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HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
the Malagasy, made at Antananarivo, 27th Alahasaty, 1828. 
In the original the enactments are regularly numbered. 
The following is a translation of the chief laws :— 
All rebels, or persons who violate the royal bed ; who steal from 
the sovereign’s house, or from the houses of any of the nobility; 
who entice or lead the people to rebel against their sovereign; 
all persons guilty of murder and witchcraft, shall be punished with 
death. 
All persons found guilty of kidnapping, bullock-stealing, dig¬ 
ging under the walls of a house in order to rob it, robbing in a 
house, cutting off any part of a person’s cloth in which money is 
tied, cutting and stealing rice by night, swearing allegiance to any 
besides the sovereign, giving the tangena privately in order to 
decide any cause whatever without the knowledge or consent of 
the sovereign, removing a landmark or boundary fixed by the 
sovereign, reviving a lawsuit after it has been once finally settled 
by the sovereign or judges, the hasina and the orimbato having 
been accepted, such person or persons shall be lost,* with wife and 
family; but on surviving the tangena shall receive a fine of ten 
bullocks and ten dollars from the accuser. 
All persons found guilty of a contumacious violation of the laws, 
being admonished and yet not obeying, shall be fined one hundred 
dollars. 
If any person accuses another of being bewitched, there being 
no witness, and the accused is conquered by the tangena, whether 
by drinking it himself or by giving it to the dogs, he shall be lost, 
and his property confiscated; but if he survives the test, the 
accuser shall pay him a fine of twenty-nine and a half dollars; no 
excuse can be admitted in this case. 
Any person found guilty of robbing a tomb, or using unjust 
weights, or untying any part of a person’s cloth in which money 
is tied, or using unjust measures, or making bad money, or the 
uniting together of four and upwards to bear false witness, 
striking with iron, or even with wood having iron attached to it, 
shall be lost, and his property confiscated; but if he gains the 
cause he shall be paid five bullocks and five dollars by the accuser. 
Reduced to a state of slavery. 
