Richard J. Hayward (ed.): Omotic language studies, xxvi, 639 pp. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1990. £32 (original) (raw)

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1992

Abstract

In Madagascar inspirational speech has a special role. It should be forceful but not barrack room, formal—characterized by refined and elegant expression—yet with a strong rhetorical line. Such speeches (kabary) are a ubiquitous part of any ritual occasion. They recall the great assemblies of the nineteenth century at which the Merina monarchy would address the populace. The best of kabary seem not merely to have the authority of the ancestors, but actually to be ancestral speech. Although in some contexts reduced nowadays to stylized utterance, their original artistry comes in the range of allusion that can be built into them. Some elements are common to all such speech, but there is a certain latitude as to what is appropriately said and how. For an outsider, even one from another part of Madagascar, it is sometimes impossible to follow the flow of references to local people and events, local proverbs or idioms of speech. To understand every word uttered is no guarantee of understanding what has been said. Kabary are the best known of Malagasy oral genre, but they form only one part of the oral heritage of Madagascar. Of the others perhaps the most colourful is a genre called ohabolana, a kind of distillation into clipped gnomic statements of popular wit and wisdom—hence the usual discussion of ohabolana as a body of proverbs. A second genre, and the subject of the present book, is hainteny glossed by Leonard Fox in his subtitle as ' traditional poetry'. In fact, as he goes on to explain, hainteny is a form of expression especially associated with the Merina in the centre of the island, though something similar is recorded from elsewhere in Madagascar. Leonard Fox is already known for his interest in Malagasy popular culture in general, especially his studies of the Malagasy game of fanorana. On this occasion, he takes the role of translator and guide, though the blurb on the book cover more modestly restricts his role to that of translator. The bulk of the book is indeed made up of the first comprehensive translation into English of the hainteny as collected and published from the nineteenth century. They are presented as parallel MalagasyEnglish texts and divided into two large sections, one dealing with the theme of Love and the other with ' The Course of Life'. Within each section a further grouping takes place. Thus that on love subdivides into texts dealing with desire, hesitation and declaration; consent and union; refusal; rivals; separation and abandonment; regrets, reproaches and indifference. In assembling this body of material, introducing it and providing textual notes, Fox has followed many of the earlier commentaries and editions closely. Of these the most important are the recent works of Bakoly DomenichiniRamiaramanana and the collection of texts assembled by the French literary critic Jean Paulhin and published just before the outbreak of the First World War. The result is a careful and workmanlike job of assembling and making available data and texts, rather than a strikingly original discussion of hainteny as a genre. None the less the book will be a valuable reference work for students of Malagasy (especially Merina) historical culture, and more generally of importance for those interested in comparative aspects of oral literary traditions. In the end, however, I have to admit to remaining somewhat unsure as to where to place hainteny among the various oral genres of Madagascar. Lingering uncertainty about the etymology of the word itself indicates that this is not an uncommon problem. Yet, in practice it is always going to be complicated—and probably a mistake—to seek to distinguish the various forms in any clear-cut way. One crucial reason for this is that they are all in fact mutually referential, incorporating a strong vein of esoteric allusion which crosses the boundaries implied by separate indigenous terminologies. Hainteny is a complex form in which multiple meanings and levels of possible interpretation are intricately interwoven. As spoken, hainteny had the qualities of poetry—it employed identifiable linguistic conventions and, as Fox points out, metrical structure: ' In general hainteny are composed of lines whose meter is not determined by number of syllables, but by number of temporal accents, counted beginning with the first accented syllable.... Although rhyme is almost never used, assonance plays a major role in the poetic techniques of hainteny' (p. 41). Clearly, for hainteny to work as poetry it has to be spoken, and spoken in Malagasy. Written down, translated and arranged by line and verse as here, it looks like poetry, even if metre and rhythm are hard to reproduce properly in translation. Yet what was it in its original oral form? The time of receiving this book for review coincided with the visit to London University of an anthropologist who is also a noted Malagasy poet. When asked whether he recognized anything of hainteny in the oral traditions of…

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