Epic
Ibonia
Anonymous · 1830
Synopsis
A princess, barren for a long time, goes to consult a diviner, who promises her an unlucky child; she swallows a magic grasshopper and conceives Ibonia, who, even before being born, speaks, gives himself a name and has her promise him Iampelasoamananoro, the maiden of grace. Grown to manhood, he learns that she has been abducted by the Man of stone; he defeats the Great Echo in a contest of words, who teaches him the trials of the road, faces a crocodile, then approaches, in the skin of an old man, the abductor's house.
Context
The tale, transmitted orally, was summarised in French by Étienne de Flacourt in 1657, then written down in Malagasy around 1830 by a scholar whose name is not known, and again in the 1870s and 1880s; the text published in 1877 by the Norwegian missionary Lars Dahle fed the later editions. Lee Haring lists more than ten texts, including two versions collected among the Masikoro of the south in 1978 and 1986, and François Noiret gave in 2008 a critical edition that includes a version from Mayotte. The scenes of self-praise and verbal jousting take the form of the hainteny.
Who it is for
An epic narrative in prose, interspersed with verbal jousts and eulogies in hainteny; a little background on Malagasy oral traditions helps in appreciating them.
Prizes and reception
Translated into English and annotated by Lee Haring in 1994, then made available in open access in 2013; French critical edition by François Noiret in 2008.