We settled down on the mats that replace the furniture in Bery’s front room during the ceremonial season, transforming it into a place where spirits can be called up and tired guests can recline. Rakoto explained that his father worked for the World Health Organization and said that his parents currently lived in Switzerland and his sister in France. He himself had lived in France for some eight years and had completed his degree in business administration there. He first heard of the tromba in 1998, when he was around thirty years old. He said his sister didn’t know anything about them; they had been raised “in traditions of liberalism and freedom.” But he was encouraged to find his own way and his parents had supported his decision to move into the tromba milieu. He was raised Catholic and remained a Catholic but didn’t attend church. He said, “I believe in God, I believe in humanity….”

Rakoto was first possessed by a tromba around 2005, when he was in his mid-thirties. Things had not been going well for him; he was facing many problems, both in his work and in his emotional life. He went for divination (sikidy) and was informed he had a tromba who wanted to rise in him. He sought out a medium with a tromba and that tromba treated him. The tromba in the healer was named Ndramamonjy; when Ndramamonjy rose in the healer, it was the first time Rakoto really saw a tromba up close. When Rakoto himself eventually entered trance, it turned out to be the same spirit. Then, without knowing much about them, he received in relatively quick succession three more trombas: Ndramañonjo, Ndramboeniarivo, and Ndransinint.¹⁰

Ndramamonjy is a member of the branch of the royal Sakalava dynasty that had relocated during the nineteenth century to Imerina, in the highlands. When Ndramamonjy appears, he dresses like someone from Imerina about a century ago and speaks in the highland dialect, which is also Rakoto’s. During his life he was a Christian. However, he was buried according to Sakalava ritual in the cemetery of Betsioko, fairly close to Majunga on the east, which is where all the immediate ancestors of the branch of the living members of the royal line currently in power in Majunga are buried and where the living members can expect to go following their own demise. In fact, Ndramamonjy is a direct ancestor (a “grandfather”) of the man who had just succeeded to office, Ampanjaka (Prince) Dzaofeno Richard.¹¹ Of the other three tromba Rakoto mentioned, Ndramboeniarivo is a very senior ancestor, respected and feared in Majunga; he and Ndramañonjo are buried at the oldest and most important cemetery, Bezavodoany, to the southwest, and, indeed, are the two spirits who have the responsibility for maintaining the upkeep of the cemetery and organizing its annual “service” (fanompoa). The last spirit, Ndransinint, is popular in Majunga, rising in many mediums. Although he is from a minor lineage whose members cannot rule, he has responsibility for providing an opening sacrifice on the occasion of the annual service at the main shrine in Majunga. Each of these trombas rises in a number of spirit mediums, and in some mediums they serve as active public figures.

Rakoto could not have known at the time he was first possessed by Ndramamonjy that Richard would become reigning monarch, and hence that this particular ancestor would rise in significance. However, it is striking that Rakoto’s spirits are linked to each of the three major loci of ancestral power in Majunga and that, aside from Ndramamonjy, each of them has a significant role to play in the annual production of the public ceremonies. Moreover, Ndramboeniarivo is a particularly powerful and salient ancestor who possesses only a few mediums.

There are many factors that determine which ancestors will possess a given medium, including unconscious motivation and prompting or encouragement by the healers who serve to initiate the new medium. In Rakoto’s case, he has been situated to become a significant player eventually, should he wish to do so and if he performs his role patiently and well in the meantime.¹² There are also, no doubt, other factors that motivate his possession by these specific ancestors. For one thing, Ndramamonjy, like Rakoto, is someone identified with the highlands, yet he, too, came down to the coast.

Rakoto continued our conversation to say that although his troubles were cured once he had received and identified the trombas, their presence resulted in heavy consequences. He said, “I have to lead a double life. I have my life with my business associates and friends, and my life with the trombas.” To paraphrase Rakoto’s further remarks, he said he liked the tromba milieu because everyone was treated as equals; there were no status differences. Tromba also help people. And they provide a good means for exploring the major questions of life. His friends wouldn’t understand, but he sees his mission as trying to make a bridge between the two worlds. At the same time, the tromba constrain his life because of all the rules (fomba) and restrictions (fady) they entail. Ndramboeniarivo insists that Rakoto wear only a sarong (lamba) when he is at home (approximating the dress that was current in the precolonial period when Ndramboeniarivo lived). When friends visit, they don’t understand, and they ask him why he is dressed like that instead of in trousers; he replies that it is more comfortable. He can’t accept many invitations because of all the food taboos imposed by the spirits—especially on chicken and pork. Often these are mixed in dishes, as in charcuterie.

Rakoto invoked the informality and easygoing quality of life in Majunga, especially among the mediums, with their laughter and tolerance and, possibly, even celebration of personal idiosyncrasy. However, he also downplayed the hierarchy that exists among the spirits themselves and the rivalry between some of the mediums. He compared this world to the one of the bourgeois citizens of the capital of Madagascar. Sakalava do not eat pork and most would not know the concept of charcuterie. Middle-class Merina and Europeans do not relax at home in a sarong or recline in close proximity together on mats. Rakoto also described social circumstances very different from those of the majority of spirit mediums in Majunga, whose activities would by and large not cut them off from family, friends, or business relations. Spirit mediums in Majunga live as multiple persons, but they do not lead double lives. However, although most Sakalava men change from street clothes to sarongs at home, the requirement to do so is a stiffer one than most mediums face—an index, in part, of the singular power and demanding nature of Ndramboeniarivo and one of the reasons he possesses few mediums, but perhaps this also says something about Rakoto’s deeper psychological needs or identifications.

Rakoto was very open and friendly. To me, his manner was that of a European. His French was completely fluent and his English quite good; he said he would love to find a conversation partner in order to improve it. We discovered some intellectuals in the capital we knew in common. Most of these people didn’t know he had a tromba, he said. In his trips to Majunga, he combined his business with tromba activity, sometimes missing one for the demands of the other. On the day we spoke he had asked for the afternoon off, but would work at night to make up for it. He lived mostly in Tana (Antananarivo, the capital) but spent a good deal of time in Majunga, maintaining a residence and vehicle in each city. He traveled between the cities by taxi-brousse with his cook and driver. The cook was from Majunga and was also a spirit medium. She assisted him in his tromba activities and could tell him later what the tromba had said while he was in trance. She maintained his suitcase with the clothing and implements he needed when he became actively possessed. He trusted her, but she was his servant; during our conversation Rakoto sent her out to buy him some soap.

Rakoto was unmarried and had no children. He said he was still young and also that it was difficult to find the right woman; she would have to be someone who would accept tromba. Evidently, this was difficult in the cultural milieu in the capital in which he lived.

I asked Rakoto why he thought he was selected by Ndramboeniarivo (the principle being that it is the trombas who choose their mediums, not the reverse). He replied, “Maybe because we share things in common, have similar characters.” He had just finished telling me how severe (mashiaka; he used the French word sévère) Ndramboeniarivo was—and I said that didn’t sound like Rakoto. “I’ve never seen Ndramboeniarivo smile,” I added. Rakoto himself smiled at this and agreed. I continued, “Ndramboeniarivo loved his mother. …” (This is a central feature of his portrayal; the story of Ndramboeniarivo’s life contains certain features that compare with Oedipus.)¹³ “Yes,” he interjected, “We have this in common; I too am very close to my mother. I am her only son.” I added that Ndramboeniarivo was also violent. Rakoto said, “That was because he was king; back then kings had the power of life and death over their subjects. We shouldn’t judge them by current standards.”

Rakoto observed that practices surrounding the tromba were changing and would continue to do so, but that it was important to keep the tradition going. Many spirit mediums are reflective about their practices, but Rakoto begins his reflection from a somewhat different context than most of the others, one that could be characterized as “modern” or “secular.” For Rakoto, tromba activities signal a break in his habitus rather than an intensification in a certain direction. Moreover, he verges on a psychological explanation for the phenomenon and its attraction. And yet, aware of the possibility for cultural objectification, that is not the position he adopts. He speaks from inside the community of practice.

I asked Rakoto if he enjoyed being in trance. “Not really. It is a lot of effort and you exit very tired. Ndramboeniarivo is the most tiring; he doesn’t stay long, but a few minutes being in active possession by him is like several hours with one of the others.” This confirms what other mediums have told me. Did he have a favorite ancestor? “No,” he replied, but did I?

The reason Rakoto had leisure to chat was that he was waiting to attend a ceremony for a client who was ill and needed to have his tromba rise. Dady Bery had invited him to enable the presence of Ndramamonjy. As Rakoto and I talked, Dady Bery reclined on a mat in the next room, eating popcorn and then taking a nap. Eventually she made a couple of phone calls and located the client who finally arrived, some two hours late.

The client was a Creole speaker from the French island of La Réunion, accompanied by a woman and another man. They brought in a crate each of soft drinks and beer, a bottle of hard liquor, cigarettes, sticky pastries, and two large boxes of perfume, marked Kenzo and Givenchy, as well as some cash that they placed on the altar. Dady Bery took the client to bathe in medicated water and an accordionist began to play. Some twenty people, singing and clapping, encouraged the man’s spirit to rise, and eventually they began to drink the liquor. Despite much effort on the part of the company, and the client himself, who was crouched in supplication with sweat running down his forehead, the three spirits wanting to possess him never fully rose. (Like cats, they chose to disregard the entreaties.)

The event lasted three hours. During this time Dady Bery was possessed by a senior ancestor from precolonial times, who sat dressed in a long red cloth on a low bench—clothing and furniture characteristic of his status and historical period. As Ndramamonjy, Rakoto changed into a waist wrap and a long white shirt pulled over his head and decorated with a white pompom. He draped a white cloth patterned with large red tear drops over his shoulders in highland style, placed a jaunty straw hat with a black band around it on his head, and held a beautiful stick of blonde wood indicative of his royal authority. Seated above the client on a chair, he lightly touched the client’s back from one side, as did the ancestor in Dady Bery, from the other side.

What is striking to me in these spirit mediums is the care—care in the senses of caring about and caring for, giving attention to detail at multiple levels and in many directions, throwing their energy into it, and alternating between being their active selves and passionate vehicles for spirits. They point to a strong ethic, an ethic at once of action and subjection, compassion and rigor, tolerance and discernment. Their practice is at the same time marked, distinctive, and admirable, and perfectly ordinary. I left before the ceremony ended and have not had the chance to speak with Rakoto since. I never asked him whether he had a cat, but the spirit medium of Ndramboeniarivo whom I know best has a cat with patches of red, white, and black fur (telovolon, literally “three-haired”), the color combination, so the medium says, favored by the severe, demanding ancestor.¹⁴

Michael Lambek holds the Canada Research Chair in the Anthropology of Ethical Life at the University of Toronto Scarborough. His books have been short-listed for the Innis Book Prize, the Herskovits Award, and the Victor Turner Prize.