ArtMatters.Info

Article by Afrika Poetry Jam
Published March 29, 2008

Madagascar Zebu cart in action

March 29 marks Memorial Day/Martyr’s Day/Commemoration Day, an occasion dedicated to those who died in the 1947 rebellion by the Malagasy nationalists, Mouvement Democratique de la Renovation Malagache/MDRM. The MDR was banned and more than 11,000 people were killed by the French colonial solders.

The Malagasy Republic, proclaimed on October 14, 1958, became fully independent in 1960 though the people voted to remain within the French Community.

Renamed Madagascar in 1975, this fourth largest island in the world—behind
Greenland, New Guinea and Borneo—stands as a gigantic footprint on the Indian
Ocean, a 1, 000-mile long island-continent off the southeast coast of
Africa.

There is nothing between the southernmost tip of Madagascar and Antarctica but 3,000 miles of heaving gray sea and howling winds. This is truly the land au bout du monde, at the end of the earth, as Malagasy poet Flavien Ranaivo called it.

Whatever Madagascar’s origin, the island “at the end of the earth” is known to have been geographically isolated for a very long time. Strange animals and plants found there exist nowhere else on earth.

Lemurs, the great-eyed monkey-like creatures that represent one dead end in the primates’ upward groping toward man, lead the peculiar fauna. But sub-fossil bones of creatures that lived until comparatively recent times reveal a pygmy hippopotamus no bigger than a dog, a lemur the size of a small pony, and a gigantic bird that laid the largest known eggs.

Unusual domesticated animals also abound on Madagascar, including distinctive Zebu cattle, the main, or rather, the only beast of burden of the island.

Similar in appearance to the Brahman cows of India, the Zebu have been integral to
Malagasy life for centuries and their importance to the society cannot be over-stated. Families achieve status in the community based, in part, on how many Zebu they own.

While riding on the main highways it is common to have to pass though a large herd. When used for transport, Zebu are hitched to any manner of carts or wagons and provide slow, but sure, locomotion. Few obstacles are too great for the intrepid Zebu.

Largely influenced by traditional Malagasy ballads and song forms, poet Ranaivo contemplates the familiar and venerable Zebu in the poem aptly titled, Zebu, below:

His lips move unceasingly
But they are not swollen or worn;
His teeth are two fine rows of coral;
His horns form a circle
Which is never closed.
His eyes: two immense pearls shining in the night.
His hump is Mount-Abundance.
His tail lashes the air
But it is not more than half a fly switch;
His body is a well filled coffer
On four dry sticks.

Born at Arivonimamo in 1914, Ranaivo lost his father two years after his birth.
He began formal education only at the age of 8 and his schooling was entirely in Malagasy until he was 14. He became a teacher, and during World War II fought with the Free French. After the war he entered the Civil Service, occupying posts both in France and Madagascar. He lived in France from 1970 to 1999 when he died.