Virtù , and Fortuna in Radama's Nascent Bureaucracy, 1816–1828

Bibliographic Data

ID9345867
AuthorsGerald M Berg (Sweet Briar College, corresponding author)
Year1996
Volume23
Pages29-73
Publication date1996-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory in Africa (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0361-5413 • E-ISSN: 1558-2744
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3171933
OpenAlexW2274299682
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited34

“I suppose pedigree and land belong to a fine match,” said Deronda coldly. “The best horse will win in spite of pedigree, my boy. You remember Napoleon's moi-je suis ancêtre ,” said Sir Hugo, who habitually undervalued birth, as men dining well agree that the good life is distributed with wonderful equality. “I am not sure I want to be an ancestor,” said Deronda. “It doesn't seem the rarest sort of origination.” In the late eighteenth century Imerina was checkered with a myriad of tiny principalities, each ruled from hilltop fortresses. In just fifty years from 1780 to 1830, it was unified under a single ruler, drawing Merina into increasingly wider systems of obedience and creating a vast imperium that held sway over most of the island of Madagascar, a landmass the size of France, Belgium, and Holland combined. And yet, the half century of tumultuous change that characterized the empire's rise brought no revolution in the Merina's own understanding of the world of power, a view which I have termed hasina ideology. Merina saw historical reality as the product not of human agency, but of ancestral beneficence, hasina , which flowed downwards on obedient Merina from long—of dead ancestors in a sacred stream that connected all living Merina. For obedient Merina, politics consisted in nothing more and nothing less than the lifelong quest to position oneself favorably in that sacred stream as close as possible to ancestors and then to reap the material benefits of that cherished association. Ancestors made their pleasure known by bestowing blessings, “superior” hasina , on those who honored them

Ancestor · Ancient history · Archaeology · Barbarian · Bureaucracy · Empire · Genealogy · Ideology · Nothing · Obedience · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Ruler · African history and culture studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Law · Philosophy

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