Lords and Lemurs: Mad Scientists, Kings With Spears, and the Survival of Diversity in Madagascar

321 Pages·2004·1.15 MB·English

by  Alison Jolly

Lords and Lemurs: Mad
Scientists, Kings with
Spears, and the Survival of
Diversity in Madagascar
Alison Jolly
Houghton Mifflin Company
LORDS AND LEMURS
3

LORDS
AND LEMURS
3
Mad Scientists,
Kings with Spears, and
the Survival of
Diversity in Madagascar
3
ALISON JOLLY
houghton mifflin company
boston new york
•
2004
Copyright © 2004byAlison Jolly
all rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce selections from
this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,
215ParkAvenue South, New York, New York 10003.
Visit our Web site: www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available.
isbn-13: 978-0-618-36751-1
isbn-10: 0-618-36751-9
Printed in the United States of America
Book design by Victoria Hartman
mp 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
3
Acknowledgments vii
A Note on Malagasy Names viii
Map of Madagascar x
1 1
. Lemurs Just Behind Their Houses
2.
Meow! Sifaka! Pig-Grunt-Grunt-Grunt-Grunt
90,000,000 b.c. 2000 a.d. 9
Lemurs and Lemur-watchers, to
3.
He Wanted the Whole Forest!
1660‒1940 36
The de Heaulmes and the Tandroy,
4.
I Licked His Feet Very Heartily
1703‒1717 72
The Tandroy and Their English Slave,
5.
I Begged My Grandmother to Tell the Governor-General
1940‒1948 97
Famine, War, and Revolution,
vi ❖ contents
6
. Me? I’m a Lathe Operator
1948‒1960 127
The Golden Fibers,
7
. A Very Cheap Wife
1963‒1975 154
Chantal and Fenistina and Me,
8
. If We Hear They Hurt You, We Will Come Back
with Our Spears
1971‒1979 176
Malagasy Socialism,
9
. Our Country Is Committing Suicide
1980‒1992 196
Debt, Conservation, and the Bank,
10
. SOS: Save Our South!
1991‒1992 222
Famine,
11
. Here the Children Inherit
2000 234
Berenty,
12
. “This Is Anything But Idiot. This Is Whole”
2000 254
Funeral at the Lucky Baobab,
Epilogue
2002, 2003 268
279
Appendix: Scientists Who Have Worked at Berenty
281
Notes
299
Index
Acknowledgments
3
I thank the people, animals, and plants of Berenty, with a few exceptions
for zebu-flies and the lover-of-men liana. I thank the de Heaulme family
for their care of land, lemurs, people, and visiting scientists. I thank every-
one who told me their lives, most especially the Tandroy who explained
their pride in their traditions, and invited me to share. I thank the book’s
readers, particularly Harry Foster, editor exemplary, Sarah Hrdy, a prima-
tologist who understands people, John Parry, enthusiast of nature reserves
for human wonder, as well as two anonymous reviewers. I thank all Berenty
volunteers for their help and enthusiasm, whether students or Earth-
watchers. Earthwatch, Wildlife Trust, Sigma Xi, and the National Science
Foundation funded parts of the Berenty work.
I thank our children. Margaretta inspires me with her knowledge of the
art of life-writing. Susie makes me realize how much I omit of the warp of
women’s lives (let alone those who call themselves queer) while I tell the
woof of men’s politics. (Of course it is vice versa for the lemurs, where pol-
itics are female.) Arthur urges me to sharpen both the adventures and the
wit. Richard B. throws life-lines to pull me out of the toothed vortex of
the computer when it threatens to chew me into a parcel of screaming
electrons.
I thank my husband Richard for everything.
A Note on Malagasy Names
3
Malagasy has phonetic spelling. Most vowels are pronounced as they are in
French: a as in alms, e as in fête, i like the ee in feet. However, o is like the
oo in moose, and ao is pronounced o as in boat. The last syllable of a name
is almost silent to Western ears. The stress is on the penult or antepenult.
Lahivano (La-i-VAN’), Leader-of-Men
Rasamimanana (Ras’-mi-MAN-an’), Everyone-Shares-Riches
Rehomaha (Re-oo-MA’), Abandoned
Rekanoky (Re-ka-NOOK’) (Rekanoky declines to offer a translation)
Tsiaketraky (Tsi-a-KE-trak’), Cannot-Be-Thrown-to-Earth
Tsiminono (Tsi-mi-NOON’), Never-Suckled
Valiotaky (Va-li-OO-tak’), Troubled-by-Others’-Talk (a child whose
parents are quarreling)
Names of people from the plateau begin with Ra (Sir, Madame) or An-
driana (Lord, Lady). Tandroy names often skip the prefixes. French colonial
law demanded that everyone have a first name taken from the calendar of
saints, but many people now use just one name. Three of the women I inter-
viewed gave me only their French name. I give two names in the text for any
speaker who still uses two.
Customs change, of course. In this generation, Philibert Tsimamandro
(Tsi-ma-MANDR’), the Tandroy anthropologist, has kept his father’s sur-
name in the Western manner. His father’s personal name, however, was
Tsimamandro (The Unexpected). The father’s mother was a very lazy
woman who sometimes slept as late as six a.m. before beginning her day’s
work, so the grandfather thought it an unexpected surprise when she gave
birth to a fine healthy son.
Manichaean divisions into good against bad
are simply wrong.
—Roland Ramahatra