412 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
imposition of responding to salutations has since been 
practised, nor has any one assumed the office of awaker. 
The names of many of the idols are singularly significant 
of the powers and the attributes supposed to belong to 
them. Among the idols of inferior note, the following 
may be mentioned:— 
Keli-manjaka-lanitra, “Little, but ruling the heavens.”— 
As this god, according to his name, pretends to “ rule the 
heavens,” so his exploits are said to be of the following de¬ 
scription 'That when the rice is ripe in the fields, and the 
hail approaching, then he casts (i.e. causes to be cast) a charm 
to the bottom of the water; and fetching ashes from the 
four corners of the hearth, he throws it towards the clouds, 
when the hail changes into rain, and the rice is secured. 
He has many appropriate abstinencies to be enjoined upon 
his followers, the non-observance of which will frustrate his 
charms against the hail. Amongst them are—not grind¬ 
ing rice near the place where luggage is deposited; not 
boiling the root voanjo at the fire-place; and such like 
observances; “for such things are his antipathies .” 
Manara-mody, “The Restorer to one’s home.”—The 
pretended power of this idol is founded on the love the 
natives have to their native country and village, their 
families and parents. He professes to furnish a charm, from 
the application of which, by a third person, the devotee will 
be sure of reaching that third person again, to whatever 
dangers he may be exposed. The popularity of this idol is 
not to be wondered at, when it is considered with how many 
tears mothers, and fathers, and wives, and kindred, and 
friends, dismiss the objects of their strongest affections to 
the distant war, with the probabilities greatly against their 
ever returning; and with how bitter a grief the soldiers 
themselves bid farewell to their loved Imerina , and all its 
