Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 1 1883.djvu/82

74 However, he goes away under the charge of Tsàramainty (The Good Black), who is charged to nurse him if ill, to feed him when hungry, to be, in fact, in the place of his father and mother. But falling ill he remembers with sorrow his self-willedness, gives directions to Tsàramainty to take his "eight bones," that is, the principal bones of the four limbs, to his parents. Their grief at hearing of his death is pathetically described:—

The last-mentioned sentiment is a frequent one in the funeral laments of the heathen Malagasy. The whole concludes with a "moral" in approved ballad style, warning young men to believe in and obey the words of their parents.

The concluding song of the collection is in a rather imaginative and poetical strain, on the Earth, as the "house appointed for all living":—

I will humble myself to thee, O earth, I will plead with thee, O earth; For to thee we give up our loved ones. Yes, go home to thee the loved ones; For thou takest the cherished ones, And the cherished wife dost thou fetch. Our fathers and mothers dost thou take, Relatives we cannot part with thou sweepest off; Yes, all alike go home to thee, O earth! Yes, say I, O earth, earth, earth!

Then answered also, they say, the earth, And thus, 'tis said, was the word of the earth: Do not give blame to this earth, Do not give censure to this earth; For the ground you tread on is earth. And the water you drink is earth, And the rice you eat is earth. And the cloth you wear is earth, And the night you take rest in is earth, And the morn you rise up in is earth.