7 - Separating life from death

Summary

For the living Vezo, the ‘single’ raza is only a shadow that lingers over them. For the dead, membership of the raza has become their permanent and only form of identity. The transition from life to death, from filongoa to the raza, transforms the living person profoundly; as a result of this transformation, ‘the dead and the living are not together, they are not the same’ (ny maty ny velo tsy miaraky, tsy mitovy). This otherness of the dead was conveyed most starkly in the statement that ‘the dead aren't people, they're “animals”, they aren't related to the living’ (lolo reo tsy olo fa biby, tsy longon' olom-belo). The dead are bad tempered, wild and aggressive (masiake), and must be prevented, for this reason, from interfering in the life of their descendants; the living must therefore create a barrier (hefitsy) to keep themselves separate (miavaky) from the dead.

The new, alien and dangerous identity of the dead is created by the living through acts of separation and division. During funerals and mortuary rituals, the living expel death from life, creating and recreating the barrier that keeps the dead separate from them. As the dead are separated from life and from their living descendants, they are also divided among themselves by being placed in different tombs.