Famadihana

The dead come back to life on the island of Madagascar... in an animist ceremony representing the communion between life and death.

The ceremony of the "Return of the Dead" or Famadihana is one of the most original in Madagascar. Of animist origin, this custom was brought by the first settlers of the island when they arrived from Indonesia about 1,500 years ago.

It is the most important rite in the Malagasy culture, especially in the Highlands. Some ethnic groups coming from Africa and other areas of the planet in later times, also adopted this tradition, although with variations.

The word Famadihana means in the ancient Malagasy language "to remove the bones", and in part, that is the basis of this ancestral ceremony in which the living and the dead share time and space.