Sacred Stones and Madagascar

Source:  http://lucianoaimar.blogspot.com/

Last night I had an interesting conversation with a good friend who was for a time a missionary in Madagascar.  We got to talking about sacred stones, and he told me about the "ancestor stones" of the tribal community in which he spent ten years.  He also described the "domain of the dead" which was inhabited by the spirits of the ancestors who were left there, not cremated but slowly rotting away.  He described how the ancestors were occasionally carried back to the village from the "domain of the dead" and given food to sustain them.  Then they were taken back to the domain again, by a complicated and tortuous route designed to make them lose their sense of direction.  This was so that they would remain in their domain and not be tempted to come back to the village -- thus allowing the living to get on with their lives.  Each family had standing stones in or near the village which were greatly revered, since they "held" the spirits of the ancestors.

Clearly it is incredibly difficult to transpose or import a belief system from Madagascar into a UK-based neolithic community, but this appears to be what Mike Parker Pearson has done, in conjunction with Ramilisonina.  Over the last couple of years this theory has been expounded in a number of articles, and on the telly -- but not by any means to universal acclaim.  As many others have pointed out, the traditions and beliefs of the Madagascar tribes are not actually more than a few centuries old, and to claim that there is some sort of universality to the belief system involving "ancestor stones" would be a grave mistake.  Most of the tribal groups of the world do NOT have this belief.  It seems to me that MPP has invented the Stonehenge "domain of the dead" as an explanation for what he has found (or imagined) at Bluestonehenge, and as a counterbalance he has then imagined that there must have been another area (around Woodhenge) which must have been the domain of the living.

An anthropological leap too far?  Is MPP looking for a reason to label the bluestones as sacred or special,  and then by extension to justify the imagined stone-collecting expeditions to West Wales? I think so.

There is also a problem over designating the burial area as "the domain of the dead" -- maybe that is to put a "western" construction on it.  My friend told me last night that the belief in his village was that the ancestors simply passed on, and were really still alive but in a different world of their own.  So they were still present, and could be communicated with.  So you had to revere and respect the ancestor stones -- to do otherwise might well bring bad things down upon your family.  In that village they did not practice cremation, since maybe they felt that that would somehow destroy the spirits of the ancestors.  It all goes to show how hard it is for us to see inside the heads and the hearts of people living in totally different traditions and in other lands.

Anyway, for what it is worth, here is an interview I came across with Ramilisonina.

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This is from the Archaeological Institute of America web site:

Conversation: Sacred Stones

Volume 63 Number 1, January/February 2010

Exploring the connection between Stonehenge and Madagascar's modern-day megaliths

One of Madagascar's first native-born archaeologists, Ramilisonina's ethnological research on modern Malagasy traditions informs his study of ancient sites on the island. Together with Mike Parker Pearson of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, he also developed a new interpretation of the ritual landscape around Stonehenge and the nearby timber-post site known as Woodhenge. He spoke with journalist Richard Covington about the recent discovery of "Bluestonehenge", a site near Woodhenge and Stonehenge, and the similarities between Madagascar's living traditions and the burial rituals of Neolithic England.

What exactly did the team find at "Bluestonehenge"?

We discovered a circular ditch, inside of which were fragments of bluestones, large megaliths brought from Wales. Artifacts from the site date to around 2500 to 3000 B.C., the same era as Stonehenge.

How does Bluestonehenge relate to Stonehenge?

Bluestonehenge was a stone circle on the Avon River, and burial ceremonies could have begun there. The bodies might have been cremated at the site and then taken to Stonehenge for burial. We see the same sort of practice today in Madagascar.

What do you think was the purpose of Stonehenge?

It was a sacred place where people came to make contact with the creator gods and the spirits of their ancestors.

What similarities do you see between Stonehenge and megaliths in Madagascar?

In Madagascar, stone belongs to the world of the ancestors and is used to construct tombs and monuments. So stone in Madagascar is really for sacred purposes, for the dead. Wood is for the living. Houses here are made of wood or earth.

Never stone?

Before the 18th century, no one in Madagascar built a house in stone. Stone was reserved for the dead or to commemorate an important event. Stonehenge also seems to have been a monument to the dead.

Is ancestor worship still practiced in Madagascar?

Yes, there's still ancestor worship. In the capital, Antananarivo, you can say that people are civilized, Christianized. But it's here where you still find the greatest number of ancestor shrines.

Why is that?

In spite of Christianity, we still honor our ancestors. For example, on sacred hills with tombs, where people come regularly to pray to their ancestors, there is often a church just nearby. So, the Malagasy in Antananarivo go to church on Sunday and to the tombs of their ancestors on Monday.

How did you come to see a connection between the modern monuments in Madagascar and the ancient megaliths of Stonehenge?

Mike and I have worked together in Madagascar since 1991. We had many discussions about standing stones, and he invited me to come see Stonehenge. Even though the stones in Madagascar are smaller, I could see there was still a similar element of magic at Stonehenge.

Do you also see parallels with Woodhenge?

Yes. In Madagascar, people also create shrines in wood circles. The wooden monuments are placed in the middle of villages or alongside fields. Memorial stones for the dead are placed beside paths or roads.

Are there other ritual elements to the surrounding landscape?

There are sacred forests. But deforestation is a serious problem. I just returned from my village in the Bezanozano region and there were fires everywhere. My brothers were dejected because fires had burned down many trees. Archaeologists fight very hard for the protection of forests, which have very concrete evidence of our ancient culture.

Do people still erect stones in Bezanozano?

There are standing stones all over Madagascar, not just in Bezanozano. The way they are erected varies, but they are always connected to the dead, our ancestors, and invisible spirits, just as at Stonehenge.

Have you ever erected one?

Oh yes. After my father died 10 years ago, we erected a commemorative stone on the side of a road. We visit it to say our prayers and ask his help.

http://www.archaeology.org/1001/etc/conversation.html