Malagasy culture and customs: what visitors should know

Respect for ancestors and local taboos, called fady, matters on a visit to Madagascar. Customs differ between regions and families, so ask before photographing a ceremony, approaching a tomb or entering a sacred place. In parts of the highlands, some families practise famadihana, a ceremony in which ancestors' remains are rewrapped in new shrouds.

The island is usually counted as having 18 ethnic groups, and customs and dress change from one to the next. For a visitor the rules are simple, though. Greet people before you ask for anything, ask before you photograph anyone, keep away from tombs, and when you're not sure whether something is fady, ask your guide.

The ancestors and their tombs

Razana means ancestor. The ancestors are thought to go on shaping a family's luck, so the tomb matters more than the house. Zebu are sacrificed to honour them, and the horns often end up on the tomb.

You'll see tombs from the road. On the drive from Antananarivo to Antsirabe, Merina family tombs stand in the fields, often painted with geometric designs. In the south they get bigger. Mahafaly tombs, in the Tulear region, are painted with scenes from the dead person's life and topped with zebu horns and carved posts called aloalo. Antandroy tombs are big and rectangular, with elaborate decoration that can express family status.

Some burial places are in the rock. The Bara bury their dead in caves in the Isalo massif, which they hold sacred, and on the Manambolo river below the Tsingy de Bemaraha, the canoe on our 5-day western trip passes caves with old tombs.

Famadihana, the turning of the bones

Famadihana is a Merina and Betsileo ceremony. A family takes its dead out of the tomb, wraps them in new shrouds, tells them the family news and carries them around the tomb to music before putting them back. It comes round every five to seven years or so, can last several days and costs a great deal, one reason it's becoming rarer. By law it may only take place in the dry season, June to September, and it's in the highlands that you'd come across one.

It isn't sombre: there's music, dancing and plenty to drink. Participation differs between families and religious communities; don't assume everyone practises it.

It's a family occasion, not a show. If you're invited, go with your guide, follow the family's lead and ask before you take a single photo. Driving through the highlands between June and September you may pass one, and your guide will know whether it's all right to stop.

Fady: the rules that change from village to village

Fady are taboos, and in much of Madagascar they shape daily life. Some hold island-wide. Others belong to one region, one village or one family, so what's fine in one valley can be forbidden in the next. Nobody expects a visitor to know them. A few you're likely to meet:

• Tombs. Pointing at one is fady in much of the island. Don't touch them or sit near them either.
• Sacred water. Lake Tritriva near Antsirabe is treated as sacred, and accounts of its fady differ, so ask before you go near the water. On Sainte-Marie, the natural pools at Ambodiatafana are sacred and you visit them with a guide.
• Animals. Local fady against harming them have helped protect the indri in parts of the east, and Milne-Edwards' sifaka and the fossa elsewhere.

The UK Foreign Office suggests asking your tour operator or a local guide before you go into remote rural areas, and that's the whole method. On a trip with us, start with your driver-guide.

18 groups, one island

The count of 18 is the usual one, though it's debated. All the groups speak Malagasy, in its many dialects (more in our guide to the languages of Madagascar).

• The Merina. The largest group, from the highlands around Antananarivo. They built the Imerina kingdom, ruled from the Rova on its hill above the capital (see our Antananarivo guide).
• The Betsileo. South of them in the highlands, around Fianarantsoa. Savika, the zebu wrestling, is theirs.
• The Sakalava. The west coast, from around Tulear up to the Sambirano river, once split between the kingdoms of Menabe, around Morondava, and Boina.
• The Vezo. Fishing people of the south-west coast, mostly between Morondava and Tulear, who fish from dugout canoes with a single outrigger.
• The Bara. The largest of the zebu-herding peoples, from the south of the central plateau, with their old capital at Ihosy.
• The Antandroy. "The people of the thorns", from the dry spiny south.

The Classic South starts in Merina country, runs through the Betsileo highlands to the Bara's Isalo and ends on the Vezo coast at Ifaty.

The lamba and other traditional dress

The lamba is a rectangle of cloth worn in several ways by men and women. It's wrapped around the waist like a sarong or draped over the shoulder as a shawl. It also wraps the dead: the burial shroud is the lambamena, "red lamba", though shrouds come in many colours.

What you'll see most is the lambahoany, printed cotton with a proverb along the border. Older Merina and Betsileo women still wear a narrow white lamba around the shoulders as a sign of dignity and respect for tradition. The fine Merina silk lamba, woven with geometric patterns, is worn as a shawl and used as a shroud.

A lambahoany makes a good souvenir, and on the trip it does duty as a skirt for a village visit or a cover-up on the boat.

Kabary and hira gasy

Kabary is the Malagasy art of speech, oratory built from proverbs and wordplay, usually by two speakers, at funerals and official ceremonies as well as celebrations. Once the preserve of older men, it's now taken up by young people and women too. UNESCO put it on its intangible heritage list in 2021.

Hira gasy is the open-air folk theatre of the highlands around Antananarivo. Two troupes in red costumes and white lamba shawls compete for the crowd with song, dance, drumming and kabary, and each show carries a moral lesson. UNESCO listed it in 2023. Neither is on our set itineraries, so if you'd like to see one, tell us when you plan.

Religion: church on Sunday, the ancestors too

Christian churches have a large presence, alongside Muslim communities and ancestral religious practices. The US State Department's 2023 religious-freedom report describes how some people combine church membership with traditional observances. A label alone doesn't tell you how a family worships.

Christianity spread with 19th-century missionaries, and the Merina upper classes became Protestant in the middle of that century. In the highlands a family may well go to church on Sunday and still hold a famadihana.

Manners that matter

• Greet first. Say manao ahoana or salama, and ask how someone is before you ask for directions or a price. In villages, greet the elders first and let them be served first.
• Ask before you photograph. Especially in villages and at ceremonies, and take no for an answer. Don't photograph police or soldiers.
• Keep your distance from tombs, and stay on the path your guide takes.
• Gifts and children. We'd rather you didn't hand sweets, pens or money to children by the road. Give through a school or a local project instead, and if you're invited into a home, ask your guide what to bring.
• Mora mora. Moramora means slowly, or easily. Lunch, ferries and roads take the time they take, so leave slack in the day. On our trips you have your own vehicle and driver-guide, so you set the departure time and stop where you want to stop.

Culture on our trips

What the trip pages list:

• Classic South, 11 days, from €1,730 per adult. Antsirabe, the Zafimaniry workshops in Ambositra, the old upper town of Fianarantsoa, Antemoro paper in Ambalavao and a vanilla plantation near Ranomafana.
• Ultimate Madagascar, 20 days, from €3,070. Antsirabe's artisan workshops, the boat builders of Belo sur Mer, Vezo fishing villages on the coast to Morombe, and Antemoro paper on the way back north.
• West Adventure, 10 days, from €1,540. Highland villages and rice fields on the road to Antsirabe and its workshops, local legends at Lake Tritriva, and riverbank villages on four days down the Tsiribihina.

Both of the last two include the Tsiribihina river, where at the time of writing the UK Foreign Office advises seeking alternative routes. We can reshape either without it (more in Is Madagascar safe?). We can also add a Malagasy cooking class or visits to local artisans, and our guide to Malagasy food covers what you'll eat. Tick "Culture & villages" on the booking form, and a real person in Antananarivo replies, usually within 24 hours.

Photo: Sitraka Mamy Tantely Andriamialijaona on Unsplash.