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chapter 4 The Resurgence of Royal Power Tromba [spirit possession] and royal rituals—you know about these? . . . But these are on the decline. . . . Young people today don’t participate in them. Possession, no, you don’t see this in school anymore. . . . Why? Because we are modern. Young people today are serious about their schooling—we don’t care about these things. Royalty—they’re asleep. They’re not part of the modern age. antoine (1993) THE REAWAKENING OF A DORMANT KINGDOM The New Prince Friday A.M., June 24, 1994. It is just past dawn and I am slowly waking up on one of my first mornings back in Ambanja after a year’s absence. As I reach consciousness , I realize I can hear drums and, soon after, women ululating. I struggle to identify the purpose: it cannot be a tromba possession ceremony, for mid June marks the beginning of a taboo ( fady) period for many of these spirits, and, besides, drumming would be out of place; nor does it sound like a Comorean wedding celebration nor even a lively Tandroy funeral procession. It is a bit too early in the day for a royal rebiky dance and, furthermore, the beat is unrecognizable. I dress quickly and step out onto the street. As soon as I round the corner, I am confronted by an animated procession of young Sakalava women dressed in new and brightly colored body wraps and bedecked with gold jewelry. This joyous band chants and sings in unison as it makes its way toward me. Poised nearby on a bicycle and watching the procession is a schoolteacher I know who is of royal descent. Seeing my puzzled expression, he yells excitedly across the road: “Fananganana ny Ampanjakabe Bemazava!” (“[We are] instating the [new] Bemazava king [today]!”).1 I immediately fall in behind these women as they shuffle quickly and in step to a lively beat down the main road of my dusty quarter. Within minutes, we are in an open courtyard crowded with women of all ages dressed in smart body wraps and much gold jewelry. Several take turns dancing animated celebratory steps. The beating drums are hard to resist, and so I, too, jump in and kick up some earth, at which point two Sambarivo women, or royal retainers , approach and ask who I am. I am then led forward by two other newfound acquaintances , and together we remove our shoes and step onto the porch of a small, modest two-roomed palm fiber house. Just before I enter the doorway, however, a 155 teenage girl grasps my arm and asks me, “Misy lio? (“Are you menstruating?”), to which I promptly respond in the negative. She then releases me and another aged Sambarivo woman approaches and wraps me snugly in a fresh salovaña body wrap and pushes me through the door. Once inside, I am offered a chair, but I insist on kneeling respectfully upon the floor at the prince’s feet, as do my two companions. I immediately recognize a few of the men within—several are middle-aged royalty whom I have known for years. They are huddled together on wobbly chairs, and on the floor beside us sits another man who is perhaps in his seventies, his eyes glazed with cataracts, one hand gripping a weathered silver-tipped staff. As the primary official royal advisor (manantany ), he mediates discussions and serves as interpreter for visitors who, like us, have come to honor the young prince. Before us all, sitting quietly in an armchair, is twenty-four-year-old Andriatahiry Parfait, a slender young man, the second oldest son of the previous king, whom I had known so well. It is the first I have seen of him, and I am struck immediately by how much he resembles his handsome father, who passed away only six months before. June 24, 1994, was most certainly a festive day, since it fell near the end of a series of complex rituals that would establish Parfait as the subsequent monarch of the Bemazava-Sakalava of the Sambirano (figs. 7a and b). After I had paid my respects , I scurried home, bolted down my breakfast, bathed, and rushed to a friend’s house to borrow a matching set of body and head wraps; and then off I went to find Tsarahita, who arranged to meet me later at the royal residence (zomba). Shortly afterward, I returned to the simple, temporary thatched falafa dwelling and...

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