Rafrançois
Tarika, Son Egal, 1997
(Randriamanantena)
This style of song is for mourning the dead during the time before burial. When someone dies, especially in the Merina tribe, we mourn for 3 or 4 days. During the day, we put the body and the family in one room and we just sing to let time go by. Visitors come to pay respect and condolences and ask if help is needed.
At night, a different crowd of people will come and sing until dawn. They are not part of the family but mainly young men formed as a clan to sing and compete with others in the village. For them, it's fun to do. They get fed and to drink as much coffee as they like since they keep the night lively. Whenever we hear this going on, we wake up and join in since it's such a beautiful time for social gathering and safe song competition between young people. No prize, no money involved, just sing as good as you can manage. Although this song is like the Christian Lord's Prayer, it is just something to sing - most of the people in the clans do not even believe in God. It's the gang from my village joining us here.
Nowadays people are getting poorer, so as soon as someone dies, they often put a big sign on their gate to say 'No mourning of the dead today'. They cannot afford to feed them and give them coffee all night any more. It's so sad because the mourning of the dead is no longer fun when families do that, and another tradition is dying.
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