Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/44

36 For the good done, they say, is a memorial (lit. "a set-up stone"), and the good done is good packed up for a journey.

It will be noticed in this speech what a frequent repetition there is of the word hòno, "they say," or "it is said"; apparently guarding a speaker from personal responsibility for much of his counsel, and sheltering him under the authority of others. This is quite characteristic of the native mind, which shrinks from very direct assertion or accusation, and always prefers an indirect mode of statement.

The symbols and figures which it will have been seen in the preceding pages to be a marked characteristic of Malagasy speech are not, however, confined to words, but are sometimes extended to actions. Every reader of the Old Testament scriptures is aware of the frequent use made of such methods of teaching by the Hebrew prophets, as seen in the Book of Ezekiel (iii. 1-3; iv.; vii. 23; xxiv. 1-4; XXX vii. 15-17), and in 1 Kings xxii. 11.

In Malagasy history there are some interesting examples of a similar employment of symbolic acts, especially before the general use of writing had made written letters common. Towards the close of the last century, Andrianimpòina, king of Imérina, had reduced under his authority a great part of the interior of the island, and, confident in his own power, sent a messenger to the principal chief of the southern central province, Bétsiléo, telling him that he was "his son" (a common Malagasy expression implying that one person is subordinate to another), and requiring him to come and acknowledge his father. The Bétsiléo chief, however, replied that he was no son of the Hova king, but that they were brothers, each possessing his own territory. The Hova returned for answer, "I have a large cloth (to cover me), but thou hast a small one; so that if you are far from me you are cold; for I am the island to which all the little ones resort, therefore come to me, thy father, for thou art my son." When the Bétsiléo chief received this message he measured a piece of wood between his extended arms (the réfi or standard measure of the Malagasy, between the tips of the fingers when the arms are stretched apart to the utmost), and sent it to the king, with the words, "This wood is my measure; bid Andrianimpòina equal it ; if he can span it, then I am his son, and not his brother." Upon Andrianimpòina trying it he was unable to reach it, for the Bétsiléo chief was long in the arms. But the Hova king would not give up his point, and