Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/12

 4 and those connected with the New Year’s festival, &c. Use has been made of many of these in some of the chapters in the writer’s book, The Great African Island (Trübner, 1880).

An intelligent native officer named Rabézàndrina published in 1875 a pamphlet of 42 pp., giving a complete version of a favourite Malagasy story, the history of two rogues named Ikòtofétsy and Imàhakà, together with a shorter story. The former of these native tales was rendered into English by the late Mr. James Cameron, of the L. M. S. Mission, and was published in 1871, in the Cape Magazine, issued at Cape Town; and within the last two or three years, Miss Cameron, daughter of the gentleman just mentioned, has contributed to the same magazine English renderings of about half-a-dozen of the tales given in Mr. Dahle’s collection.

Translations into English of about a dozen Malagasy folk-tales have been made by the Rev. J. Richardson, also of the L. M. S. Mission, and were published in the 1877 and 1878 numbers of the Antanànarìvo Annual; but as the circulation of this magazine is chiefly confined to those resident in or closely connected with Madagascar, probably very few people have seen these Malagasy stories. Two or three specimens of the fables and folk-tales may be found in some other publications: in Copland’s History of the Island of Madagascar (1822), in Ellis’s much more valuable and complete History (1838), in Mr. E. Baker’s Outline of a Grammar of the Malagasy Language (1845), and in some papers entitled, “Madagascar à Vol d’Oiseau,” in the Tour du Monde (x. liv. 247, 248, 249), and subsequently translated into English in Illustrated Travels, vol. i. These, I believe, comprise all that is at present available in an English form of Malagasy folk-tales, songs, and fables.

Mention should also be made of a work in Malagasy which was printed at the Jesuit mission press at Antanànarìvo five or six years ago. This was the first volume of a History of the Kings of Imérina (the central province of Madagascar), derived from native sources, manuscripts written during the last few years, and traditions. This book gives, in addition to the history of the country, a considerable amount of information about the native customs as they are supposed to have successively arisen from the earliest periods, including not a little folk-lore, the beliefs as to supposed supernatural beings, divination, witchcraft, the idols, &c. The book contains 258 pages, and it is intimated at the close that three other volumes will complete