Rethinking ancestors and colonial power in Madagascar

This article reconsiders the relationship between ancestors and colonial po wer through a comparative analysis of the mortuary rituals of two Malagasy peoples, the Betsimisaraka of the east coast and the Karembola of the deep south. In contrast to analyses which emphasise an opposition between ancest ors and colonial power, it argues that mortuary rituals construct striking analogies between the two. These analogies rest on similar conceptualisatio ns of power as both enabling and enslaving, and are enacted in contemporary mortuary ritual through the incorporation of colonial goods and labour pra ctices. By playing on similarities and differences between ancestral and co lonial power, Betsimisaraka and Karembola mortuary rituals parody and criti que mimetically appropriate colonial power, even as their appropriation of colonial symbols endows ritual practices around ancestors with the power to pull against the centralising power of the national sphere. Bakhtin's conc eption of heteroglossic language provides a useful way of conceptualising t he multiple dimensions of ritual practices around ancestors.