Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/73

 THE ORATORY, SONGS, LEGENDS, AND FOLK-TALES OF THE MALAGASY.

(Continued from page 40.)

CHAPTER III.

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NEXT in order in this collection of folk-lore we find a number of native songs or Hìrari' ny Ntaolo ("Songs of the Ancients"). The Malagasy people (at least those tribes of them with whom we are best acquainted in the central and eastern provinces) are very fond of singing and of music, and have a very correct ear for harmony. They like singing in parts; and when they hear a new tune will often improvise a tenor, alto, or bass accompaniment. The native tunes are somewhat plaintive, and are often accompanied with the regular clapping of hands and the twanging of a rude guitar or other instrument. On moonlight nights the children and young people will stay out of doors until the small hours of the morning, singing the native songs, in which they take immense delight. It will be seen from the following specimens that although these songs are not rhymed or metrical they have nevertheless a certain rhythmical "swing" or flow, and a parallelism of structure, and are arranged in somewhat regular form as regards couplets and stanzas.

Several of these songs are in praise of the sovereign, and were chiefly composed in honour of the persecuting Queen Rànavàlona I., who reigned from 1828 to 1861. In heathen times, that is, until the present queen's accession in 1868, it was customary to salute the sovereign as the "God seen by the eye," the visible divinity (Andriamànitra hàta màso). Here is one of these laudatory effusions addressed to the former queens: