ZAFIMANIRY – Inhabitants of the highlands in Madagascar
After we left interstate 7 in Ivato, at the end of a 26-kilometer track and an hour of driving, we arrived in Antoetra, the nerve centre of the Zafimaniry people, inhabitants of the high plateaus, well known for their wood sculpture art, a hundred-year-old tradition. Delighted at the thought of discovering this area where trekking is the only way to go, even the zebu-cart cannot go there. Rémi, a fervent defender of this culture will guide us to one of the many villages of the Zafimaniry. My will being to meet inhabitants of a village that has actually never been visited by tourists, here we are on our way to Ifempona. Diversity of landscapes across this trek is breathtaking, on our way we note once again that despite the government efforts, the slash-and-burn cultivation, like everywhere in this island of Madagascar, is devastating. At the entrance of the village, a school under construction made of stone and cement. This is very unusual for the Zafimaniry. I was told that because of the lack of wood, this school will not be built in a traditional way, like it was planned in the ancestral tradition. Rocks found and broken on the premises will be used as stones to build the school, sand comes from the village river where we can see children acting as gold diggers. Cement comes from Antoetra, a 5-hour trekking from here. A human chain composed of women and men was organized. Everyone was carrying a 25 kilograms bag of cement on his or her shoulders. A NGO was in charge of paying them… 5 Euros for each people and each travel.After this long walk, we are welcomed in the house of Tangalamena (the chief of the village) Razafi Mamonzi. As required by tradition, we have to ask him the authorization to settle for a few days. He sits on a wood sculpted stool surrounded by his family. The house is filled with smoke coming from a fire serving as a kitchen. Ceiling is covered by corn, grown on terraces at the entrance of the village just like rice. Every part of wood that makes part of the house is sculpted, so are the objects of the everyday life, an authentic arts and crafts. Children of the town fuss over the windows, they came to see these “Vaza” foreigners. This stay was an enchantment here are some pictures. I want to give a special thanks to everyone for your welcome.
For those who would like to have further information about the deforestation problems in the Zafimaniry country, you can find below an article published in 2004 on the website
www.syfia.info that I thank, by the way, for allowing me to publish this document. In 2012, it is time for humanity to become aware that all this beauty so fragile is between its hands.
Madagascar: the Zafimaniry art, a masterpiece in jeopardy
(Syfia Madagascar) Outstanding woodworkers and artisans, the Zafimaniry people in Madagascar cannot live on their art anymore. Their objects are poorly paid and the forest rapidly disappears. By declaring their know-how masterpiece of heritage, UNESCO will encourage its preservation. When tourists leave Madagascar, their suitcases are very often full of wood sculptures, rosewood ornaments, ashtrays or some other functional articles in black solid wood or even sculptured chairs (two pieces made of embedded wood in a curved ‘X’ shape well-known by the amateurs and the European catalogues of exotic furniture). The Zafimaniry, a people of 20,000 inhabitants living 200 kilometers at the South and East of Tanarive, confined between the East cliff and the Betsileo plateau, are artisans of these appreciated souvenirs. The know-how of these specialists of the rosewood work was declared masterpiece of oral and immaterial heritage by UNESCO on November, 7th 2003. A welcomed recognition at a time when the Zafimaniry have more and more difficulties to live from their art, and when the forest where they get their raw material disappears at top speed.
The 90 % of the forest disappeared.
The Zafimaniry country is composed of a hundred of villages and hamlets perched on wooded hills. A large artisanal workshop outdoor. Vohitrandriana is a typical village: perched on a hill where mist emerges from the forest, it is composed of small houses made of wood entirely sculpted of geometrical patterns. Made with no metal pieces, they can entirely be taken apart. A Zafimaniry can then buy an entire house to put it back together somewhere else after. Forty years ago, natural forest of this area was evaluated at more than 8,000 hectares, colonized by various essential oils of wood. Today, we estimate that there is only 10 % remaining of the original forest: this disappearance is directly linked to the development of regional craft industry and to the rosewood commerce. It is also linked to forest clearing and to slash-and-burn cultivation for corn and bean traditionally done by these artisans. But they don’t cultivate a lot, living from hunting and picking. To buy rice and vegetables, they sell on markets art objects or wood objects destined for sculpture. Most of them depend entirely on forest to live, testifies the old Rakalavelo: “Every village has its own specialty of wood work. In Vohitrandriana, men are all sawyers from father to son. They emigrate during several months each year everywhere in Madagascar where there is some wood. Some of them even possess chainsaws.” Their wives stay in village to plait straw hats or plaits of vegetal fibers. Others sculpt wood and make objects that collectors are responsible to sell in Ambositra, which declares itself the capital city of craft industry in Madagascar.
An underappreciated art
But like their forest, the Zafimaniry people’s level of life has been deteriorating over the last years. “20 years ago, confirms the president of an association of farmers, Razafimandimby, parents could send their children to school until the baccalaureate. At the time, forest was still full of rosewood and the sculpted woodwork was well paid. Now, forest resources are decreasing and people don’t have enough money to send their children to school”. What matters for them is that their children go to work as soon as possible in big cities. However, this work is less paid: 20 years ago, a 10-cm statuette could be deal against 25 measures (kapoaka) of white rice; right now the same statuette is barely worth two measures of rice. For Patricia Rasoazanamalala, from the head of the heritage of the tourism and culture minister, “specialized stores in Ambositra are the ones who take the most advantage of the art objects, because they order at low prices vulgar objects, barely finished to the Zafimaniry people. After, storekeepers make sure that the finishing touches are done and they reap the benefits”. This growing poverty urges young people to leave the country, which questions the transmission of this ancestral knowledge. In order to preserve what is left of the forest, the Vohitrandiana population, sensitized by NGO, set up a social pact to handle the twenty hectares declared as protected. Wild cutting is forbidden there while tree nursing are created to replant trees. Like everywhere else in the large island, the policy of Secured Local Management (Gestion locale sécurisée – Gelose) is about to be set up in order to make the local communities responsible of the forest management that makes them live. In a view of incomes diversification, some bank on tourism or on artisanal rum production whereas the law does not allow it. To finish, for some others, the more realistic solution is to educate the Zafimaniry people to farming and to agriculture. But to save their art, they will need more than this. Antoetra’s mayor, the only city accessible from a secondary road, is expecting spillovers from the decision of the UNESCO. “People, he said, hope to benefit from the external subventions to help preserve the mode of life based on natural resources. And to hand down its heritage to the future generations”. According to the head of the heritage, the Zafimaniry will surely be helped, in particular to create a trade union of artisans and to set up a central purchasing service for the wood.
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