Failing to perform the necessary rituals for the dead before burial causes great pain and leads to deep dissatisfaction. Relatives and loved ones often resort to “defrauding to respect traditions.” Historian Faranirina V. Esoavelomandroso cites the reaction of farmers in the Ambatolampy region in her study titled “From Plague as a Disease to Plague as Politics: Interpretation of the Endemic Plague Phenomenon in the Central Highlands (1921-1926),” published in the historical journal ‘Omaly sy Anio’ (Yesterday and Today), No. 11, January-June 1980.
This occurred in 1933. As reported by Major Doctor Arlo, farmers in their village observed a severe epizootic among rats, followed by cases of bubonic plague. They decided to abandon their homes and take refuge in huts “until the arrival of the cool season, which marks the end of the epidemic period.” According to the author, their attitude was symptomatic. They did not inform the administration, nor did they request any official help, which was unreliable due to the remoteness of the area. “Ultimately, they tried to escape sanitary control, knowing that the plague was rampant among them.” Thus, a whole network of complicity was woven, the historian adds, “to avoid the application of hygiene measures concerning the burial of people who died or were presumed to have died of the plague.” Malagasy people did not always report contagious diseases despite the obligations written in the texts concerning the Fokonolona.
Furthermore, European medical staff complained about the attitude of the population, who, either through deliberately false or incomplete information, or through the refusal to provide any information at all, did not collaborate with anti-plague prophylaxis and “manifested passive resistance toward the fanjakana (the State).” In some blatant cases, the responsibility of certain Malagasy doctors was directly called into question. Their health service chiefs stated that some issued death certificates without having seen the patients, while others failed to diagnose the plague even when symptoms, such as the presence of buboes, should have left no room for doubt. “The administration punished these professional errors with suspension for a more or less long period.”
But flight was the most common practice for the population: on one hand, to escape administrative complications and health regulations, and on the other, to avoid feeling responsible for a burial that did not conform to tradition. “When plague is suspected, people deliberately clear out the house where the deceased lived, and the caregiver declares themselves the sole relative to spare other family members a stay at the lazaretto.” Consequently, relatives and neighbors who had contact with the plague victim fled, risking the spread of the disease. The historian also points out that when they did not flee the administration, some families hoped to “buy a favorable diagnosis at a high price” to obtain permission to bury according to ancestral rites. They classified doctors as “plague makers” if they were not conciliatory, or “non-plague makers” if they were compliant.
Finally, the author notes that while in modern Europe, clandestine burials were an opportunity to “get rid of” a plague victim by burying them elsewhere to avoid contamination, or to bury a murdered person in place of a purported plague victim, “in Imerina, they have an entirely different meaning.” Malagasy people took the risk of conducting clandestine burials for their relatives who died of the plague to avoid the reproach of their ancestors. The return of their parents’ mortal remains to the “tanindrazana” (ancestral land) remained their primary concern. Informed of these clandestine burials, the administration walled up these family tombs to prevent them from being reopened too soon.
With the complicity of the Fokonolona or the “mpiadidy” (notable), families of plague victims, warned in time of the cause of their relative’s death, hastened to carry out the burial themselves in a special cemetery, free from any control. Conscious of the real danger and the problems that burial in the ancestral tomb would raise, they nevertheless wanted to avoid an anonymous, hurried burial, manifesting family cohesion in the face of death. “Once the ultimate honor has been rendered to the deceased and the conscience is appeased by having fulfilled one’s duty, it is time to flee to avoid exposure to official reprisals.”
Captured & Published at: 2026-06-29 08:00:05 (Madagascar Local Time EAT)
Original Source: https://www.lexpress.mg/2026/06/honorer-les-morts-tout-prix.html