Burn the Village

Title: Burn the Village

General Information about Item:

  • Language: English
  • Country: United States
  • Verbal folklore, ritual, spirits, superstitions

Informant Data:

  • Nate Dominy is a Dartmouth professor who has researched several different aspects of aye-aye anatomy and behavior.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context: 

This interview lasted nearly an hour and was conducted in the informant’s office with all three group members present, taking notes, and asking questions.

Scholars learn about this folklore in a variety of settings; our informant happened to learn of it in a campfire setting. He was visiting Madagascar for the first time, and every night the academics would gather around a fire and discuss their days, including their research, the animals, and the local’s beliefs. This item came up during one of those talks and is a common thread of conversation when researchers discuss Malagasy people’s interactions with aye-ayes.

  • Cultural Context:

This verbal folklore comes from a researcher who has conducted first-hand research with aye-ayes in a laboratory context. He has never seen an aye-aye in the wild, though he has traveled to Madagascar. His knowledge of aye-aye folklore comes from other scholars’ accounts. Predominately, these scholars are Western intellectuals who are not native to Madagascar. Thus, it is a Western academic perspective that observes and disseminates evidence of this behavior by the Malagasy people of Madagascar. They do not take part, or to any large degree, hear from it directly from the locals (as discussed here); this folklore is spread via observation of behavior and interpretations of attitude.

Item:

It is understood that if an aye-aye is seen, then it must die (a form of sign superstition). However, scholars state that Malagasy people’s response to aye-ayes is even more extreme if the creature enters their village. They must kill it, but they will also need to burn and abandon their village, which is another form of superstition. Such is the degree of ill-omen associated with this creature.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Collectors’ Comments:

This fear seems correlated to what folklorists know of spirits, and the degree of benevolence associated with them as a function of distance from the home. Thus, the locals encounter a situation in which a distant, evil spirit invades the sanctity of their home. Naturally, their reaction is more severe than if a bannik spirit had decided to stroll through the village. Thus, scholars create in image of the aye-aye as a spatial spirit, enforcing boundaries and emphasizing the concept of the home as a sancturary. Violation of this sanctuary cannot be permitted without extreme recourse.

Collectors’ Names:

Keira Byno, Savannah Liu, Annie Medina

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