Famadihana: a deadly tradition

Distinguished by its unique array of spectacular oddities, Madagascar's crushing poverty has transformed its verdant landscape into a battleground for survival. A growing number of villages are relying on an indigenous silkworm, and foreign markets, to improve their future.

Herpetologists, botanists, ornithologists, and primatologists flock to Madagascar with Darwinian zeal, seeking a titillating lineup of species unique to this land shaped like an angry gallbladder. Stocked with screaming lizards, hissing cockroaches, blind snakes, and chameleons with two-footlong tongues, Madagascar harbors unrivaled exotica. Scientists estimate that eight out of ten living things in Madagascar exist no place else in the world, and though there is growing consensus as to the reason for this phenomenon,

Originally part of Gondwana (a landmass in the southern hemisphere comprising Madagascar, Africa, South America, Australia, the Indian subcontinent, and Antarctica), Madagascar cut off relations with Africa about 150 million years ago. Another 75 million years passed before Madagascar divorced the Indian subcontinent, securing its honor as the fourth largest—and oldest—island in the world, measuring 1,000 miles long and 340 miles wide. Yet only 10 percent of this landscape has escaped annihilation. Forests, once as dense as felt, have been reduced to a few scrappy stands. Severe cyclones annually visit this fabled paradise, felling magnificent arbors with one small breath. But Mother Nature is not to blame for Madagascar’s depleted state. Her wreckage is wrought by man.

A panther chameleon found in eastern and northern parts of Madagascar. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

Deforestation is the result of both need and greed. The export of precious timber has been going on for nearly a century, feeding an international market of high-end consumers (now predominantly Chinese) willing to pay exorbitant prices for rosewood and ebony, even if the ultimate price is incalculable. The timehonored method of slash and burn agriculture is the foundation for its ubiquitous rice paddies, reflecting the traditions of its ancestors who traveled from Indonesia by outrigger canoe. It also provides pasture land for herds of zebu, the cow with a baby camel-like hump. The zebu is Madagascar’s leading type of livestock, raised for its meat and ability to till fields. It is the draft horse of this remote outpost and though large herds of zebus are the exception, farmers keep a working pair if possible.

Families who can’t afford a zebu might own a pig, but in some villages, pork is fady, the Malagasy word for taboo. Fady is serious business. Of the eighteen tribes in Madagascar, each one has its own set of taboos and within them, fady can be unique to a village and different from one family to the next. In some villages, eating pork is fady. Not only is eating it prohibited, but even touching someone who eats pork can be fady.

A young girl selling bags of charcoal by the roadside. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.