A few days ago, our troop took off for Ifotaka, a little Tandroy village set in the middle of a patch of preserved spiny forest. The little patch of scrub has been protected from traditional “tavy” by its sacredness; one part is the burial ground of the ancestors, another the dwelling place of a powerful spirit called a kokopeli. Four kinds of lemurs live there, all of which we were able to spot in our few days stay. Two were small nocturnals like chipmunks with monkey hands and faces; Microcebus murinus and Microcebus griseorufus. We also found a Lepilemur, the white footed sportive lemur, although we saw only a bit of face and fur; he was curled up in the center of a spiny Allaudia tree. The Sifaka, Propithecus verreaux verreauxi, was easy to fund and we saw dozens. They leaped sideways from tree to tree over our heads, several of them carrying babies on their backs or around their waists. One night a friend and I were coming back from a nightime lemur walk, when we suddenly stumbled back into the village proper, into a melee of chanting, stomping children. Seeing us, they immediately rushed to surround us. The Tandroy, the people of the thorns, have a peculiar kind of song and dance. It is meant to mimic the power and energy of a zebu, the animal which sustains them in a land which suffers through frequent droughts and a desert like climate. The children ringed us, stomping in tandem with their hands held to either side, elbows crooked like a zebus horns. As they stomped, they made a hissing noise as they breathed in and out: HHsshhh HHHssshhhh HHHssshhh. As the dance picked up its pace their hands lifted first to their shoulders, then above their heads. Those with instruments held them up above their heads in imitation of the adults who do this dance with spears. The breathing rythym became a heavy grunting, like a zebu’s bellows HUNHhuh HUHNHhuh. Suddenly, with a shrill whooping cry, one of the older boys leaped into the circle. Legs kicking frantically, he danced in a wild spinning circle, bent almost double with his hands held out flat in the center. Another girl leaped in after him, joining him in a sideways crouching dance. Someone pushed me from behind, and suddenly we were all spinning together, and all I could see of anyone were the flashes of hands and swirling lambas illuminated by the stars and distance cooking fires.
The Tandroy are the ethnicity (perhaps better translated as tribe) that we are spending the most time with here. My host family is Tandroy, although they live in Fort Dauphin in the region of the Tanosy. We’ve visited the Tandroy cultural museum at Berenty, and we’ll be spending a week living in a Tandroy village with just one other American student for English speaking company, starting this Sunday. In the rest of the Madagascar they have a reputation for being primitive and dangerous, as the ethnicity least affected by the modern world’s influence on the country. Historically, Androy is also one of the few regions that was never subjugated by the forces of the Merina , the highland people.
A translated quote, from the DeHeaulme’s cultural museum:
Androy, where one is often thirsty, always hungry, and the people are strong and proud.
