Sovereigns of Gold, Spirits of Silver

How the inhabitants of Western Madagascar reshape their collective identity and negotiate their place within contemporary society through royal rituals and the reinterpretation of the past. In a postcolonial republic marked by recurrent crises, royal hierarchy continues to frame social inequalities. Within this context, both the descendants of slaves and the newly rich seek to claim or legitimize new hierarchical positions by reformulating historical narratives and establishing them through royal rituals. Focusing on a cult dedicated to the spirits of the ancestors of the Silver Dynasty, Maurizio Esposito La Rossa investigates the categories of “silver” and “gold” that structure the hierarchy of the Sakalava monarchy and are also mobilized by politicians to legitimize their power. Through multi-sited ethnography, the book offers a broader reflection on the link between narratives and places and on contrasting ways of conceiving history. Whereas Western historiography—and the rise of the nation-state—tends to produce unified historical narratives, the Sakalava monarchies conceive of history as rooted in specific places and social groups, where multiple versions coexist and contend. Combining the divergent demands of a historical anthropology and an anthropology of history, this book endeavors to recount another history of the Sakalava monarchy, without neglecting the polyphony that characterizes it. By tracing how the past is mobilized, transformed, and contested in the present, the book speaks to anthropologists, historians, and readers interested in the intricate entanglements of history, ritual, and political power in postcolonial settings.