Madagascar's forest people

The Zafimaniry: the forest people without any trees

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The Zafimaniry: forest people without any trees

Dear NE-One

In a village where walls are thin and much of life is lived outside them, the topography of sound makes a gentle introduction to its peoples’ way of life. Regardless of the time of day – so long as the sun has risen – the echoes around the terraced village of Sakaivo in Central Madagascar’s highlands are likely to be the same. Undulating laughter as children run and play; the jagged cheeps of a chick that’s lost its mum; troughs of quiet as an elder sister soothes a crying baby; the sharp, steep squawk of a chicken shooed out from inside a house; and, always, the dull, rolling thud-thud-thud-thud as a woman somewhere pounds a heavy pole into a wooden mortar of rice.