Famadihan Burial Traditions In Southwest Madagascar

African culture demonstrates a strong connection with deceased person, and believes that only a correct burial will bring a dead person peace. People in Africa strongly believe in spiritual life, thus their main goal during burial ceremonies is to address a spirit of a deceased person. An African funeral begins with removal of the body from home, which is done through a previously made hole in the wall of the home. Africans remove a dead body through the hole, instead of a door, to confuse a spirit and make sure that a spirit of a deceased person will not return back home, as a hole in the wall is immediately closed after removal of the body. In effort to confuse a spirit even more, they place thorns and sticks in a zigzag pattern along the way as body being taken to the place of burial.

As we all know death of humans has been one of the utmost mysteries we would all like to solve. Although the ancient Mesopotamia, Egyptian, and Hindu all believed in an afterlife, their understanding and celebration if any, seems to be a little different. Mesopotamians were afraid of death, although they believed in afterlife they also had strong belief about the spirits still being alive. The Egyptians had an understanding and outlook on death, in which they believed in an afterlife, but they also believed in preserving the body. However, the Hindu also had the same perspective on afterlife, they were also very religious, but the way they went about it was much different than those of Mesopotamia and Egyptians.

Indigenous religions exist in every climate around the world and exhibit a wide range of differences in their stories, language, customs, and views of the afterlife. Within indigenous communities, religion, social behavior, art, and music are so intertwined that their religion is a significant part of their culture and virtually inseparable from it. These religions originally developed and thrived in isolation from one another and are some of the earliest examples of religious practice and belief. The modern world; however, has taken its toll on these groups and many of their stories, customs, and beliefs have been lost to, or replaced by, those brought in as a result of popular culture and the missionary work of Christians and Muslims.

Overview: Madagascar is known today as one of the most diverse locations on our planet, not only due to the many rare species of primate found in its stunning environment, but also because of the picturesque plant life found all over. Located east of the coast of southern Africa, the large island is a little larger than France but slightly smaller than Texas,” (OVERVIEW) allowing for its rank as the fourth largest island in the world! It has earned so much merit for these two facts (its size and the unique life) that a children’s movie was created in honor of it, and from that several movie and television productions came to life. However, as large as the island is, it remained unknown and untouched by any of the world’s large colonization

Madagascar has a rich history that dates to the 17th and 18th century. If you want to get technical the island of Madagascar was born 160 million years ago as it separated from the African island. About 2000 years ago Madagascar was settled by Indonesians or people that were of mixed Indonesian and African mix. Arab traders arrived around 800AD to 900AD. Merchants began trading along the northern coast. Now the history of Madagascar distinguished clearly by the early isolation of the land mass from the ancient supercontinents containing Africa and India. Human colonization started between 200BC and 500BC. The Island is rich in plants and animal species. The Island is a marvelous example of mixed history of explorers and of government

Famadihana is traditional event, known as the turning of the bones, it is a three-month family-oriented ritual beginning in June in Madagascar. The bodies of recently-passed family members and ancestors are taken from the crypt, re-dressed reburied.

The priests, or juju-men, are obliged at certain periods to eat human flesh, and slaves are captured and sacrificed for that purpose; but perhaps the most barbarous practice of any is that which takes place on the death of a chief. According to custom his wives, as well as a number of slaves, were placed alive in the grave of the chief, their wrists and ankles having been broken so they could not escape from their awful lingering

I have never heard of Madagascar until I watched the movie. It looked like the perfect vacation to me. Well before I or anybody consider going, learn about it first. Well, that’s what I'm for.

The rainforests of the Atsinanana include six national parks that are placed along the 1,600 kilometre length of eastern Madagascar. These rainforests are mixed with cultural and natural sites. These rainforests are very important for maintaining the environmental processes that is necessary for the survival of Madagascar's unique biodiversity. They display extraordinary examples of developing ecological systems in an area which for 60 million years has developed in isolation. Some of the world’s most diverse, rare and threatened biological communities are in these national parks.

It is important to notice that many Falashas habits and traditions are somehow inherited by the ones of the Ethiopian Christians. In the 19th and 20th century, Christians were the most powerful community in Ethiopia and influenced a lot Falashas. Some even argue that didn’t call themselves Jews but were called that way by the Ethiopian Christians. Over the centuries, Falashas have thus become a hybrid community, originally Jews but taking more and more habits from

When an Indigenous community member dies, the community follow traditional death ceremonies or ‘sorry business.’

The cuisine of Madagascar is a delectable fusion of Southeast Asian and African cultures. The staple crop of Madagascar is rice, and it is generally eaten with some kind of meat (Bradt and Austin 105). For taste, it is common mix rice with herbs and leaves, however, there are a multitude of other ways to add flavor to the rice. One way is to add Zebu, a type of local beef that is commonly eaten with rice. Other common flavorings include fish, corn, crab, chicken, and potatoes. Because rice is essential to Malagasy cuisine, it is eaten during every meal. Coincidentally, mihinam-bary is a verb in Malagasy which means “to eat a meal,” and it literally translates to “to eat rice” (Bradt and Austin 106). Rice can also be made into rice flour

The country that I chose to research was Madagascar. Madagascar is an Island country located in the Indian Ocean in South Africa. It is mostly known for its trail of large mountains. It's twice the size as Britain, coming in as the fourth largest island in the world. Mountains, though it is the main attraction, isn't the only thing Madagascar is made up of. It has forests, crystal lakes, massive caverns, and savannah grasslands covering the west part of the island. The south region is made up of sandy deserts. These parts of the island are dry, hot, and tropical while the mountains have a lower temperature from the rest. During the “wet season,” which is from December to march, is when

Madagascar’s common culture is Malagasy. It is the Asian/African religion of the island people. This culture has a unique society with a variety of traditions and beliefs. For the Malagasy death is an important belief. They believe that the most important part of a person’s life is the death, “when the soul leaves the body and becomes an immortal spirit.” They perform a much known tradition called, “famadihanaor” or “turning of the bones.” This is where the Malagasy people preform a ceremony where they remove the remains the bones of their loved ones, exactly 7 years from when they were first buried, wrap and re-bury.

Most Malagasy people, including myself, recognize the existence of a supreme God. The deceased serve as an intermediary between “this supreme God and humankind and are viewed as having the power to affect the fortunes of the living for good or evil” (“Traditional Beliefs and Religion in Madagascar”). Excessive hardship and struggles will ensue if the deceased are ever offended or neglected. Along with the other ethnic groups of the central highlands of Madagascar, my tribe celebrates famadihana, or the Turning of the Bones, to maintain the relationship between our ancestors and the living. Famadihana is a locally performed ritual in which ancestral bodies are removed from the family tomb and rewrapped with new burial shrouds (Larson 313). In the Merina tribe, we celebrate famadihana every seven years. This ritual is an act of love toward our ancestors and a process through which ancestors in turn bestow powerful blessings of human and agricultural fertility upon the living