Why String Up the Aye-Ayes?

Title: Why String Up the Aye-Ayes?

General Information about Item:

  • Language: English
  • Country: United States
  • Verbal folklore featuring contagious magic, and sign superstition

Informant Data:

  • Sam Gochman is an ‘18 at Dartmouth who has done research with aye-ayes.
  • Nate Dominy is a Dartmouth professor who has researched several different aspects of aye-aye anatomy and behavior. Sam and Nate have collaborated on one project investigating aye-ayes’ enzymatic ability to tolerate alcohol.
  • Megan Aylward is a recent PhD from the University of Calgary. Her work with aye-ayes focuses on genetics.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context:

This is a synthesis of our three informants’ perspectives. Altogether, the three interviews lasted about three hours and took place at Novack Cafe (Sam), the professor’s office (Nate), and in a McClane study room over Skype (Megan).

The information presented here is gleaned from a variety of contexts: lectures in classrooms, in-person research with aye-ayes, anecdotes from other scholars, information exchanged at conferences, and individuals’ observations. Generally, the folklore is recited in academic contexts of performing research, giving a lecture, or hearing a lecture and is addressed towards students and researchers.

  • Cultural Context:

This perspective is a synthesis of two American biological anthropologists and one British scholar. These are researchers who have personally interacted with aye-ayes, and actively chosen them as a research topic of interest. Their positive view of aye-ayes is generally juxtaposed by their understanding of the Malagasy people’s relationship with aye-ayes. The two American scholars in particular represent this relationship in a negative light.

Item:

As discussed here, the Malagasy people adopt a particular method of dealing with aye-aye corpses that involves stringing them up alongside a road or trail. This item explores that ritual and the different reasons scholars believe the Malagasy people adopt it.

After an aye-aye is killed, it is taken to the outskirts of a village and hung from a post. Its snout and finger always point down.

Professor Dominy has heard that the Malagasy hang aye-ayes in this manner in the hopes that “passersbys will then gather that bad luck and take it away.”  His “sense is that you want some unfortunate soul, that you don’t know, to come by. And through osmosis absorb the bad luck. And then take it away. You just try to flush your problems down to some other person. You know, kick the can down to the next village. So that seems to be what’s going on.”

This is an example of contagious magic, for the hapless travel, once in proximity of the dead aye-aye will then carry on its bad luck.

Sam related a similar perspective as to why the Malagasy people perform this ritual: “People will kill [the aye-ayes], hang them upside-down, and hope that the spirit gets blown away, the evil spirit gets blown away, or carried off by travelers.” Again, this quote reflects the Law of Contagion in play. However, it reflects the variance inherent to folklore in that there are multiple versions. This is evidenced in that Sam’s quote features a remark about the aye-aye’s evil spirit getting blown away.

Megan’s version of this folklore is markedly different from Nate and Sam’s, which makes sense, as Sam and Nate have worked together and thus it is expected that their perspectives would feature more overlap. Megan adds a twist to this folklore by saying that the aye-ayes are strung up in order to warn travelers that aye-ayes are in the area, rather than to transfer the bad luck to them. Thus, the folklore becomes a form of sign superstition: If you see an aye-aye strung up, then there must be more in the area.

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

 

Collectors’ Comments:

Because all three researchers touched on this topic, we decided to represent this folklore as a synthesis of their perspectives.

The two images associated with this folklore were not shared with us by our informants. They were among the top Google Image results when one searches “aye aye folklore.” Note that these photos clearly depict two different locations, and thereby suggest that this behavior is widespread across Madagascar, as Nate alludes to when he describes the ritual as “consistent.”

Collectors’ Names:

Keira Byno, Savannah Liu, and Annie Medina

Click for more aye-aye folklore