Ambohimanga Rova

We went out to Ambohimanga Rova with President and Sister Adams, and Elder and Sister Richards on Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago.  It is about an hour north and east of Tana.  This is where the old-time kings and queens had their summer palace on top of one of the hills.  There is an awesome view of the surrounding area, clear back to Antananarivo. 

There is a little town at the bottom, where the path and steps go up to the palace, where we parked. Once you leave the village and go up the steps, there are three levels.   

 When we got up to the first level of the grounds there was a group of young boys and girls with long sticks and round shields.  

 

 There were some men instructing them and they were practicing defensive gestures and then running around in different formations.  It was fun to watch.

  Around in the back was an area made up of big boulders with great views of the surrounding valley and you could see a really long ways.  We could even see the tall building that is being built by the ‘Big Jumbo’s’ back in Tana.  There was a sign up there that said “A rock which affords panoramic view over the sacred forest, over the surroundings: eastern, western and southern parts of the Capital included in the plain of Betsimitatatra. Its name originated from King Andrianampoinimerina’s wish.  He gathered on the summit the inhabitants of the twelve sacred-hills of Imerina.”  There isn’t a ‘forest’ any more, because most of the trees in Madagascar have been cut down to make charcoal for cooking.

 We went up some more stairs to to the middle level where there were some garden areas with lots of poinsettia trees and flowers.

The highest level has the actual palaces, one for the King and one for the Queen,  up some more stone stairs to the top of the hill.  There was an observation gazebo or look out area on the one side.  On the other side were the two buildings for the King and Queen.  The Queen definitely had the more comfortable accommodations.  At the back on this level are little buildings, mausoleums, where they have the bodies of the former Kings of Madagascar – and maybe the Queens. 

When we started up the steps to the palace level, we noticed a big, old, dead tree that had grown on a little patch of grass that was about half way up to the palace level.  We noticed it because there were several cow skulls with horns, attached to the tree.  The base of the tree was pretty big around, so it must have been a massive tree; part of the base was hollowed out.  

As we got done looking at the palace level, we heard drums and singing coming from down below somewhere.  We looked down from the battlement walls and saw a big group of people down on the lower level and some up on the level where the base of the big old tree was.  As we watched it looked like the people up by the base of the tree were bringing different fruits and leaving them there, then they would light a candle or incense and leave them inside and around the base of the tree.  

 
 

 Pretty soon all the people were down on the lower level and the men in the white robes with the red stripes down the front took turns talking.  When they got done talking, they would take a two liter bottle of some liquid, spill a little into their hands and throw it onto the people gathered around them; walking all through the crowd until it was gone.  When the men were done talking and ‘sprinkling’ the people, quite a few men in pink shirts got a rope out and were doing something up close to the wall under the tree.  We couldn’t see what was happening, so we went down all those stairs to get a better look.

When I got down where I could see that they had a cow all tied up on the ground (just like they do at the rodeo with all four legs tied together).   I guessed what was coming next, so I just hurried and went all the way over to the far side of the grounds so I wouldn’t have to see them kill the cow.  Dad stayed real close so that he could see what was going on.

Pretty soon after that three of the pink shirted guys took a gourd full of blood up to the base of the tree, another group of three took a gourd up to the palace level, and another group of three took a gourd down the steps and through the village, but we couldn’t tell where. 

On Sunday and Monday we were asking some of the Malagasy people we know if they knew what was going on out there.  The consensus was that they were asking their ancestors to bless them.  Several of them had heard about this ceremony, but no one had ever seen it.  It wasn’t like anything else We had ever seen either!  They told us that we were really lucky to get to watch it.