June 22, 1937, exactly eighty-seven years ago today, Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo chose to take his own life. Born when the French colonial period was less than a decade old, it is truly remarkable how he mastered and wrote poetry in both Malagasy and French. His proficiency in both languages was so profound that it is difficult to determine which was written first and which was the translation.
Rabearivelo had a curious mind; he even studied Spanish. However, he remained a product of the late 19th century—only twenty years after the fall of the Merina Kingdom, he published his first known poem in the magazine ‘Vakio Ity’ in 1915.
The adults who raised him and passed down oral traditions were likely those who lived through the eras of Ranavalona III (born 1861) and Rainilaiarivony (died 1896). The voice of the ancient tongue, the melody of archaic verses, and the ‘hain-teny’ (poetic oratory) of the ancestors shaped his mind, spreading seeds (as in ‘Fandraka’) that continue to be savored today.
I have not found the word ‘Barea’ in Rabearivelo’s work, which the dictionary defines as: ‘BARE or BARIA: wild cattle, unattended, living in Bongolava.’ In the Antankarana dialect of Vohémar, ‘baria’ or ‘varia’ refers to a stable or pen, and cattle kept there are called ‘omby am-baria’.
During this ‘Malagasy Language Month,’ to expand our knowledge, here are some of Rabearivelo’s poems that caught my attention regarding the word ‘Omby’ (cattle). There is one word, ‘JININJA’, which is no longer familiar to us today: a notch marked by a blade. Its meaning can be understood through the explanation in the dictionary (1888) by Fathers Abinal and Malzac regarding ‘Jinja-andry’: marks carved into house pillars to track a child’s growth or commemorate events. The knife was used both for cutting fodder and for ‘writing’ on the central pillars or rocks:
OMBALAHY (THE BULL)
Curved like the hills of Imerina,
Rising high on the mountain,
Or carved upon the rock;
With a hump like a roof peak,
Etched by the moon upon the earth,
Here is the powerful bull,
Resplendent as a king’s skin.
Arid land, dry earth,
What do you remind him of in his half-slumber?
Is his companion without a hump,
And red as dust,
He, the master of the land where no men walk?
Or were his ancestors driven off by farmers,
Chased to the hills, amidst ripe oranges,
To be sacrificed as the holiness of the Sovereign?
Rabearivelo’s imagery of the cattle here is thought-provoking: he describes it as hump-less, red as dust, and, most importantly, the master of a land devoid of people. Wild cattle, without a hump… a ‘Barea’? Yet, the famous cattle, the ‘omby volavita’ sacrificed at the Twelve Sacred Hills during the Fandroana festival, are renowned specifically for their humps: it is said that when King Ralambo ‘discovered’ the cattle, he was captivated by the flavor of the hump, which led him to introduce meat-eating to those who might have previously followed Hindu-influenced customs.
NY OMBY FOTSY (THE WHITE CATTLE)
I prefer to call it: White cattle, like an Arab,
A young man blind in the realms of light,
Unable to see the horns to stroke;
Yet here is born the flower of the night’s grassland,
And the moon surges to graze upon it like a heifer,
So its eyes open, and it seems stronger than the wild ox,
And the wild cattle sleeping in our Kaintsika.
Here, wild cattle are again mentioned, living in the arid, uninhabited lands. ‘A pen awaiting the evening,’ ‘the river of light,’ ‘the vision of flickering stars’: this white cattle, could it be a blind one, a white-eyed ox?
Rabearivelo’s style in the poetry collections ‘Sari-Nofy, Presque Songes’ (1934) and ‘Nadika tamin’ny alina, Traduit de la nuit’ (1935) is unconventional because it does not rely on rhyme, but instead follows the rhythm of the ‘Hainteny’.
For the pleasure of the ears, read aloud and recite the following poem; you will hear the taste of fruit stolen from the orchards of the night and be able to imagine the lips of a dark-blue girl chewing wild berries:
TERAK’ANDRO (DAWN)
Have you seen the dawn stealing fruit,
In the orchards of the night?
Here it returns from there,
Along the small eastern path,
Covered in unfolding words:
Its whole body is smooth as milk,
Like a child once nursed by cattle.
Nasolo-Valiavo Andriamihaja
Captured & Published at: 2026-06-22 07:30:03 (Madagascar Local Time EAT)
Original Source: https://www.lexpress.mg/2026/06/ny-teny-gasin-drabearivelo.html