“Hale!” “Halele!”
In the hills of Bambao la Mtsanga, the villages of Koni Ngani, Koni Djodjo and Mro-Maji share the same sacred place: a cave called Hamampundru. Its name means “at the silent mother's”: it is the womb of the earth, from which everything comes and which says nothing.
Spirits dwell in its depths. Among them is Kokolampo, a spirit also known in southern Madagascar. You enter the cave only barefoot, so as not to arouse the anger of its inhabitants, and you leave honey there to feed them.
When the time of Wutamaduni, “our customs and traditions”, comes round, the whole village sets off for the cave. An ox or a kid goat is sacrificed. After a long incantation, at the officiant's command, the milk bearer hands out milk to the children; then the faithful go down to the depths of the cave to dance the mdandra, the dance of the spirits, until the spirits make themselves known.
Higher up, in the village of Ouzini, at the head of the Ajaho valley, the mdandra is also danced. And so the mountains of Anjouan keep the memory of a time when people spoke directly to the spirits of the earth.
What we know about it
The mdandra (or mudandra), the “dance of the spirits”, is one of the pre-Islamic rites of Anjouan studied by the Comorian historian Abderemane Bourhane: it is practised in particular in Ouzini and Mro-Maji, in a sacred cave. These rites bear witness to the social importance of the mwalimu, of possession sessions and of the cult of spirits and ancestors.
The presence of the spirit Kokolampo, known among the Tandroy of southern Madagascar, recalls the long-standing links between Anjouan and the Great Island. These sacred places must be respected: they are not visited like tourist sites.
Further reading
- Voices of the archipelago Abderemane Bourhane, Les rites pré-islamiques à Anjouan. Contribution à une étude culturelle des Comores, 2017. doctoral thesis, Inalco.
- Outside view J.-C. Hébert, Fêtes agraires dans l'île d'Anjouan (archipel des Comores), 1960. Journal de la Société des africanistes, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 101–116.