August 25, 2008
· Filed under History, Madagascar, Nature, New Zealand
The weka: Nature's dumbest?
New Zealand
and Madagascar are similar in many respects. Both are large island nations in the southern hemisphere. Both split off from their respective mainlands tens of millions of years ago, and are populated with a fascinating variety of plants and animals found nowhere else on earth. In both places, the survival of these native plants and animals is threatened by species introduced by humans, who arrived only within the last two thousand years. And both islands are far colder during the winter months than any civilized place has a right to be. But there is an intriguing difference between New Zealand and Madagascar—in New Zealand, the birds became mammals, while in Madagascar, the mammals became birds.
In New Zealand, with the exception of two bats, there were never any land mammals. The role of grazing and ground foraging was taken over by birds. Because these birds were not troubled by predators, many became flightless and dimwitted, like the weka. In Madagascar on the other hand, though there are plenty of birds, the task of dispersing the seeds of rainforest plants has largely been taken over by lemurs! And since lemurs are far more hesitant than birds to stray far from their rainforest surroundings, this means that a patch of land in Madagascar must be very near existing rainforest to regenerate rainforest “naturally.”
August 22, 2008
· Filed under History, Madagascar · Tagged History, Madagascar
According to most accounts, the island of Madagascar was first settled by seafaring folk from southeast Asia, and by mainland Africans. But according to my Ambohimanga tour guide, the southeast Asians who settled the interior high plateau found the country originally inhabited by a race of little people, about four feet tall. The cliff-dwelling Dogon in Mali tell stories of little people too, and flying little people at that. And in Flores, we’ve found their little hobbit bones. Where did all these little people come from? Where did they go? Very strange, very mysterious.
August 22, 2008
· Filed under History, Madagascar · Tagged History, Madagascar
One of my favorite short excursions out of Tana was to Ambohimanga, Madagascar’s pre-colonial capital. Not far from the tight smoggy roads of Tana, the royal quarters of Ambohimanga sit atop an imposing green hill surrounded by rice paddies and humped cattle reminiscent of southeast Asia. The trail to the top of the hill passes through a stone archway, over which in times past an immense round stone could be rolled to bar entry. The stone sat to the side of the gate, so I passed through.
The King of Madagascar had twelve queens. He installed one queen on each of twelve hills around his domain. Every year, he would visit each of his twelve queens for one month at a time. On New Year’s Eve, all twelve queens would join the king at his residence. All twelve queens would share one bed, slightly smaller than a contemporary double bed. They slept in the fetal position. The king slept on a nearby, higher bed. The next morning, the king and his twelve queens bathed together in the royal bathtub. After the royal bath, the commoners would drink the water, believing it to be sacred.
Fact: According to my tour guide, Malagasy people to this day sleep in fetal position, believing that the stretched out sleeping posture is the sleeping position of the dead, while the fetal position is the sleeping position of the living.
