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Madagascar borders the Mozambique Channel off the east coast of Africa. Since the early Christian era, the Great Red Island has been a melting pot for successive waves of Austronesian, African and Arab settlers.
Malagasy spirituality is intimately related to the ancestors. It has remained primordial for the islanders, despite colonisation and the coming of the missionaries.
The various cultural groups on the Great Red Island all use divinatory practices such as the sikidy and tromba ceremonies.
The sikidy is a mode of divination using seeds. This form of geomancy has Arab roots which spread into Africa with the expansion of Islam. By studying the arrangement of fano seeds (a variety of acacia) the diviner or mspikidy can tell the supplicant’s fortune.
The tromba is another divinatory practice, in which a medium goes into a trance to establish a dialogue between the world of the living and that of the ancestors and spirits.
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