Dancing with the Ancestors

So this crazy thing recently happened to me at a Malagasy music concert. The nature of the event that occurred might freak or weird some people out, so before I tell my story, I'm going to give some background information to help make it all a little less...shocking....

Traditionally, Madagascar has animism and ancestral-based spiritual beliefs. Specifically, there is a belief that the spirits of ancestors can reside in sacred places, in certain trees, and in special people. This traditional belief system is still practiced today. Groups who follow this have special possession ceremonies where individuals can gain the spirit of an ancestor to coexist with their own. These ancestral spirits are called "trombas." People who have a tromba are unique but not necessarily uncommon.* For the most part, the people continue to have perfectly normal and functional lives. Sometimes there are diet or other restrictions in accordance with the restrictions of the specific tromba. Then, occasionally, there are instances where the tromba is...activated....


Nosy Be. Concert stadium. One o'clock in the morning. Friday the 13th.

Electric music blasted from the speakers across the grass field and dancing mob. In the middle of the mob danced two Americans. I was one of them, my friend the other. 
We moved in rhythm with the crowd. We knew all the songs, all the moves. Malagasy people began to join us in our own circle. And then a particular woman approached. She spoke briefly into the ear of my friend. My friend nodded and conversed back. The woman smiled and proceeded to dance with us. My friend leaned to me and said, "She just warned me that she has a tromba possession and we should be careful."

The air was thick with ambiance. We were all enjoying ourselves, dancing hard with no signs of stopping. Then the woman fell backwards toward the ground. As she fell my friend caught her and eased her down. Her eyes rolled back into her head in a trance. Her tromba was activated. She turned into a tense dead weight in my friend's arms. Mouth wide open, breathing hard.

I looked down and felt nothing. No shock, no fear. Only mild interest. As if it were all mere objective circumstance. As it were just as normal as watching a bird sit on a tree branch.


My friend looked up at me. She was also calm, but concerned. "I don't know what to do," she said.

"Just treat it like a seizure," I replied, "don't try to move her, and wait until it passes."


We waited. A minute passed. Then another. And another. Finally the woman opened her eyes and teeteringly rose to her feet with my friend. She was fine. No injuries, no concerns. Yet different than before. As if there was just a slight change in her mannerism. She continued to dance in the crowd.

She grabbed both my hands. We began to dance together. At first it was in normal Gasy fashion. Then the dance shifted and escalated into wildness. Our bodies flung around with electric and sporadic movement. Only the countering of our body weight and momentum kept us from crashing into the crowd or the ground. I didn't question it. I went with it. I was in the zone. I was moving fast. I was sweating puddles in my shoes. I kept going, and going. Then in a snap of awareness I lifted my head up and forward from our chaos. My face was only one foot away from my dance partner. I looked straight at her.

Still in mid-dance, I stared into the two pure white eyes of a tromba.




*The idea of trombas is normal in Madagascar. Even in other Malagasy religious groups (Christianity and Islam), it still has cultural significance and recognition.