The Great Service (Fanompoa Be)

Abstract

We have already seen that service (fanompoa) constitutes the main idiom and vehicle by which people express their connection to living and ancestral royalty, whether freely given or offered in response to demand, and whether in the form of money, goods, or labor. Service is an act at once of honoring, deferring to, and caring for the recipients and it can be compared to the Christian use of “liturgy” or church “service” in that it is understood as sacred ritual.¹ The epitome of service and the climax of every year is the Great Service (Fanotnpoa Be) at which the ancestral relics are bathed (mampitampoko). As elsewhere in Madagascar, this annual royal bath is a festival of renewal. It is understood as a celebration of the new year—a time both to revivify the power of the relics and to renew commitment to the ancestors, to ask for blessings, and to celebrate ancestral power.