Book Review

Sub-Saharan Africa

Anthropology and history, closely related disciplines, have often experienced a meaningful cross-fertilization of ideas, not least in the field of African Studies. Recently, historians of Madagascar have benefited considerably from anthropological studies of the historical significance of ancestral ritual (e.g. Gillian Feeley-Harnik, A Green Estate: Restoring Independence in Madagascar [1991]; Karen Middleton, ed., Ancestors, Power, and History in Madagascar [1999]). In this work on the Betsimisaraka of eastern Madagascar, Jennifer Cole attempts to advance the debate not only by interpreting the historical symbolism of ritual, notably animal sacrifice, but also by seeking to uncover the "secret" history of French colonialism. The theoretical core for Cole's analysis, based on wide reading of authorities ranging from Sigmund Freud to Michel Foucault, is that Betsimisaraka historical memories have been driven into a "subterranean brook" because of the "trauma" of French colonial exploitation and violence, notably the uprising of 1947 when as many as 100,000 people died. Cole attempts to identify and elucidate "colonial memories" through analysis of ancestral rituals, oral interviews, and written sources.	1
Her discussion of the theory is thorough. However, her analysis of ancestral ritual, notably animal sacrifice, reveals little of historical import, while her methods of historical analysis are problematic. First, Cole does not explain why she chose the village of Ambodiharina, or the linguistic and social difficulties encountered in interviewing and the techniques employed to overcome them. More troubling, from a handful of informants who, even in the context of the village itself, are statistically insignificant, she draws generalizations for all Betsimisaraka—a people inhabiting a vast territory covering the north and central portions of the eastern littoral of Madagascar.	2
Cole consults written sources for background Betsimisaraka history. Those she selects to reconstruct precolonial history are woefully inadequate, however. This is possibly due to her assumption that precolonial Betsimisaraka life was "traditional" and unchanging. Here, as later, Cole fails to heed Middleton's warning that anthropologists need to construct an adequate framework of political economy in which to set their own community microstudies. In the nineteenth century, Betsimisaraka society was profoundly affected by Merina expansionism from the central plateau. Although Cole admits that "enslavement" by the Merina forms a constant refrain in Betsimisaraka "memory landscapes," she gives these memories short shrift. Instead, citing a "personal communication" (p. 293) as a source, she even states that the Betsimisaraka similarly oppressed the Merina. This displays scant regard for the literature, even that consulted (e.g. Manassé Esoavelomandroso, La province maritime orientale du Royaume de Madagascar à la fin du XIX siècle [1979]), which clearly demonstrates a brutal Merina conquest and economic exploitation of the Betsimisaraka in a regime of imperial oppression that lasted longer than French colonial rule.	3
Undaunted, Cole concentrates on the latter. The French, she states, seized land from the Betsimisaraka, upon whom they imposed corvées and the obligation to cultivate coffee as a cash crop. However, Cole overrates the ability of the colonial regime and settlers to intervene in local life, and the negative economic nature of colonialism. From the mid-1920s coffee production rose rapidly, in the 1930s replacing vanilla as Madagascar's main cash crop. By 1933 Madagascar was the main coffee producer in the French Empire. Far from being "vulnerable to the predations of the colons" (p. 53) and forced individually to produce cash crops, small Betsimisaraka farmers responded to the price incentive, voluntarily and massively adopting coffee as a supplement to rice cultivation. This enabled most to pay taxes and thus avoid forced labor. Moreover, with lower overheads and rice guaranteeing their self-sufficiency, they proved more efficient and able to survive economic vicissitudes than the generally impoverished monocrop Creole settler. By 1944, the indigenous share of coffee output had reached sixty-eight percent.	. . .