Frequent Funerals

If your bus-driver died, would you go to his funeral? What about your hairdresser? How about your hairdresser's 3rd cousin? If you're in Madagascar, the answer to all of these questions (at least in our community) is a definite yes. Funerals are widely attended social occasions, and they are frequent enough to seriously interupt the flow of daily life on a regular basis. We've been to three in the last month alone, and for no one we could actually name, or even picture for that matter.

The Malagasy funeral is a solemn affair...except when it isn't. The fomba (tradition) is, you bring a small amount of money to the wake in an envelope labeled with your name. The gifts are carefully recorded in a notebook, to be repaid equally when death inevitably touches your own family. The presentation of the envelope takes place in a small homem usually single-roomed and crowded full with family and other well-wishers. The body lies in the room, usually wrapped in a shroud. When the envelope is presented, the presenter speaks in a barely whispered voice. I have yet to make out a single word of the presentation, and can get little of the response (also whispered) beyond thank-you. People in the room are quite sad, sometimes openly crying but usually just sniffling. We were disconcereted when the group we were with resumed joking and laughing as soon as we had stepped out of the wake, although no one else seemed phased.

After respects have been paid, the host family lines up hundreds of dishes, and fills them with rice and beef served from enormous pots and buckets. The line of plates is sometimes 50m long. (That's 150' for you back home.) People eat their fill, and then the body is picked up to move to the fasana (cemetery.) This is accompanied by ritual wailing from many women who start in unison and make a haunting sound.

At the grave site, men have the responsibility of digging the hole and lowering the corpse, and invariably a handful of them drink copius amounts of moonshine. This is when the solemnity of the affair really deteriorates. There is often a lot of shouting and laughing as the less sober among the attendees make various faux pas. After the body is lowered into the hole, people gather rocks of varing sizes to lay on top of the grave. People are buried with certain possessions to take with them to the after-life clothing, rice, some beauty products...just the essentials.

I should mention that this all takes several hours, often from 9 or 10am until well into the late afternoon. Once the burial is finished, a list of the money and rice given to the family is read aloud, and people disperse.

We often feel odd attending these events, but at the same time it does seem to be an important part of the culture and of integrating. I'm just struck by how much more central death is to life here, and how important it is to share in mourning with the community. I would be horrified if two foriegners I barely knew showed up to a family member's wake or funeral, but here it is appreciated.