A Brief History of Betafo

Imerina, remember, is divided into ancestral territories, each belonging to the descendants of a single named ancestor who is, usually, said to have migrated there sometime in “Malagasy times.” Roughly a third of such demes claim andriana, or “noble” status, the rest are hova, or “commoners.”

There was usually a little story about that founding ancestor: where he came from, why he left, how he moved to the territory on which his descendants now reside, how he defined its boundaries, created its villages, named various prominent aspects of its landscape. Often there was a story about how he divided up the territory among his children, the senior lines always being located furthest to the east. Only a few old men (or very occasionally women) would feel entitled to tell such official histories, though most could give a sketchy account of more recent history, of the prominent elders (almost always, said to be just recently deceased) who had gone on to found later settlements.

For most people, this is what local “history” (tantara) largely consisted of; certainly, if you asked about local history, this is what they would think you were asking about. But there were other strains of history, which came out in other contexts: ranging from accounts of ancient royalty to covert, shameful rumors about how masters had once treated slaves—stories about relations of dominance and oppression, injustice, punishment, and guilt. In this chapter, I want to examine both of these ways of looking at history. I also want to provide a thumbnail sketch of Betafo’s history, comparing the official “history” with what can be reconstructed from written records. Even for this relatively obscure part of Imerina, documentary records are surprisingly rich: it is possible, for instance, to patch together a good deal of the history of Betafo’s three most prominent nineteenth-century families.

Two Siaes of the Mountain

Heading north from Arivonimamo is a fairly wide road—or, I call it a road mainly because that’s what people there call it, and because it was once partly paved with stones. By now the one stretch which still shows traces of paving is the most difficult to walk on, since the remains of paving stones stick out of the clay at unpredictable angles. But it’s only really like that just to the north of town. After a bit the stones disappear and the road becomes a simple expanse of hard red earth, wide enough for three or even four people to walk abreast, though also cut by deep ruts of ox-carts which would make this impossible.

The road runs along low hillsides, fringed with high grass, often descending on one side to stretches of tapia forest or stands of eucalyptus. One periodically passes people walking, in the summer, ox-carts filled with pineapples (since that’s the main cash crop of the area) roll toward Arivonimamo; on Sundays and Mondays young men pass by driving troops of cattle towards the great weekly cattle market outside the capital. Only very exceptionally would anyone take an automobile along this road.

About half an hour’s walk from Arivonimamo a side path veers off west to Betafo, another, east to a place called Kianja. The crossroads, such as it is, is on a slight hill, and marked by a tiny thatched coffee-stand, which seems to pop out of nowhere. Here a woman from Kianja sells greasy rice cakes and sweets and exchanges gossip with passersby. I used to stop here almost every day, sit down, and drink a cup of coffee before passing on to Betafo.

From the grassy spot in front of the coffee stand, Mount Ambohidraidimby looms smooth and granitic, a huge round rock about ten minutes walk to the north. It’s a dramatic sight, especially in the summer when dozens of tiny springs within the rock come to life and thin sheets of water coat most of its sides, so that when caught at the right angle by the sun, the whole mountain seems to glisten.

Actually, this peak is only the easternmost of a chain of peaks, collectively named Ambohidraidimby. The territory of Betafo lies below them, to their south. If one continues north, however, to the mountain, the road curves to hug the rock, at some spots digging itself so deep into the red mud of the hillsides that one is often walking through something like a hallway, between walls of roots and crumbling earth. At other spots the granite cliffs of the mountain bulge out above. Erosion plays weird effects; there are cracks and fissures and even sudden inexplicable holes opening in the ground. Pedestrians become fewer. For most of the way, it’s almost impossible to make out much of the surrounding countryside: at least in the summer, one knows one is approaching a place of human habitation by hearing it: the rhythmic drip of water indicating nearby paddy fields.

1. Ambohitrambo Region, c. 1990

The northern side of the mountain is less sheer and there are foothills and crags; paths branch off the road, heading up through bushy forest. One leads to Andranovelona, a village sheltered by the woods. Just a short ways to the north, one breaks out of the woods entirely and finds oneself looking out over a stretch of open country, dotted with settlements and terraced valleys; behind it, directly to the north, is the imposing sugar-loaf mountain of Ambohitrambo. It is Ambohitrambo that really dominates the district—it can be seen for miles all around—and which is said to have been the seat of its ancient kings.

Andranovelona is the most ancient village of a deme which calls itself the Zanak’Andriandranomarina, and holds the tomb of its razambe. Directly between the two mountains is an even larger village called Manjakazaza (“a child rules”), the most ancient village of the twin deme called the Zanak’Andriamalahasima. Both demes are hova, “commoners,” but known for their industrious habits and prosperity. According to some, the two ancestors were brothers; according to others, unrelated friends. At any rate, the two ancestries see themselves as closely related.

There is a story about how Manjakazaza got its name. It’s a story just about anyone in the region north of Arivonimamo could tell you; I recorded at least twenty different versions of it during the time I was there, no two quite the same. But the core of it runs something like this:

There was a king who ruled this entire region from the peak of Ambohitrambo, who had a son named Lailoza. Lailoza was extremely arrogant and badly behaved. He used to order his father’s subjects around arbitrarily. There are stories about how he would whimsically make his servants take his cattle up and down the mountain, and especially, how he made the women of the country work endlessly making silk and weaving it into gigantic silk cables. With these cables, he intended to build a bridge between the two peaks. According to some, he would not deign to walk on the hillsides, but only on the tops of mountains. But all describe the bridge, a kind of elaborate tightrope with two cables below for his feet, one on top for his hands; and how his father finally took pity on the people’s suffering, and cut the cord while the son was halfway across it, so that he tumbled to his death. The place where he landed they say is now called Manjakazaza, “a child rules,” “because he was just a child, but he lorded it over everyone” (zaza fotsiny fa nanjakajaka).

Such was the end of the kings of Ambohitrambo. At least, this is what many narrators add, and this is what makes the story so poignant: in order to save his people, the king sacrificed his own posterity—even, as it turned out, the institution of kingship itself. One could say the story parallels Andriantsihanika’s, who sacrificed his andriana status because he didn’t want to treat others as slaves. And indeed, like Andriantsihanika, Lailoza has become a curing spirit; he has his own doany: an ancient tomb atop an ancient tower on the very summit of Ambohitrambo, where people come regularly to manasina and invoke him. However, Andriantsihanika has descendants; in fact in some versions, he abandoned his status in order to win land for them, sacrificing power for the sake of posterity. Lailoza’s story is more tragic, because his father was forced to give up both.

Since Lailoza is the only ancient king most local people know anything about, it can be said that the main thing the kings of Imamo are remembered for is self-destruction.

One of the first times I heard this story it was from a man from Andranovelona named Ranaivoson—a very short, energetic, mustachioed man who claimed to be seventy years old, a skilled astrologer who carried bits of wood and an ancient silver coin in his pocket, folded inside a white silk handkerchief—and who everyone recommended as the great expert in local history.

Ranaivoson had his own theory about most everything. In his version, it wasn’t silk they made the bridges from, but human hair—Lailoza had all the women’s tresses sheared and then had them weave it into cables. The ancestors of the twin demes, he told me, were not really related to each other. In fact, they were only ancestors in a manner of speaking. They had originally been officials sent out by the royal government to administer the local population.

I never found anyone else who agreed with him on this point, but what I want to draw attention to here is the peculiar, dual nature of his moral rhetoric. Taking us above the village to a large old tree, he pointed out a flat rock near its foot. Under that, he said, was Andriandranomarina’s tomb. The stone was sometimes used for carrying out ordeals: one need merely rub it, make one’s oath, and within three days justice would be done. It was because of the moral character of the man buried there: he was a man who “held on to the truth” (mitana fahamarinana); if anyone in the village was crooked or cruel, his power would afflict them or drive them away. This is exactly the sort of rhetoric familiar from chapter 3. But having said it, he immediately went off in a completely opposite direction. The chief of 500 was not buried in a proper tomb; he simply dug a great pit and threw in all his wealth, creating a huge bed of silver coins. That’s why no one has ever performed a famadihana for him. He knew that if the grave were opened, they could take away his money. So he made a rule:

Ranaivoson: “If anyone holds a famadihana for me,” he said, “if they kill chickens—it has to be a hundred chickens. If they kill cows—it has to be a hundred cows. If they kill pigs—it has to be a hundred pigs.” So his descendants haven’t been able to do it. He was taking precautions, because you know if they did have a famadihana, then they would be able to take away the money. So until this day he just sits there, he’s never had a famadihana.

The desire for money would be the main reason for anyone to want to hold such a famadihana, if Ranaivoson’ account is to be believed, because in fact, Andriandranomarina no longer has any real descendants.

Ranaivoson: He no longer has any descendants. His real descendants— grandchildren, great-grandchildren, posterity, whatever—are all gone. It’s the descendants of those he governed who remain. And it’s the same with those kings on top of Mount Ambohitrambo—you can’t find any real descendants any more; if there are any left at all, it’s just a few.

You see in former times, they had the custom of doing things that were against the law. Because their way: say for example they had bought some person: they would chop off his heels. Because of that they had guilt (tsiny) before the word of God, and when that guilt was revealed, their descendants didn’t flourish. Because of his bad habits, the king’s descendants have become scarce.

He had people’s heads cut off. He . . . if someone was found guilty before him, they wouldn’t say anything, they wouldn’t do anything, they’d just go right off and cut off his head, or cut off his heels, or all sorts of things like that. So they were guilty according to the word of God, and in the present, they have very few descendants.

If you really examine the matter, it’s the same with the descendants of the kings in the Rova [the palace in Antananarivo]. Very few remain. Because they had customs that were against the law, against the word of God, so the majority of them ended up damaged by it.

Ranaivoson’s Andriandranomarina is a weird amalgam of ancestor and oppressor, but the moral vision, at least, is perfectly consistent. Powers of command— here, as always, represented simultaneously as royal power and the power of masters over slaves—are, at least in the grandest scheme of things, essentially illegitimate, even criminal. Particularly, they are the negation of descent. Andriandranomarina’s concern to keep his money made it impossible to have any proper relations with his descendants, the andriana’s power made them have no successors at all. In the end, Lailoza’s fate was that of all andriana. Such power annihilates the families of those who practice it. Their lines died out. They’re gone. If they still have a presence in the territory, it is only through traces— their names, stones, trees, stories, a presence seen as fundamentally alien by the people who live there, the descendants of those they once governed and oppressed.

All of this is very much in contrast with Betafo.

Lailoza’s story has little place in the historical consciousness of Betafo. People know it, certainly—it’s a famous story—but few see it as having any real relevance to their own community. This is at least partly because Mount Ambohitrambo is not visible from anywhere in Betafo: it lies hidden behind Ambohidraidimby, whose successive low peaks form the northern backdrop of the deme. Generally, stories cluster around the main visual landmarks of an area, and a territory is assumed to have belonged to whatever king resided on the nearby mountaintop most visible from within it. Betafo is thus somewhat sheltered, as neither of the two major nearby royal mountains (Ambohitrambo and Ambohipanompo just west of Arivonimamo) are visible from it. But even more important is the fact that the inhabitants of Betafo are andriana, and therefore, they do not think of themselves as having been anyone’s subjects. In so far as they see a connection, they identify with the kings. Even more importantly, Betafo is not exclusively andriana. It is divided between andriana and their former slaves. People from other andriana demes in the region (for instance the Andriandranando of Amberobe, to the northwest of the mountains) told me they considered andriana status mainly a thing of the past. “After all, everyone marries everyone else nowadays, so no one is pure andriana or pure hova . . .” But in Amberobe there was no longer a population of black people nearby. In Betafo, the andriana’s sense of who they were, of what it meant to be noble, was almost obsessively defined in relation to the issue of slavery.

Compare then the very different conversation I had with Irina’s mother Ramanana, the elderly matriarch of Antanety’s andriana. Here is her summary of the history of Betafo—a history she only produced after much assurance from Miadana that this was for the sake of a foreign student writing a book, and not to be openly discussed by her neighbors. In Betafo, said Ramanana, the white people had been defeated. They had owned slaves, and mistreated them, and once the former slaves managed to get their own land and resources, they rapidly began getting the better of them:

Ramanana: In the earliest times, there was a market in slaves. There were two men who were slave-dealers, and they would have the slaves carry baskets of manure on their heads, absolutely, saying, “Mine is strong! Mine is strong!”

And people here in Betafo would buy them.

Now many of these servants were trustworthy, and they really worked hard for our ancestors. So the hearts of those elders rolled open, and they said, “here is land for you to own,”—land near where they were living—“here’s some land because you are a good and faithful servant” (as it says in holy scripture).

And then our numbers began to grow fewer, until in the present time— now, I won’t cut my statement off, I’ll really make it perfectly clear—the white people have been defeated. They had money, they had more than they needed, so they all got slack. And what the ancestors had given them, they let it drain away. There. There’s what really happened.

Miadana: Well, that’s clear enough. There were servants. So the idea is that at the very beginning, they didn’t have anything. However, those that benefited their masters were given land. So their circumstances improved.

And once they had money of their own, they could start buying out the andriana—because the andriana didn’t have the energy to carry them to work. So the andriana were defeated. They began selling their rice fields, selling their rice nurseries, selling every kind of land to the people who had once been their servants.

That’s why people say the andriana have been defeated. They’ve become feeble; they don’t have the strength it takes to work at all. Those bellies, however, need to eat. So they’re obliged to sell, and the slaves’ property increases. And when their property has increased, so does the number of their descendants, so now it’s they who end up bossing people around. While of those who were once the slave-owners—only a few remain.

Ramanana: What really did it, perhaps: they made them work too hard. That’s why the owners were so quickly defeated. That’s my understanding of the matter. They ordered them around too much, saying: “You, boy, you do so-and-so!” According to the story I’ve heard, anyway, the slaves didn’t even get to sleep in the same place as other people: they had to sleep together with the pigs.

Miadana: I’ve heard about that kind of cruelty as well.

Ramanana: That’s what really did it—they ended up brooding, distracted; their hearts carried a guilt [tsiny], and so they were defeated.

There were two different, overlapping explanations of the andriana’s situation being offered here. One—the one emphasized by Miadana—was that as slave-owners, the andriana had lost their taste for work. Hence as soon as the two were on anything like equal footing, they weren’t able to compete. This was a very common way of representing things. But behind it lay another, more like Ranaivoson’s. The andriana had abused their power, they carry a burden of guilt, and so now they are few in numbers. Even the reference to scripture (extremely unusual in such historical accounts) recurs. This too was a very common way of thinking about Betafo’s history. From all I can make out, just about all the andriana of Betafo at least suspected their current poverty might be punishment for ancient guilt. But it was not the sort of thing anyone liked to openly discuss.

The difference between the two sides of the mountain, between Betafo and Andranovelona, is especially striking because archival sources make clear that in the nineteenth century the socio-economic status of two communities was almost precisely the same. Both were dominated by a handful of prominent families who owned most of the slaves; in both, the majority of families were relatively poor. True, one was andriana and one was hova. But about all this meant in practice was that one was exempt from certain kinds of royal service. After the French conquest, in both communities, the wealthier families all left. Now, the hova of Andranovelona see themselves as the scions of the oppressed, who have become prosperous even as their oppressors have slowly died away. The andriana of Betafo see their own ancestors as oppressors, and feel they are growing poorer and declining in numbers as the result of that ancient guilt.

The Anarianamboninolona of Betafo: Official Histories

In the first chapter I mentioned my initial meeting with Rajaona, the President Fokontany. Armand led me in to see him in his home, next to the small white building which housed the fokontany offices. He had been warned of my coming, and when I arrived, two of his sons were sitting over a little chest where they had arranged one or two French books about the history of Madagascar, and a small handwritten notebook.

Here is what he first said when I turned on the tape recorder:

President: Now, we, then, have our Great Ancestor [razambe] who appeared here; whose name was Andrianambololona.

David: The Great Ancestor of Betafo?

President: Yes, the Great Ancestor here in Betafo. The man’s name was Andrianambololona. And his first arrival here took place in the year 1713. 1713 [reading the date in French from the notebook]. And the date of his death: he died in the year 1741. As for the woman who was his wife, her name was Rafotsitsifanomponiolona, and she in turn died in 1732. They had a single daughter, named Razafinandrasana . . .

. . . who in turn died in 1797. The dates of birth and death were carefully written out in the little notebook, a book which was otherwise full of accounts, information about plant medicine and the like, and the president seemed to feel that these very precise dates were the main significant thing he had to convey to us: whenever Armand and I asked more specific questions, he kept apologetically explaining that he only knew what the oral traditions (lovan-tsofina) had to say on this issue, he didn’t have anything actually preserved in writing.

Granted, I was a foreign researcher asking questions about history, and foreign books represented history largely as a matter of names and dates. I was also speaking with this man in his capacity as President Fokontany, whose main duties involved keeping track of names and dates in official documents. He was clearly trying to give me what he figured I would want. But this was the only time I asked anyone about local histories and found them presenting me with dates, let alone precise dates from a period in which there was no one in Imerina who had even heard of the Western calendar. After a bit of further discussion, in which Armand and I coaxed him into telling us a bit of the oral traditions, the president escorted us past the huge ruined mansion of Atsimonkady to tampon-tanana and showed us the razambe’s tomb, a large concrete structure, recently whitewashed. On the door at the top of the tomb, written in careful red letters, were the following words:

Andrianambololona 2 October 1713

When he did get around to the oral traditions, the President Fokontany’s account was a fairly typical example of deme origin stories: his ancestor had originally come from Fieferana, but abandoned that place in search of new lands; he came first to Betafo, then moved to a hill called Ambohimandrohitra further west, then after some other peregrinations returned to Betafo once again. The story differed little from most of the other versions I heard. The most complete version I recorded was told not by him but by one Rakotovao, one-time pastor of Betafo’s Protestant church, now a farmer and blacksmith in Ambohimanjaka. He was the man who had given the speech detailing the deme’s history at the Great Ancestor’s last famadihana, so this was as close as I ever got to an official history. Certainly it was the only one which forms a coherent narrative.

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