In Madagascar, the Dead Are Dug Up so They Can Party With the Living
Music, food, and love are poured into the Famadihana festival
I’m teetering on the roof-edge of a concrete tomb. The air is filled with the scent of sweat and rum, and I’m being jostled from all sides by excitable, dancing men, hollering announcements in Malagasy to the surrounding crowd of two or three thousand people. They wave their arms, swaying to the upbeat trumpets of the brass band. We inhale dust as, below us, men in baseball caps drive shovels into the dry, compacted earth. The crowd waits eagerly, many of them clutching rolled-up straw mats. They demand the men dig faster, and bring out their dead.
So, you know, basically a typical Friday.
This is Famadihana, or the “Turning of the Bones,” a festival for the dead held in the highlands of Madagascar. Every five to seven years, people honor their ancestors by exhuming them from the family tomb and wrapping them in fresh shrouds. It’s joyful, with music, hog roasts, rum, and dancing. My companions are Eric, a 51-year-old polylingual driver and tour guide from eastern Madagascar, with whom I speak an absurd mix of English, French, and Italian; and Lala, a 34-year-old woman who lives in northern Madagascar and regularly makes the long and arduous journey to visit her family. It’s…
