RFI
In Madagascar, winter brings with it a unique family gathering. Across the central highlands, communities practise the famadihana – the “turning of the dead”. The ritual, rooted in Austronesian culture and dating back to the 16th century, involves exhuming ancestors, wrapping them in fresh silk shrouds and celebrating them in a lively, joyful ceremony.
In Ambohidranandriana, a village about an hour’s drive south of Antsirabé, in the volcanic Vakinankaratra region, music and laughter rise from a noisy procession weaving between the family tombs.
For Fitahina, 25, the day is deeply personal. She came to honour her grandmother, who died before she was born.
“I am happy to meet her because I never knew her. I have been waiting for this moment for a very long time. I miss her a lot,” Fitahina tells RFI.
“When the body comes out of the tomb, I will go closer and talk with her. I will tell her the good and the bad things in my life. I know she can still hear me.”
Nearby, guests share plates of vary be menaka – rice with fatty zebu meat – while men begin to open the vast family tomb, buried under dust.
Fitahina’s aunt, Claudine, wears an elegant hat for the commemoration of her late mother.
“I am proud that my family is gathered for this famadihana,” she says. “I will pray for my mother and ask her for blessings – health and a long life for my children.”
One by one, the bodies are carried out. Descendants lift them high in their arms as the crowd moves in jubilation.
Alphonse, a neighbour invited like hundreds of others, describes the ritual.
“We wrap the ancestors in a new silk shroud, the lambamena,” he explains. “It is a sign of love and consideration for the good they did for us. This is how we honour them.”
A little toaka gasy – traditional Malagasy rum – is poured on to the fresh silk. Only at nightfall, when dusk settles over the rice fields, are the ancestors returned to their family tombs.
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