The Sakalava

There are 18 historic tribes that stretch across the island of Madagascar. In the old days, these tribes constituted a multitude of small and disconnected kingdoms that ruled their parts of the island and rarely interacted with each other. They’re not really ethnicities. The tribes in the East have more Pacific Islander and Indonesian physical features whereas the tribes in the West have strong Bantu features. But the Malagasy, despite this blend, pretty much come from the same two lines of ancestors. Especially today, those “ethnic” differences or “tribal” differences don’t exist or play a major role in the formation of their identity beyond the classification of which dialect of Malagasy they speak in addition to the Merina “standard” Malagasy.

Occasionally, in old Madagascar, the tribes would have conflicts, mostly over land and cattle. But that began to change when one man had a dream. The man’s name was Andrianampoinimerina and he was a king who lived on the hill no more than a half mile from where I am right at this moment. Adriana (for short) had a dream of unifying all of Madagsacar into a single island kingdom. All the tribes would blend together and become a single tribe led, of course, by his tribe, the Merina (which you may have noticed is the “standard” dialect of Malagasy). Adriana began by marrying a princess from each of the surrounding 12 hills here in Antananarivo. This unified the immediate tribes, and he began expanding outwards. He didn’t get very far. In fact, his kingdom was smaller than the State of Road Island. Nonetheless, when he died, his son Radama I, became king and took upon himself his father’s dream. Radama, however, had an advantage; an extremely good relationship with the European nation of Great Britain who readily sent missionaries, craftsmen, and military arms in return for whatever the island had to offer.

Radama would go on to conquer nearly all of Madagascar and its 18 tribes. He particularly liked it when the British had him sign their treaties as Radama I, King of Madagascar. Not just of the Merina, but of all of Madagascar.

Nevertheless, there were a few parts of the island that Radama, despite being called king of all Madagascar, was never able to actually seize for himself. The most notorious was the tribe to the west, the geographically largest tribe, of the Sakalava.

The reason I bring them up is because I was able to experience them firsthand. The Sakalava territory is that dry, hot savanna in western Madagascar. The people are just as tough and rough as the terrain. They live in small villages in huts made of sticks and dried grass. They raise enormous herds of zebu cattle. And they occasionally farm corn or rice when there is enough rain. It’s no surprise that the Sakalava were considered the most skilled and dangerous warriors in Madagascar. Not only that, but just to reach that part of the island is a nightmare. In fact, most of Radama’s men died because of the journey and not at the hands of Sakalava spears.

The reason why I bring this up is because the Sakalava territory is the second poorest part of the country. The poverty in the Skalava territory, however, is much different than the poverty in the capital of Antananarivo, which I might talk about later. Poverty in rural Madagascar takes the form of material poverty but not necessarily spiritual poverty. What I mean by this is that life is hard in the bush. People live in stick and grass huts, clothing is dirty, people get sick, and sometimes there isn’t enough to eat, especially when there is a draught. People here don’t make money really. They just live off the land and support each other with whatever they can manage to find. The unfortunate side is that few will ever leave their villages. Few will ever visit the big city. Few will ever know much or anything about life outside their little piece of a very big island. That’s just how it is in a subsistence farming, agrarian culture.

When you get to the coastline, the Sakalava inhabit small fishing villages that dot the beaches. The houses aren’t much different, and everyone fishes there. They made canoes and build large boats, sometime taking well over a year to build just one. The fishermen head out into the ocean around 5 in the morning and come back around the afternoon to sort through their catches. Then they head back to the village in the late afternoon before the tide comes back in. We had the honor of visiting one of these villages and speaking with one of the fishermen who welcomed into his tiny 6 by 9 foot grass hut. He’s lived there his whole life and will most certainly stay there until the end of his days.

Despite the harsh living conditions, the people are generally happy. They don’t have much, but they have each other. They all bathe together in the streams and pools. They play games together, cook together, raise cattle together, pray together, celebrate together, and mourn together. They are truly a community that survives as one. It makes the problem of the dahalo all that much more difficult.

The Sakalava territory is the hotspot for dahalo activity and is labeled a zone rouge, red zone, by the Malagasy government. Dahalo is the Malagasy word for cattle bandit. These are groups of Malagasy who live deep in the bush and raid villages and towns for their zebu. They travel more than 100 miles across uninhabited savanna to raid some villages. They collect hundreds, sometimes thousands, of zebu, and bring them back to their camps in the bush. They kidnap children and women. They murder anyone who gets in their way, or if they feel like it. And this is how they live. That is their “warrior” culture.

A red zone, as you can imagine, is a part of the country where the national government doesn’t really have much control over daily security. There are a lot of gendarme and national army patrols and barracks out there. Firefights with dahalo are common enough when they’re out in the bush, less so on the main road, and especially not during the day. Indeed, the road is safe during the day, but extremely dangerous at night when dahalo patrols stop unsuspecting cars and rob or kill them. Needleless to say, we did not travel at night.

The dahalo problem is more than just a political issue, it’s a historical and cultural one, too. The Sakalava have a long history of being the rebellious tribe in Madagascar. Stealing cattle was also a rite of passage for a young Malagasy hoping to become men. A young boy would steal a zebu from a neighboring village and thus become a man upon successfully completing the task. It was quite romanticized in ancient times when people used spears and wore only lamba. But nowadays, the dahalo have rusty AK-47s and occasionally shot guns, a much less romantic set of weapons.

The real unfortunate part is that not much can be done anything short of a full military operation involving thousands of soldiers and quite a lot of money. It would be a bloody and deadly campaign. Morale is already low for many in the army and gendarme, so such an operation seems unfeasible at best. For now, then, the average Sakalava have to deal with the dahalo the best they can. The live in their grass huts, they raise their cattle, and they act together as a single community. They don’t have much, but they’re generally happy. It’s a lesson in poverty we are privileged enough to receive without having to experience the living conditions themselves.

As always, know that you are in my prayers each morning. All I ask is that you do the same for me.

May God be praised.