Madagascar Tribal Art

Tribal Art 

 

Madagascar, tribe: Sakalava: A rare, funerary figure, a woman and a bearded man with an amulet horn on the back.

 

Amulet (Mohara Ody)

20th century

 Mantle (Lamba Mpanjakas)

Artist: Martin Rakotoarimanana 1998

 Sakalava grave with erotic sculptures

 Akotifahana cloth, Merina, Bombyx silk, natural and aniline dyes. 102 x 73 in.

Erotic funery art by the Sakalava tribe

 Female

19th–20th century

Couple

17th–late 18th century

A collection of photographs, shot on location in Madagascar. According to Bauer: "Every nude photograph is simultaneously a portrait of a female personality - sensuous, imminent, and without any pseudu-erotic affectations". This is what inspires and motivates his work.

 Tomb Sculpture (Aloalo)

 20th century

Erotic sculptures in Mahafaly graveyard, Madagascar 

Photo Frans Lanting/National Geographic Creative

 Wrapper

 20th century

 A SAKALAVA FUNERARY POST Madagascar Carved as an erotic couple, the male standing behind the female, weathered patina with traces of white and green

 Protective Amulet (Ody)

20th century

 The ruined Rova

The island of Madagascar has long served as a point of social and economic contact among the peoples of Africa and the Indian Ocean region. The wealth of its natural resources and its position at the axis of transoceanic and coastal trade routes attracted disparate populations whose contributions to local cultures were multiple. Arab and Swahili traders introduced Islamthrough trade relations and colonization, while Portuguese, French, Dutch, and English merchants were a regular  presence on the island from the sixteenth century onward. Echoes of Malagasy culture are found in African societies across the Mozambique Channel in the present-day southeast African nations of Tanzania, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.
Formation of the Maroserana and Merina Kingdoms
Madagascar’s disparate populations were traditionally organized into small, ethnically based communities that subsisted on trade, agriculture, and cattle herding. Sometime in the early seventeenth century, however, a dynastic class of rulers emerged that created a series of large-scale kingdoms in the southern and western regions of the island. Known as the Maroserana, these monarchs subdued local peoples and reorganized social structures to take greater advantage of the region’s fertile plains and marshlands. The sudden appearance of the Maroserana in Malagasy history remains largely unexplained. Linguistic and ethnographic evidence suggests that they may have been immigrants from the mainland kingdom of Mwene Mutapa, a regional power that controlled trading routes in southeast Africa. Regardless of their origins, this elite group introduced structures of statecraft that significantly altered the ethnic and political face of western and southern Madagascar.
The Maroserana kings adopted the cultural traditions of their subjects and then spread them through territorial expansion. It was through this process that the practices and beliefs of two ethnic groups, the Sakalava and the Mahafaly, became dominant throughout western and southern Madagascar, respectively. This was especially apparent in the growth of the Menabé and Boina kingdoms, which disseminated Sakalava practices of royal ancestral worship that were central to the ruler’s power. The fragmentary remains of deceased Sakalava monarchs were preserved in reliquaries and venerated through the royal dady cult, while the ancestors themselves spoke through royally appointed spirit mediums in a tradition known as tromba. The explicit connections to his forbears legitimated and strengthened the king’s rule. In the smaller Mahafaly kingdom, local artisanal practices such as metal smithing and honey production were institutionalized as the Maroserana rulers formed official relations with indigenous clans who specialized in these practices.
In the central highlands, several small chiefdoms were united to form the Merina kingdom in the early seventeenth century. This polity had no connection to the Maroserana ruling class. The founder of the Merina kingdom, Ralambo, introduced numerous social and political institutions to shape and reinforce centralized rule. Primary among these was a council of twelve sampy, guardians of the state amulets that served to strengthen and protect the power of the court (1999.443). Divine status was bestowed upon ancestral monarchs, and royal circumcision, among other ceremonies, was implemented. Finally, new noble and artisanal classes were created. Merina rulers developed the marshy lands of the central highlands for rice cultivation, which provided an important dietary staple as well as a tradeproduct that was exchanged for European firearms. Although riven by civil war in the late eighteenth century, the kingdom was reunited under the ruler Andrianampoinimerina around 1780, and in the nineteenth century became a dominant political force in Madagascar.
Alexander Ives Bortolot
Department of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University

Madagascar -Masikoro woman l- c1910-1920s

 
Un meritato omaggio alla ricchezza e alla varietà della produzione artistica tradizionale del Madagascar. In tutti i campi, dalla vita terrena all’aldilà, attraverso un limbo dedicato alla magia e alla divinazione, gli artisti malgasci hanno espresso la loro immaginazione e la loro maestria. A volte le creazioni degli scultori sono uniche e insolite, come la loro impareggiabile isola, a volte traggono ispirazione dalle popolazioni austronesiane, africane, indiane o arabe che venti o correnti favorevoli hanno portato nel corso dei secoli verso questa terra di incontri. Che siano oggetti della quotidianità, amuleti magici o statue funerarie, queste opere hanno suscitato grande interesse nei primi osservatori europei,

ZAFIMANIRY Madagascar original old 1910

Madagascar Analaroa  c1930s

Madagascar Analaroa  c1930s

 Betsileo Madagascar Colonial Exposition c1934

Antandroy woman Madagascar erotic ethnic c1910-1920s 

This is a Hova women from Madagascar in 1910. A good number of postcards of Hova women show European outer clothing or clothing made from local cloth in European patterns.

Mahafaly tomb with traditional painted decoration

Salym Fayad - Flickr

A painted and carved Mahafaly tomb in southern Madagascar