The Dead

So this is a morbid, yet interesting, entry in honor of the recent holiday on Nov 1st/2nd, “Fete de Mort.” Though most don’t celebrate it in the U.S., I think it’s somehow related to Halloween, and those in Latin America definitely know it as “El Dia de Los Muertos.” The tradition has very similar roots in Madagascar: visiting the graves of the deceased and honoring the ancestors. I found it an interesting vignette in which to compare the Malagasy world view of death with that of Americans.

In general, I’ve found through attending funerals, talking with Malagasies about the dead and participating in a “Fete de Mort” event, that the Malagasies on average are a bit more concerned with the spirits of the deceased than most Americans tend to be. Part of it may stem from the Malagasies’ traditional African religious practices and ancestral beliefs, and some contrast may come from the diverse range of beliefs in the U.S. and our tendency as an industrialized nation with more influences from globalization to abandon the traditional beliefs and take on a more agnostic or scientific view of death the afterlife (or lack there of).

Either way, my counterpart (the nurse at my local clinic) was kind enough to invite me to attend a “Fete de Mort” celebration with his family in his hometown. We were initially supposed to go on November 1st, but there was a death in the village! As the death occurred just across the way from me, and many of my friends and co-workers knew the family well, we had to reschedule our plans for the 2nd and attend the funeral on the 1st. So on November 2nd I traveled with the nurse and his wife to Anjinjaomby, a small town between…a 4 hour car ride from our village with a transit stop in Sambava. We left early in the morning and arrived around 10am. The dirt road out to his home-town was very scenic, bordered by lush forest, rice paddies and quaint villages.

Though the town of Anjinjaomby was a commune head, there was no electricity, and only a few spigots served as the public water sources. When we arrived at my counterpart’s mother’s house, we went through all the greetings with the relatives and then sat under a leechie tree, chatting until lunchtime. After a humble meal of rice and boiled beans with green leaves, we gathered all the relatives around and headed out to local graveyard. The walk was only fifteen minutes to the cemetery at the edge of town. I was surprised at how small and sparsely populated the space was. Many of the small, cement tombs were above ground and protected by makeshift, rusted tin sheet metal roofs.

Finally we approached their family’s tomb: a small metal shack, bolted by a wooden board nailed into the front side. Before opening the tomb, one of the older brothers said a prayer. Inside were four wooden coffins—three small ones and one longer one. The family only had the key to their father’s coffin, so they removed it from the little tin house, openened it up and lifted out the bundle of blankets and woven mats and clothes piled on top so they could clean out the bottom of the coffin of dirt and dust. Then they placed the bundle and the clothes back in the box, slipping in a few bills of money into the father’s pants pockets (a present for the next person who cleans the tomb) before closing the box and placing it back inside.

Later they explained that the longer coffin was that of their aunt’s who was more recently deceased. The process goes as follows: when the person first dies, they are buried underground in a regular coffin, like many of us do in the U.S. After a few years, when the body has decayed a bit, they dig the coffin back up and put the corpse in a smaller coffin above ground. A few years later, when the corpse is just bones, they re-open the coffin, gather the bones together in a new bundle of cloth and put it in an even smaller container. Now I know why so many of the Malagasy coffins I’ve seen are so tiny!

The process of opening the tomb and rearranging the bones does not necessarily take place during “Fete de Mort.” It’s often accompanied by a big celebration, called a “famadihana,” or turning of the bones ceremony, in which many people attend and party all night long, partaking of heavy drinking, singing and dancing. It was fascinating to me that the Malagasy take such care in rearranging the physical remnants of the deceased. Many of them also believe that the spirits of the dead often rise up from the grave to visit the living. I also took the opportunity to explain to them the practices of burial and cremation in the U.S. Many were shocked at the idea of cremation, but some were familiar with it, as many of the ex-pats, Muslims and people of Chinese or Indian descent and practice cremation here in Madagascar.

Though some Malagasies do bring offerings such as “toaka” (local moonshine) and plastic flowers to the graves of the ancestors, it’s not quite the extent of those who celebrate “El Dia de Los Muertos,” bringing favorite foods, trinkets and candles and staying through night. The Malagasies for the most part seem to visit the graves for a short time during the day and use it more as an opportunity to tidy up the tomb and the surrounding area. Its also a chance for the relatives who life far a way to visit their hometown and their family members. Some of my counterpart’s family members hadn’t been back to Anjinjaomby for several years.

Other cultural practices worthy of noting: if a child dies within the first six months of it’s life (before it starts developing teeth) it is not laid to rest with the bodies in the regular graveyard, but rather buried underground in a specially designated place in the woods outside of the village. Also, people of all faiths (Christian, Muslim, traditional) may be buried in the same cemetery.

Concerning funerals, since our Fete De Mort plans were delayed due to one, they are an all-village affair. In many cases, people from neighboring communes and even further away will even come to attend the funeral. It usually takes place the day of or day after the person dies, as Malagasies don’t have access to nor practice preservation techniques such as embalming, and it is a very hot, humid climate. For this most recent one, I got a front row seat, as the family lives right across from me.

Women wear kisalis—colorful, patterned cloth sewn in a circle and worn either as a tube top dress or skirt with a matching shawl. There is no particular dress code for men…even shorts and a tattered t-shirt is fine. Everyone donates either a cup of rice or 500-1000Ariary and the family usually slaughters a cow or several if they can afford it. If the family is very poor they may just purchase some meat from a local butcher or substitute beans or lentils. All day the women prepare and cook the rice. It is the men’s job to slaughter the cow and fetch water. Others sit around chatting outside the house of the family. One may enter the house where the corpse is lying on a bed, covered by a sheet. It’s mostly women in the room, but men may enter as well. If the family is religious, they often sing hymns. At lunchtime, everyone eats the rice and beef together. If there are a lot of people, someone will announce the visitors by village to come get their food. Afterwards the women wash all the dishes while the men head off to the cemetery to bury the corpse. The women follow later on to attend the burial. Both the night before and the night after, people stay up all night with the family, chatting, drinking toaka and singing hymns.

A lot of Malagasies were asking me if funerals are similar in America. I suppose in a sense they are. Many people bring over food and the family and close friends may eat a bit and drink together after the ceremony, though tuna noodle casseroles and pies don’t really compare to sacks of rice and a live cow. We all seem to find our own ways to process the idea of dying and to cope with the fact that we will never see that close friend or family member again. One thing I like about the Malagasy funeral process is how the whole community comes together to support each other. It’s an amazing feat to cook so much rice and beef for hundreds of people, and the company and camaraderie shared during the process is priceless to the grieving family.