POPULATION 
85 
become subject to Fady-\2.^NS. Superstitious ideas are 
abundantly combined with these mystic consecrations. 
A portion of the forest which has been spared by a forest 
fire is denoted as fady. It is forbidden to cut down 
wood there or even to gather herbs. In many places, 
as in the south, it is the fowl which is fady and is 
abhorred, among some tribes the same holds of the pig 
or the dog. When I was going to shoot the great lemur, 
(Indris) called by the Malagasy babakota, my guide seized 
my weapon, with the cry ‘‘Fady”. And when in spite of 
this I brought the animal down, all hospitality in the vil¬ 
lage where I lived was withdrawn from me. The lemur 
is held sacred as being the abode of the spirits of their 
ancestors and also as the progenitor of the Malagasy 
race. Certain days in the month are fady and count as 
unlucky. A child born upon one ol these days is put to 
death unless it has been possible to save it by a formal 
decision, which often costs a great deal. This was 
formerly common and was one material cause of the 
slow increase of the population. Certain numbers are 
lucky, others unlucky; the Bara have a great objection to 
the number one^ so one must never offer them a single 
object. The Hova assign an unlucky significance to six 
and eighty while twelve is an especially lucky number. 
Fabulous beasts and plants play no light part in the 
imagination of the Malagasy. Thus they have made up 
the Songo 7 nby^ a swift-footed animal as big as an ox, that 
devours men, and the nocturnal Toka 7 i-dia whose fore feet 
and hind feet have grown together in one piece, but which 
none the less runs with fabulous speed; then there is a 
rare beast with red horns which is said to live in the water. 
Some years ago a notice went the round of the papers, 
describing a man-eating tree, the crown of which had flex¬ 
ible snakelike appendages, and which formed the object of 
religious worship; but in this case it seems that the fancy 
of a traveller outstripped even that of the inhabitants. 
