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Specially chosen programmes from the BBC archive.
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For this Collection, Sir David Attenborough has chosen documentaries
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from the start of his career.
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More programmes on this theme and other BBC Four Collections
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are available on BBC iPlayer.
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MALAGASY VALIHA MUSIC
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We went to Madagascar primarily to look for animals.
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But we hadn't been there long before we became fascinated,
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and, indeed, enchanted, by the people.
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You might suppose that their island, lying as close as it does
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to the continent of Africa -
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after all, this is only 250 miles across there -
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you might suppose that these people would have their origins here.
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But not at all. In fact, the people who live
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in the centre part of Madagascar
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originally came from right across the other side of the Indian Ocean,
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here, in the Malayan region.
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There are lots of clues to this unlikely origin of theirs.
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One is their language.
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I found that I could use some of the Malayan words
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I learned in Indonesia a few years ago, words like "anak", a child,
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or "mati", dead, "nusa", an island,
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and be understood quite easily by the Madagascans, or the Malagasy,
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as they're quite often called,
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because, in fact, the words are almost the same.
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Another clue is their music, and the instruments they use,
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the music you heard a few seconds ago. Listen to a little more of it.
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The instrument is called a valiha.
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It's nothing more than a length of bamboo, with up to 20 strings
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stretched along its length.
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Originally, these were thin fibres cut from the surface of the bamboo.
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But these days, most valihas, like this one, have strings of metal.
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But this is not an African instrument.
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To find one like it, you have to go across the Indian Ocean
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to the Far East, to Malaya, Siam and Burma.
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Nor does the player have his origins in Africa.
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Like most of the people of this part of Madagascar,
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he's light complexioned with straight hair,
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quite unlike the frizzy-haired Negroes of Africa.
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He belongs to the noble class of Madagascar, the Hova,
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and his instrument, indeed, is a sign of his nobility,
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for traditionally, it was forbidden to be played by low-born people.
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Merina, the country of the Hova, lies in the centre of Madagascar,
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beautiful and fertile, and, because of its altitude, deliciously cool.
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And here, too, there is little to remind you of Africa.
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The houses, tall and two-storeyed, are built of bright red bricks.
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But, most typical of all,
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every fold of the brown hills is terraced into paddy fields,
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for the Madagascan people grow not corn or cassava, as the Africans do,
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but rice, the typical crop of Asia.
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We had arrived at the end of the dry season,
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when the fields were still bare, awaiting the rains
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and the planting out of the young rice seedlings.
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This season, when the land is about to spring into life again,
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is a time of deep significance, the moment when,
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with great festivities, the graves of the dead must be opened.
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MUSICIANS PLAY
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The people of Madagascar worship their ancestors.
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It is the ancestors who prevent sickness or poverty
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from overwhelming a family,
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the ancestors who grant that a woman should be able to bear children.
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But the dead lead a miserable existence
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in the silence and solitude of the tomb,
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so they must therefore be brought out regularly
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and entertained, with music and with dancing.
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The music must be loud, for it might be that the spirits of the dead
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have left the graves temporarily and are journeying
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about the countryside, in which case they must be called back
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by the music, so that they may enjoy the entertainments prepared for them.
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Now the bodies, wrapped in mats and silk winding sheets,
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are brought out from the grave.
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LOUD CHATTERING
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It would be wrong to keep quiet at this moment,
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for quietness is a sign of sulkiness and bad temper.
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It is a rule, therefore, that everyone present must carry on
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a lively conversation, whatever their inner feelings,
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for the ancestors, after the silence of the grave,
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wish to hear people talk.
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Indeed, this should be a happy occasion,
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and any person from Merina who dies away from his country
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will leave instructions that his body must be brought back,
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from whatever distance, to be placed in the family tomb,
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so that his spirit will have the pleasure
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of joining in these festivals.
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The ceremony is an expensive one.
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The musicians must be paid,
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fresh silk wrappings provided for the corpses,
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everyone must wear new clothes, and a great deal of food must be prepared
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to feed the assembled company and to be offered to the ancestors.
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The whole of a family's income may be devoted to it.
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But it is a feast in which everyone is happy to take part.
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It is a matter of pride and honour to hold such a ceremony.
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A man who failed to do so would be despised
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and be called unfit to bear his father's name,
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for it is taboo to let people lie in a tomb uncared for.
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Only the ancestors of dogs, they say, are left like that.
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It's forbidden that the ancestors should be laid on the bare earth,
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so they're placed on a small platform specially prepared for them.
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CHATTER AND MUSIC
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Now that all the bodies have been removed, they must be entertained.
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Each body must be given a new, and splendid, winding sheet
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of pure silk, scarlet, green and blue,
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with small glass beads woven into its fabric.
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These lambas, as they're called, are extremely expensive,
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and are used for no other purpose.
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It would be unthinkable for any living person to make use of them.
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The onlookers must be shown that each lamba is of the very best quality
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and of the correct size, so that they may witness
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that proper respect is being paid to the spirits of the dead.
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Strips are torn from the lambas to serve as bindings.
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It would be improper to use anything
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but this special material for such a purpose.
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The bodies, many of them consisting of little more than dust,
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are possessed of a strong magical power,
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and barren women, anxious to bear children,
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may take some of the old wrappings as potent charms
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to grant them fertility.
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Even though the onlookers may feel deeply moved at this moment,
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they must not show their feelings.
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Weeping is forbidden, for the ancestors must be made
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to feel that they are welcome into the world of the living.
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CHATTER
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The ceremony continues for two or three days,
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and, throughout this time, there must be music
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and dancing to keep the ancestors entertained, as they lie in
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their new silken wrappings on the platform outside the open grave.
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Sometimes they will be taken in procession around the rice fields,
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so that they may see that their family land,
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which once they tilled, is still being well cared for.
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Cattle, too, may be herded close to the tomb
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so that the ancestors may inspect them.
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As the time approaches for the bodies to be returned to the grave,
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the senior members of the family take part in a formal dance.
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LOCAL BAND PLAYS
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There is little here of the frenzied, uninhibited dances of Africa.
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Instead, the control and the gestures of the hands and arms
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recall the traditions of Java and Malaya.
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The end of the feast has come, and the ancestors must be carried
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ceremonially around the tomb before they're returned to it.
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Perhaps the emphasis on fertility in this macabre festival,
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and its timing in the season of the spring planting,
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are clues which link it with the rituals that were once practised
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in pre-Christian Europe, and which still survive all over the world -
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rituals designed to ensure the fertility of the fields
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after the dead, barren months of winter.
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In all of them, animals or ancestors
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or gods are symbolically resurrected, in the belief that,
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by bringing them to life in ritual,
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the earth will not fail to bear fruit again.
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But if this is so, the Madagascans are largely unaware of it.
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To them, the festival is a sensible and honourable duty,
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the acknowledgement of the dependence of the living
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on the spirits of the dead.
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It is the dead who control the destinies of the living.
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It is they who bestow prosperity, health and fertility.
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In return for their help and benevolence,
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the living must care for them and entertain them
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and not abandon them to lie neglected and mouldering in the tomb.
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From the highland country of Merina, we drove south and west
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towards the villages of a quite different people, the Mahafaly.
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They are fisherfolk, and, each morning, before the sun rises,
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fleets of square-sailed outrigger canoes set off to fish for tunny.
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The fish they bring back is highly valued
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and traded all over the island.
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Some, when dried in the sun, is exported to the islands
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of Reunion and Mauritius, nearly 1,000 miles away.
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But there are a tremendous number of taboos which govern the fishing.
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A man will never take an orange or a lemon with him
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in his canoe, for this will make it certain that he won't catch anything.
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Walking underneath a net or a fish trap has a similar result.
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And setting out on a fishing trip straight after a meal
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is absolutely certain to prevent you from catching anything.
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If a man should steal another man's net, he will surely get leprosy.
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If a stranger, standing on the beach, asks for a fish,
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he will be presented with it as a gift, and not be allowed to pay,
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for if you expect a generous catch the following day,
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you must be generous towards other people.
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But that taboo operates only on the beach, close to the sea.
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Back in the village, the fish can be sold for a proper price,
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without risking any ill effects on the next day's catch.
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These people, as can be judged from their features,
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are predominantly of African origin. Yet they, too,
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like the different people of Merina in the centre of the island,
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revere and worship their ancestors.
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Not far from the coast, we found one of their tombs.
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The Mahafaly people do not bring out the bodies of their ancestors
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as the Merina people do.
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Their funerals, however, are very elaborate rituals,
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accompanied by great sacrifices of cattle, the horns of which
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are placed on top of the tomb as symbols of power and protection.
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Regular offerings for the ancestors are placed in the bowls.
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In central Madagascar, we had seen hardly any carving,
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but the Mahafaly people are famed for the skill of their sculptors.
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Each of these beautiful memorial posts
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is surmounted by figures of the humped zebu cattle,
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which are the main wealth of the people.
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This is not a simple grave, but more of a monument,
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for the chamber itself may be 20 feet underground
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at the end of a long, sloping passage.
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Ancestor cults are practised by all the tribes of Madagascar,
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and 600 miles away from this tomb lay the sacred lake of Anivorano.
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Years ago, they say, this was the site of a prosperous village,
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but the inhabitants were mean.
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Once, a wandering witch doctor was refused a drink
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by every villager, except one old woman.
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In gratitude, the sorcerer warned her to leave the village immediately,
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taking her children with her.
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She did, and soon afterwards the whole settlement and its people
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were submerged by a great flood.
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The old woman's descendants still live close by,
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and they come to the lakeside
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whenever they need their ancestors' help.
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For they believe that the inhabitants of the submerged village
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still live on, as crocodiles.
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On this occasion, it was a woman who had not yet borne a child
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who had come with the rest of the villagers
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to summon her ancestors, so that she may seek their aid.
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Within minutes of the beginning of their chant,
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the crocodiles appeared far out in the centre of the lake.
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WOMEN CHANT
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A cow was sacrificed.
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Each of these crocodiles is known individually and recognised.
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Each has a name -
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a name which it shares with some of the children in the village.
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CHANTING
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The meat of the sacrificed cow is cut up into small pieces.
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CHANTING CONTINUES
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Had the ancestors refused to accept the meat,
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it would have been taken as a sign
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that the woman's prayer would be ignored.
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But now all was well.
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One by one, the crocodiles came to eat the sacrificial meal.
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CHANTING CONTINUES
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I wondered how genuine and sincere this ceremony was.
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Obviously the crocodiles had learned that the sound of the chant
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was a sign that soon they would be fed.
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And accordingly, they came to the lakeside as soon as they heard it.
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But this ceremony was not being held
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merely for the pleasure of feeding crocodiles.
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For one thing, these creatures are hated and feared
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over most of Madagascar.
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Every year, they kill women and children.
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For another, a cow is highly valued
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and its sacrifice is an expensive one.
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Yet the chief of the village told me that three times
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during the previous month alone, a sacrifice like this had been made.
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Belief in the value and efficacy of the ceremony
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was still obviously deeply rooted.
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When it was over, the skull of the sacrificed cow was placed on a pole.
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Poles exactly like this, surmounted by the skulls of cows or deer,
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have been found in the remains of prehistoric Stone Age villages
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that once stood 10,000 years ago by the lakes of Europe.
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We were to find, everywhere we went in this great island,
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that ancestors were revered and worshipped,
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And that many people believe that their forebears lived on,
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not just as spirits, but as many different animals.
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Here in the forests of the east,
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there were many such beliefs concerning the wild creatures.
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And as I was there to catch animals, I had to be most careful what I did
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if I were not to offend the local people.
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There was one creature I especially wanted to catch,
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but there were many areas in which I dared not even look for it,
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for the people would have been most upset had I unwittingly
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interfered with one of their ancestors,
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even though I might not have recognised it as such.
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Fortunately, this particular part of the forest
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was beyond the tribal boundaries of the people who held this belief,
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and I, therefore, was able to hunt, without fear of offending anyone.
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And this is the creature I was looking for.
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A boa constrictor.
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And here is this same snake. It's not, of course, a poisonous snake.
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If it were, I wouldn't be holding it quite as happily as I am doing now.
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Er, neither would I have picked it up quite so happily,
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as I did in the first instance.
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I'd have used a stick or taken some precaution of that sort.
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In fact, it's a constricting snake that kills its prey not with poison
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but by squeezing, as he isn't doing at the moment,
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I'm happy to say, but sometimes he will squeeze your arm really hard.
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There are two sorts of constricting snake in the world -
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pythons and boas.
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And the typical constrictor of Africa is the python.
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So you might have suspected that this snake would be a python.
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But it's not. It's a boa, and its nearest relative is in South America.
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The difference between pythons and boas
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is not very great at first sight.
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Indeed, if you're presented with the skeleton of one...
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..the only way you can tell the difference
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is the presence of a bone in the skull, which the python has
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and the boa doesn't have. Now it's giving me a bit of a squeeze.
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But there is a more fundamental difference between pythons and boas,
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and that is that pythons lay eggs, whereas the boas,
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this snake, gives birth to live young.
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And indeed, this is a female,
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and soon after we got her back to the London Zoo,
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she produced several little babies for us.
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I've got one of them here,
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but before I show it to you I'd better just get rid of Mother.
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Thank you very much.
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Now, I'm going to be a bit careful how I handle this one
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because the babies are very frisky indeed
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and liable to strike at pretty well anything.
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The fact that they're constrictors doesn't mean that they don't strike.
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They've got to get their teeth in their prey to start with,
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before they start squeezing them to death. Now, come out.
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There.
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There is a popular belief that a snake, when it strikes,
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has considerable force behind its blow,
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but that, in fact, is not true.
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Indeed, the front of a snake's snout is very delicate indeed,
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and very sensitive.
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What it does is to time its strike very accurately,
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like a boxer timing a punch, so that when it meets its prey
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its mouth is open and its teeth can engage.
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But that is why it's really very unkind and cruel
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if you irritate a snake in a zoo
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and get it to strike at your finger beyond the glass,
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because all it does is hurt itself badly,
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as it smashes its head against the unseen glass.
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This little snake is bright red in colour which rather surprised me
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because its parent is olive green.
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But it's a very nice little creature and we were delighted to get it.
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It was, sort of, two for the price of one, as it were.
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The fact that there are a lot of legends associated with these snakes
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is not really surprising because, in point of fact,
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there's barely an animal in the whole of Madagascar
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that doesn't have some sort of taboo associated with it.
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We were there looking for, particularly, lemurs.
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There are over 20 different species in the island,
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all of them strange, primitive, monkey-like creatures
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that live nowhere else in the world.
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And there's barely a single sort that doesn't have
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some sort of legend associated with it.
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Even their scientific name, "Lemures",
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comes from the Latin word which means "ghosts of the dead" -
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given to them, perhaps, because some of them
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make weird, unsettling howls during the middle of the night in the forest
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which can be quite alarming.
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This is perhaps the most splendid and spectacular of them all,
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the lovely ruffed lemur.
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But I'll tell you about him next time.
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MALAGASY VALIHA MUSIC
30415
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