490 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR, 
Happily, as a means of relieving the fears of the people? 
who might be always in danger of being bewitched, even 
when least aware of it, they are warned when the unsus¬ 
pected calamity may be approaching them. This friendly 
office is performed by the sikidy, which ascertains that such 
or such a one is liable to be bewitched, and directs him 
what faditra he must offer to avert the impending evil. He 
thankfully accepts the warning, pays the fee for this pro¬ 
phetic intimation of ruin, offers the faditra, and feels him¬ 
self secure from harm. 
Thus a link of connexion is seen to exist between the 
sikidy, the ody, the tangena, and the idols, which, though 
not essentially allied in their own nature and influence, 
yet, by the customs of the island, support, and are depend¬ 
ent on, one another—and all sustain the same system of 
mental and moral delusion and degradation. The power 
that avails to destroy one branch of this system will infal¬ 
libly involve the ruin of the whole. Let knowledge and 
true religion spread, enlightening and invigorating the 
mind, at the same time that the heart is elevated and 
sanctified, and the idols shall be utterly abolished, the 
tangena shall be superseded by rational evidence—the vene¬ 
ration for truth, by the oblivion of witchcraft—charms shall 
no longer possess the fictitious virtue produced by a dis¬ 
ordered imagination—and the sikidy shall vanish before a 
simple reliance upon Divine Providence, and a devout dis¬ 
position to leave that which is future and concealed with 
Him who bounds the sphere of human investigation, and 
who represses the pride, while he exposes the feebleness of 
curiosity, by proclaiming, 44 Thou knowest not what a day 
may bring forth.” 
