“Hale!” “Halele!”
In the time of the first sultans, there lived in the south of Mayotte a king who had a daughter of great beauty. When a prince from a neighbouring village came to ask for her hand, the king wanted the wedding to be the most sumptuous ever seen.
“On the wedding day,” he decreed, “no guest shall set foot on bare earth. We shall cover every path with rice.” For months, the villagers had to pound rice from morning to night. Twenty zebus were slaughtered, and when the day came, the grain was spread over all the roads leading to the point of Saziley.
The procession moved forward, singing and dancing on this carpet of rice. But God would not accept that people's food be trampled underfoot while so many others went hungry. The sea suddenly rose, swallowed up the village and drowned many of the guests.
The rice was turned into sand. It forms the white-sand islet, off Saziley, called Mtsanga Tsoholé. Fishermen passing by throw a piece of jewellery or a scrap of cloth into the water, to soothe the divine anger and have a safe journey.
To waste food is to offend God and those who are hungry.
What we know about it
The white-sand islet is a sandbank about 1.7 km from Saziley Point, in south-east Mayotte; it appears and disappears with the tides. Its Shimaore name evokes sand that looks like rice.
The legend condemns pride and waste, in a society where the grand marriage is also a time of considerable expense. It exists in several versions, told in particular in schools and by Mayotte's cultural associations.
For many Mahorans, the islet is also a gateway to the world of the djinns, and offerings are discreetly left there.
Further reading
- Voices of the archipelago Abdou S. Baco (dir.), Archives départementales de Mayotte, Contes inédits de Mayotte (série : Fables, Légendes, Djinns, Méchanceté…), 2010 –. Departmental Archives of Mayotte.
- Voices of the archipelago Noël J. Gueunier, avec le conteur Madjidhoubi Saïd, Contes comoriens en dialecte malgache de l'île de Mayotte (4 volumes), 1990 – 2011. Peeters, then Karthala.