Glossary of Malagasy Terms
Ambalavelona [am-ba-la-VEL-n(a)]: a “disease” caused by possession by a malicious ghost, caused by witchcraft and often treated by spirit mediums.
Anatra [AH-na-tr(a)]: admonitions (the verb is mananatra). A classic way of conveying ancestral authority.
Andevo [an-DAY-v(oo)]: normally translated “slave.” It is something of a bad word, most people prefer euphemisms like “servant” (mpanompo), “soldier” (miaramila), “serf ” (menakely), etc.
Andriana [an-DREE-n(a)]: normally translated “noble,” the word refers to the Sovereign and members of any ancestry
Deme: Maurice Bloch’s term for endogamous Merina ancestries that are tied to specific ancestral territories. They have no generic name in Malagasy so I have retained Bloch’s usage.
Doany [DWAN]: said to be from the French word for “customs office.” A sanctuary for royal spirits where they can be “made sacred” (see manasina), vows can be made, thanks rendered, and mediums possessed.
Fady [FAD]: taboo. Something one is forbidden to eat or do. Often the result of ancestral ozona, or “cursing.” Pork and garlic are frequent objects of fady.
Fahaizana [fa-AY-za-n(a)]: skills, know-how, practical knowledge, often used either for foreign technological knowledge of Malagasy knowledge of fanafody.
Famadihana [fa-ma-DEE-a-n(a)]: literally “turning.” A ritual, held in the winter, when all the descendants of the ancestors in a particular tomb or set of tombs assemble to hold the dead on their laps and then rewrap them in new shrouds. These are probably the most important, and certainly the most expensive, ancestral ritual in the area around Arivonimamo.
Fanafody [fa-na-FOO-d(ee)]: medicine. The term can refer to anything from an herbal infusion to cure a stomachache to a collection of beads and scraps of wood invoked to bring lightning on the heads of one’s enemies.
Fanahy [fa-NAY]: “soul,” or “character.”
Fanampoana [fa-nam-POW-n(a)]: “service.” In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the term was used for the obligations all free citizens (hova and most andriana) owed to the sovereign, and only secondarily to the obligations slaves owed to their masters. Since the colonial era the two have tended to collapse together in the popular imagination; especially since mpanompo (“servant”) has become a euphemism for slavery.
Fanasinana. See Manasina.
Fanekena [fa-nay-KAY-n(a)]: “agreement,” either in the sense of a formal contract, or agreement by a community to live by certain principles, or more broadly to a general state of concord existing in a community.
Fatidra [fat-DRA]: “blood brotherhood,” a common form of agreement from Malagasy times to the present.
Firaisan-kina [fi-RAY-san-Kee-n(a)]: “unity of purpose”
Fitsitsihina (or tsiska) [fee-tsee-TSEE-a-n(a)]: an ordeal or ritual designed to establish guilt or expel evildoers through appeals to ancestral power and the pronouncement of imprecations. They are sometimes held at standing stones called vato fitsitsihina, “stones of imprecation.” There was a revival of such traditions in the area around Arivonimamo in the ’80s and ’90s.
Fokon’olona [foo-koon-OOL-n(a)]: an assembly of everyone concerned with a particular issue, in order to make decisions through a process of consensus. Governments since the time of the Merina kingdom have tended to treat “the fokon’olona” as a formal institution or village council and attempted, usually unsuccessfully, to turn it into the base unit of administration.
Fokontany [fook-TAN(ee)]: the smallest Malagasy administrative division. Betafo consisted of two fokontany. The eastern one had its offices in Belanitra.
Fotsy [FOO-ts(ee)]: “white,” a term often used for those of either hova or andriana descent.
Hasina [AH-si-n(a)]: a kind of force or power that operates through imperceptible means to achieve perceptible results. Ancestors, spirits, and medicine all have hasina. Hasina can be created, conveyed, built up, but also undermined or destroyed, by ritual means. The adjectival form, masina, is usually translated “sacred.”
Hova [OO-v(a)]: the main class of free people under the Merina kingdom. Usually translated “commoner,” to distinguish them from andriana (“nobles”).
Kabary [ka-BAR-(ee)]: a much-appreciated genre of formal oratory. Elders really ought to be good at kabary but they rarely are.
Kalanoro [ka-la-NOO-r(oo)]: diminutive legendary creatures that can provide enormous wealth, but are also enormously demanding of their owners.
Kianja [kee-AN-dz(a)]: an open space for public meetings
Lolo [LOO-loo]: “ghost,” or any invisible spirit. It’s also the word for “butterfly.”
Mainty [MAY-nt(ee)]: lit. “black.” Originally applied to certain specialized warrior demes and other royal servants, it became, since the late nineteenth century, a generic word in Imerina for the descendants of slaves, and other non-Merina Malagasy.
Malabary [ma-la-BA-r(ee)]: a long shirt, with buttons only halfway down, that is the traditional male attire in rural Imerina.
Manasina [ma-NA-si-n(a)]: to “make something masina” or “give something hasina” (qv). Rituals directed to Vazimba, or royal spirits that possess mediums, are always called this. In fact just about all non-life cycle rituals fall under this category.
Masiaka [ma-SEE-ky(a)]: “fierce, violent, or cruel.” Often used of ancestors who are strict or arbitrarily vindictive.
Menakely [may-na-KEL-(ee)]: territories assigned to important aristocrats or the descendants of former local rulers under the Merina kingdom. The word could also be used for the inhabitants of those territories, who owed them various forms of fanampoana.
Mpamosavy [pam-SAV]: “witch,” either in the sense of someone who uses medicine for malicious purposes, or “witches who go out at night,” horrific creatures of great power and utter depravity, usually thought to be seduce by their own love medicine.
Mpanandro [pan-AND-r(oo)]: an astrologer, expert in the application of a system based on the Arabic lunar calendar.
Mpomasy [poo-MAS-(ee)]: a curer, and expert in medicine (fanafody). Most are either astrologers, or Zanadrano, or both.
Ody [OO-d(ee)]: “charms,” individual items of medicine. Ody fitia is “love medicine” and ody havandra are “hail charms.”
Olona Fotsy [OOL-n(a) FOO-ts(see)]: “white people,” see fotsy.
Olona mainty [OOL-n(a) MAY-nt(ee)]: “black people,” see mainty.
Ozona [OO-zoo-n(a)]: “cursing.” The ultimate recourse of ancestral power, as well as the means of imposing ancestral taboos.
Ray amand-Reny [RI-am-an-DRAY-n(ee)]: literally “fathers and Mmothers,” the word for elders. There was always a certain argument over who, in a rural community, really qualified as an elder. The few names everyone would agree on were always people who had recently died.
Razambe [ra-zam-BAY]: “great ancestor,” the founder of a line of community, or the most important body in a tomb.
Razana [RA-za-n(a)]: “ancestor,” also, properly treated corpse deposited in a tomb.
Tantara [tan-TA-r(a)]: “history,” also “story.”
Sampy [SAM-p(ee)]: certain very important ody that protected whole families, demes, or territories in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The missionaries identified them as “idols,” and now mpanompo sampy, “to serve the idols,” is the local word for “heathen.” Since everyone in rural Imerina claimed at least nominal allegiance to Christianity, no one wished to admit such things continued to exist. However, at least in the Arivonimamo area, th-century sampy seem to have been renamed ody havandra, or “hail charms.”
Vazaha [va-ZA]: “foreigners,” particular French foreigners, or “Westerners.”
Vazimba [va-DZIM-b(a)]: ancestors lost to their tombs and descendants, who descend into watery places where they become amoral and dangerous but powerful spirits. They can be propitiated and turned into sources of personal power by the unscrupulous. They are also sometimes seen, particularly in literary texts, as a kind of aboriginal population of Imerina, since displaced.
Zanadrano [dza-na-DRA-n(oo)]: spirit mediums who take part in the rituals for the various “royal spirits” (andriana masina) whose sanctuaries dot the various mountains of Imerina, and use them to cure the victims of witchcraft. Mediums are overwhelmingly the descendants of slaves.