Sikidy
Columns of seeds, designated "slaves" or "princes" belonging to respective "lands" for each, interact symbolically to express vintana ('fate') in the interpretation of the diviner.
[1][2] Stephen Ellis and Solofo Randrianja describe sikidy as "probably one of the oldest components of Malagasy culture", writing that it most likely the product of an indigenous divinatory art later influenced by Islamic practice.
This area was also the site of early Arab settlements, although strict Islamic observances were lost centuries ago [...].
Historical evidence shows that Antemoro diviners, bearers of the astrological system, infiltrated nearly all the ancient kingdoms of Madagascar beginning in the sixteenth century.
The area is still a famous place of learning where specialists go for training and then return to their home communities with a certain body of knowledge.
For centuries Matitanana has remained a training center for diviners who have migrated widely, usually attaining important positions in their home communities and with various royal families.The "infiltration" of Malagasy kingdoms by Antemoro diviners, and Matitanana's role as a place for astrological and divinatory learning, help to explain the relatively uniform practicing of sikidy across Madagascar.
[4] Mythic tradition relating to the origin of sikidy "links [the practice] both to the return by walking on water of Arab ancestors who had intermarried with Malagasy but then left, and to the names of the days of the week"[1] and holds that the art was supernaturally communicated to the ancestors, with Zanahary (the supreme deity of Malagasy religion) giving it to Ranakandriana, who then gave it to a line of diviners (Ranakandriana to Ramanitralanana to Rabibi-andrano to Andriambavi-maitso (who was a woman) to Andriam-bavi-nosy), the last of whom terminated the monopoly by giving it to the people, declaring: "Behold, I give you the sikidy, of which you may inquire what offerings you should present in order to obtain blessings; and what expiation you should make so as to avert evils, when any are ill or under apprehension of some future calamity".
[6] The British missionary William Ellis recorded in 1839 two idiomatic expressions used in Madagascar that come from this story: "Tsy mahandry andro Zoma" (lit.
'He cannot wait 'til Friday') is said of someone extremely impatient, and heavy rainshowers falling in rapid succession are called "sese omby" (lit.
[8] Raymond Decary [fr] writes that, at least among the Sakalava, a man must be 40 years old before learning and practicing sikidy, or he risks death.
Upon finding it, he throws his spear at its branches, shaking the tree and causing its large seed pods to fall.
During this act, some mpisikidy say: "When you were on the steep peak and in the dense forest, on you the crabs climbed, from you the crocodiles made their bed, with their paws the birds trod on you.
In 1970, Decary reported that the salary paid by an apprentice to his master is "not very high": up to five francs, plus a red rooster's feather.
[1] In the process of divination, the mpisikidy relates interactively to the client, asking new questions and discussing the interpretation of the seeds.
Solutions include offerings, sacrifices, charms (called ody), stored remedies, or observed fady (taboos).
[6] Ellis reports the following faditra for various sources and manifestations of evil:[6] A divine offering, called a sōrona, is also prescribed by the mpisikidy.
The sōrona may consist of a combination of beads, silver chains, ornaments, meats, herbs, and the singing of a child.
Other sōrona objects include "a young bullock which just begins to bellow and to tear up the earth with his horns", fowl, rice mixed with milk and honey, a plantain tree flush with fruit, "slime from frogs floating on the water", and a groundnut called voanjo.
William Ellis recorded in 1838 that, though the application of indigenous remedies was most common, some patients had lately been instructed as part of the sikidy resolution to ask the local foreign missionaries for medicine.
[11] William Ellis describes two ritual occasions for sikidy relating to infants: the declaring of the child's destiny, and the "scrambling" ceremony.
"[6] The "scrambling" ceremony, which only occurs with firstborn infants, takes place two or three months after the child's birth on a day divined by the sikidy to be lucky or good.
The mélange is mixed well and held up in its pan by the youngest girl of the family, at which point the gathered (especially the women) make a rush for its contents.
The rice pan is then considered sacred, and cannot be removed from the house for three days, "otherwise the virtue of those observances is supposed to be lost".
[6] To "awaken" the seeds in his bag as well as his own verbal powers, the mpisikidy incants to the gods or earth spirits in attempt to constrain the gods/spirits to tell the truth, with emphasis on "the trickiness of the communicating entities, who misle[a]d if they [can]", and orates the practice's origin myth.
[2] One Merina incantation[5] quoted by Norwegian missionary Lars Dahle reads:[2] Awake, O God, to awaken the sun!
Awake, O mankind, to awaken the sikidy, not to tell lies, not to deceive, not to play tricks, not to talk nonsense, not to agree to everything indiscriminately; but to search into the secret; to look into what is beyond the hills and on the other side of the forest, to see what no human eye can see.
Beyond being powerful arrangements for divination, tokan-sikidy represent a particular abstract interest to mpisikidy, who seek to understand them and the data which generate them as an unsolved intellectual challenge.
Knowing many tokan-sikidy leads to personal prestige for the mpisikidy, with discovered examples being posted on doors and spread among diviners by word of mouth.
[1] A study computer-simulating the algorithmic generation and objective initial interpretation (according to Sakalava tradition) of the 65,536 possible arrangements of sikidy found that, assuming a male client and an inquiry about an illness' cause, the divined cause of illness would be sorcery 21.1% of the time, witchcraft 16.5% of the time, haky[h] for 9.6%, the village chief for 2.6%, the contamination of food with dirt (which may involve carelessness or evil intentions) for .8%, ancestors for .7%, and undetermined for 48.7%.
African diasporic populations in Latin America have retained the practice, with the tradition being called Ifa among Afro-Cubans, Afro-Brazilians, and Afro-Haitians.
