Ralambo
He is credited with popularizing the consumption of beef in the Kingdom of Imerina and celebrating this discovery with the establishment of the fandroana New Year's festival which traditionally took place on the day of Ralambo's birth.
Oral history furthermore traces the tradition of royal idols (sampy) in Imerina to the reign of Ralambo, who made heavy use of these supernatural objects to expand his realm and consolidate the divine nature of his sovereignty.
However, both of these explanations are likely to have originated at some point after his reign; it is more probable that he took the name Ralambo after propagating the consumption of the meat of the zebu, called lambo in the proto-Malagasy language and the Malayo-Polynesian tongue from which it derived.
According to the tale, the queen gave birth in a house built to resemble a boat (called a kisambosambo) evocative of the transoceanic origins of the Malagasy people.
There, Randapavola took the name Rasolobe upon delivering a healthy son, Ralambo, on the first day of the first month of the year (Alahamady), the most auspicious date for the birth of a sovereign.
[2] Ralambo's many enduring and significant political and cultural achievements of his reign have earned him a heroic and near mythical status among the greatest ancient sovereigns of Merina history.
[5] He introduced the traditions of circumcision and family intermarriage (such as between parent and step-child, or between half-siblings) among Merina nobles, these practices having already existed among certain other Malagasy ethnic groups.
According to this source, Ralambo had already married once when his servant encountered the beautiful princess Rafotsimarobavina and four female companions gathering edible greens in a valley west of Ambohidrabiby.
[citation needed] Ralambo expanded and defended his realm through a combination of diplomacy and successful military action aided by the procurement of the first firearms in Imerina by way of trade with kingdoms on the coast.
[6] He famously repelled an attempted invasion by an army of the powerful western coastal Betsimisaraka people at a site now known as Mandamako ("Lazy") at Androkaroka, north of Alasora.
The Vazimba king saw the smoke and began to hasten back to the village but was captured in an ambush laid by Ralambo's troops and was forced to exile himself in the forests far to the east.
[9] Ralambo is likewise credited with founding the traditional ceremony of the fandroana (the "Royal Bath"),[6] although others have suggested he merely added certain practices to the celebration of a long-standing ritual.
[10] According to one version of the story, while traversing the countryside, Radama and his men came across a wild zebu so exceptionally fat that the king decided to make a burnt offering of it.
The symbolism of renewal was particularly embodied in the traditional sexual permissiveness encouraged on the eve of the fandroana (characterized by early 19th-century British missionaries as an "orgy") and the following morning's return to rigid social order with the sovereign firmly at the helm of the kingdom.
By collecting the twelve greatest sampy—twelve being a sacred number in Merina cosmology—and transforming their nature, Ralambo strengthened the supernatural power and legitimacy of the royal line of Imerina.
[13] The Tantara ny Andriana eto Madagasikara, the 19th-century transcription of Merina oral history, offers an account of the idols' introduction into Imerina.
According to legend, one day during Ralambo's reign a woman named Kalobe arrived in Imerina carrying a small object wrapped in banana leaves and grass.
[7] Not long after, the legend continues, a group of Sakalava (or, by some accounts, Vazimba) warriors were preparing to attack a village north of Alasora called Ambohipeno.
[5] These royal sampy, including Kelimalaza, continued to be worshiped until their supposed destruction in a bonfire by Queen Ranavalona II upon her public conversion to Christianity in 1869.
