172 MADAGASCAll The Hova 1 or commoners form the mass of the free population of Ime rina. They are composed of a largo number of tribes, who usually intermarry strictly among themselves, as indeed do families, so that property and land may be kept together. Hitherto they have also been divided into two great sections the borozano or civilians, and the mickramlla or military class ; but this distinction does not follow tribal lines, members of the same family belonging to both classes ; and the Andriana are also almost all members either of the civilian or the military orders. " The third great division of native society comprises the slave population. Until the year 1877 it was also again subdivided into three classes : (a) the Zaza-h6va, that is, "offspring of the Hova," or free people who have been reduced to slavery for debt or for political or criminal offences ; (5) the Andevo, or slaves proper, mostly the descendants of people of other Malagasy tribes who have been conquered by the Hova, and thus have become their slaves ; and (c) the Mozambiques or African slaves, whose ancestors or they themselves have been brought across from the African coast by the Arab slaving dhows. These last, however, were in 1877 formally set free, and will be henceforth mostly reckoned among the Hova. Royalty and chieftainship in Madagascar has many peculiar customs connected with it. It still retains a semi- sacred character, the chief being in heathen tribes, while living, the high priest for his people, and after death worshipped as a god ; and in its modern development among the Hova sovereigns it has gathered round it much state and ceremony. There are many curious examples of the tabu with regard to actions connected with royalty, and also in the words used which relate to Malagasy sovereigns and their surroundings. These are particularly seen in every thing having to do with the burial of a deceased king or queen. 2 While the foregoing description of native society applies chiefly to the people of the central province of Ime rina, it is more or less applicable, with local modifications, to most of the Malagasy tribes, amongst almost all of whom similar distinctions of rank are found. In modern times a kind of non-hereditary nobility has arisen, derived from military "honours"; arid the tendency of recent changes in the native government is to depress the old feudal authority and influence, and to make it subservient to the army and its officers. The chief employment of the Malagasy is agriculture, a large portion of their time being spent in the cultivation of rice, their staple food. In this they show very great ingenuity, the ketsa grounds, where the rice is sown before transplanting, being formed either on the margins of the streams or in the hollows of the hills in a series of terraces, to which water is often conducted from a considerable distance. In this agricultural engineering no people surpass the Be tsileo tribes. No plough is used, but all work is done by a long-handled spade ; and oxen are only employed to tread out the soft mud preparatory to transplanting. The other processes are very primitive : the rice is threshed by being beaten in bundles on stones set upright on the threshing-floor ; and when beaten out the griin is stored by the Hova in rice-pits dug in the hard red clay, but by the coast tribes in small timber houses raised on posts to protect them from vermin. In prepar ing the rice for use it is pounded in a wooden mortar to remove ths husk, this work being always done by the women. The manioc root is also largely consumed, 1 This is, of course, a special and restricted use of the word, Hova in its widest sense being a tribal name, and including all ranks of people in Iinerina royalty, nobles, commoners, and slaves alike. 2 See Sibree, The Great African Island, pp. 185-90, 226, 227, &c. together with several other roots and many vegetables ; but little animal food (save fish and freshwater Crustacea} is taken by the mass of the people except at festival times. Rice is used less by the western tribes than by those of the central and eastern provinces, and the former people are more nomadic in their habits than are the others. Large heids of fine humped cattle are kept almost all over the island. The central and eastern peoples have a considerable Handi- amount of manual dexterity. The women spin and weave, crafts. and with the rudest appliances manufacture a variety of strong and durable cloths of silk, cotton, and hemp, and of rofia palm, aloe, and banana fibre, of elegant patterns, and often with much taste in colour. They also make from straw and papyrus peel strong and beautiful mats and baskets in great variety, some of much fineness and delicacy, and also hats resembling those of Panama. The people of the south and south-east make large use of soft rush matting for covering, and they also prepare a rough cloth of bark. Their non-employment of skins for cloth ing is a marked distinction between the Malagasy and the South African races, and their use of vegetable fibres an equally strong link between them and the Polynesian peoples. The ordinary native dress is a loin-cloth or saldka, for the men, and a kitamby or apron folded round the body from waist to heel for the women ; both sexes use over this the Icimba, a large square of cloth folded round the body something like the Roman toya. The Malagasy are skilful in metal working ; with a few rude- looking tools they manufacture silver chains of great fineness, and filagree ornaments both of gold and silver. Their iron-work is of excellent quality, and in copper and brass they can produce copies of anything made by Europeans. They display considerable inventive power, and they are exceedingly quick to adopt new ideas from Europeans. There is a considerable variety in the houses of the Houses different Malagasy tribes. The majority of Hova houses an( * are built of layers of the hard red clay of the country, with Vllla s es - high-pitched roofs thatched with grass or rush. The chiefs and wealthy people have houses of framed timber, with massive upright planking, and lofty roofs covered with shingles or tiles. The forest and coast tribes make their dwellings chiefly of wood framing, filled in with the leaf stalks of the traveller s-tree, with the leaves themselves forming the roof covering. The houses of the Be tsileo and Sakalava are very small and dirty, but those of the coast peoples aro more cleanly and roomy. Among the Hova and Betsileo the old villages were always built for security on the summits of lofty hills, around which were dug several deep fosses, one within the other. In other districts the villages and homesteads are enclosed within formidable defences of prickly pear or thorny mimosas. The country is very deficient in means of communica- Com- tion. There are no roads or wheeled vehicles, so that all merce. goods are carried either by canoes, where practicable, or on the shoulders of bearers along the rough paths which traverse the country, and which have only been formed by the feet of the travellers. Intercourse between distant portions of the island is therefore very limited, but a large quantity of European goods is brought up to the capital city and its neighbourhood, and a good deal of native pro duce is taken down to the coast. Commerce is gradually increasing, as shown by the consular returns, the chief articles of export being bullocks, rice, hides, rofia palm cloths (rabannas) and fibre, and also gum copal and india- rubber, although the yield of these products has latterly much diminished. Coffee is being planted to some extent by creole traders, and is likely to become a staple article
of export, and from the natural fertility of the soil almost