THe 2010 Malagasy new year duely celebrated

“Glory to our Father in Heaven; may a thousand of us celebrate the incoming new year, together in family, may our lives be long beside our children and grandchrildren”. Rather a long sentence to wish happy new year, isn’t it? Guests in Andohalo and Ambohimanga have waited for the new year in joy and merryment. The traditional new year’s eve has been spent under spotlights. Lanterns, symbols of eternal light, have been reached from hand to hand. The spirit of the “Afo tsy maty” reflected by the gesture means forgiveness granted to each other.There is actually a witty name describing the gesture and the meaning all the way in Malagasy language: “mamindra afo” for “offering fire”, and “mamindra fo”, for “forgiving”.

“The torch also reflects the will to draw the past year’s best into the new incoming year” explained Henri Randrianjatovo from Trano Kolotoraly Malagasy. According to him, fire is the picture for life as well as that of the human spirit.” We are transmitting light, we are chasing darkness away”, commented Nosy Rabejaona from the Mamelomaso association. No one sets his own torch alight, and the torch’s transmission process is connecting everyone.

 On March 16th at midnight past a couple of minutes, the Malagasy new year has started. At dawn, the new year’s first day ‘s merryments have begun. The royal breakfast is a marvel: rice and milk and honey! The whole day’s most important event is the blessing ceremony of “fafy rano”. Purifying water is being collected at dawn from a source, and blessed brethrens can positively tackle the new year.

This celebration is certainly no match for that past time’s euphoria. The Mamelomaso association would have found it great to kill some bulls, but this important detail had to be ruled out, for lack of available means. The costum is requiring the bull to be a “volavita” type: strong, light skinned front head. Its butts, its fleshiest part, are dedicated to the king. All the rest is being shared between guests as a matter of social life enhancement.The traditional new year celebrations’ promoters are, besides, emphatically denying any link between traditional rites and pagan witchcraft.

“The costums is ours, and that of no other nation on earth”, argued Nosy Rabejaona when addressing the Malagasy traditional new year. “No economic development can ever be possible as long as we lack a culture of our own as a basis”, she added. According to the Mamelomaso association,”fihavanana” and forgiveness are pledged by the new year. The great royal merryments of before foreign conquest are nothing but history, our history. Now, even empowering the “king” is proving far more problematic than a simple “royal bath”.

The Malagasy New year’s celebrations used to be Madagascar’s greatest ones during royalty. This equivalent of a nation’s day vanished in 1896, replaced by force by July 14th. In mid 1990, the Zafy regime’s authorties have resumed the event under the name of “Alahamadibe”. Then oblivion got the upper hand; now the costum finds it hard to recover. Without rites, the event would go down as mere folklore in History.