Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/545

 THE SIHANAKAS AND KIMOS. 447 Malagasy nations they have also bc>?u brouglit most under the influence of the teachings of Islam. During the late political complications the Ant* Ankaras sided with the French against the Hovas, and have in return reaped the same reward as their Sakalava neighbours. They have been deserted by their foreign allies and bunded over to the t<?nder mercies of their hereditary enemies, the present masters of the island. Such at least is the practical result of the treaty of 1885, which, while nominally reducing the Hovas to the position of vassals, really strengthens their claims to the political supremacy over all the Malagasy peoples. The Kimos and other Aborigines. Besides those of the chief nations that divide the Madagascar territory between them, many other tribal names figure on the maps, which must be regarded either as the designations of mere clans, castes, and other smaller sub-divisions, or else synonymous with the better-known appellations. But mention is also made of certain dwarfish peoples, such as the Kimo", who are said to dwell amongst the Baras in the southern parts of the island. The early French travellers who refer to them — the naturalist Commerson, and De Modave, Governor of Fort Dauphin — dcFcribe these pigmies as blacks with large head, crisp hair, long arms, very brave, and skilful in the use of bow and arrow. But during the course of the present century no trace has been discovered of their existence by any European explorer. Flacourt also believed in the existence of a cannibal tribe, the Ontoysatroihas, who were said to devour their sick and aged relatives. Amongst these Malagasy natives, possibly kinsmen of the Sumatran Battas, " the only graves of the fathers and mothers are their children." * Allusion is also made to the Behosi, said to dwell in the woodlands of the western slope about the uninhabited borderlands, and described as a black people, springing like monkeys from branch to branch and living on fruits, roots, and lemurs taken by snares and then " fattened for the market." But nothing beyond a vague tradition would appear to survive of this tribe, as well as of the ancient Va-Zimba Negroes, who were said to T)e the true aborigines of Madagascar, and who would seem to have been unacquainted even with the use of fire. Who were these Va-Zimbas, whoso very name suggests their Bantu origin ? A small tribe south of Majunga in the Sakalava territory is still known by the same designa- tion, and may possibly belong to the same race. This at least is rendered probable by the fact that they are regarded as having a Fort of pre-eminent right to the land, and that on their journeys they are entitled to help themselves without paj- ment to the produce of the soil, as if they were envoi's of the sovereign. The Va-Zimbas may perhaps be kinsmen of the Ba-Simba or Cimbeba people on the west coast of Africa, about the Cunene basin. Their graves, stones heaped up like cairns or else disposed in circles, are scattered over various districts of the central plateau, and are approached by the present Malagasy inhabitants with fear
 * Flacoart, Hutoirt dt Madaga$ear.