The traditional ceremonies
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Belief and traditions |
Despite the various ethnic configurations , the cult of ancestors is a common specificity to the whole population of the Great Island. According to a belief particular to all Malagasy , there is a creative God, the Zanahary, and the ancestors, in the occurrence deceased kings, who continue to watch over their people and protect them from all adversity.
Throughout the island , whatever the ceremonies which testify the veneration of ancestors : the Fitampoha or the royal relics bath with the Sakalava from the region of the Boina and the Menabe, or the Tsanga-Tsaina , the royal mast enthroning with the Antakarana in the north, the Sambatra , collective circumcision ceremony with the Antambahoaka in the south east coast or the Famadihana , the Famadihana or death returning with the Merina in the High Land , there is a common denominator to all these ceremonies ,it is the deep respect that the Malagasy dedicated to their ancestors and all breach to this cult would be translated as punishments inflicted by ancestors : failure in the life , accidents , insufficiency of crop , sicknesses , flood ..
Various rituals such the honey or rhum offering , the chicken or zebu sacrifice are also practiced during each significant event : marriage , construction of a house ... 
Occupying an important place in ceremonies, the zebu to be sacrified is the nobility symbol , the quiet strength and the Malagasy wealth par excellence .
The language ( dialect ) regional diversity as well as in the all days life (the habitat, the different manners to cultivate rice , etc... ), has fashioned with the passing years the national unit and has made the Malagasy a people that is no longer entirely Asian without for as much marrying the traditions and customs of its close Africans . So much factors that make Madagascar a continent island as it is often writen in various manuals.
The passage of the life to the death translates the passage from the rank of human being to that ancestor.
