananas given to the children. 
