Ranoro, the Daughter of the Water

A Malagasy folk tale, like many told around the world, hints at a deal made between people and nature. We share the tale of Ranoro, the Daughter of the Water, here, in part to share a piece of Madagascar’s rich cultural tradition (we will try to do this again, too) and in part to highlight the relationship we – as part of, and its dependents – have with our environment.

During the time of the ancestral people, the Vazimba, who lived in Madagascar and from whom we, today’s Malagasy people, descend, our island was also home to the Zazavavindrano, the water girls.

The girls were daughters of the elements and forces of nature, and lived in the rivers and lakes of Madagascar. They were not often seen, but each would swim, bathe and rest in or around the Malagasy waters, slipping into the rivers and lakes if called to from the shore.

Near to the town of Betsileo, the Betsileo people would bathe in and enjoy the waters of the Mamba river.

One of those people, a young man named Andriambodilova, was resting at the river’s edge, when he saw beautiful girl sitting on a rock in the middle of the river.

He stayed silent as he watched her, sitting still as if hypnotized. Her hair was so long it reached the water surrounding the rock, and her eyes so large it seemed they contained and reflected the entire landscape as far as could be seen, maybe the whole of the Analamanga region, including the blue forest, where Antananarivo is now.

Eventually, he overcame his astonishment, and called to the girl. She trned when she heard him, and even though he had called softy, she dived smoothly into the river and disappeared.

He came back the next day, and once again saw the girl on the rock. He called again, and once more she dived into the river, and disappeared.

This happened for the next three days, and on the fourth, he decided to try something else. Instead of calling to the girl, he chose instead to sing. He sang a song so beautifu the vorompotsy (white herons) were charmed from the sky, settling around him in a circle.

The girl, too, seemed to enjoy the song. She sat, quite still, and faced him to listen. Even so, after a few moments she looked down at the water, lifted her haid and slipped once again into the river.

The following day, Andriambodilova decided to try another method. He arrived earlier than usual, and slipped into the waters as silently as the girl had done. He swam underwater and rose next to the rock.

He grabbed the girl’s hair, and held it as he climbed onto the rick to sit beside her.

‘What are you doing?’ She said. ‘You are hurting me.’

‘I don’t want you to leave,’ Andriambodilova replied.

‘I am not going anywhere,’ she said. ‘And if you keep pulling my hair, you will hurt me.’

‘What is your name?’ He asked. ‘I cannot live without you. Will you be my wife?’

‘My name is Ranoro,’ said the girl. ‘I am the daughter of Andriantsira, the Lord of Salt. I live in the river with my people. It is the most beautiful place in the world, but I saw you all those days ago, I heard you sing, and I love you too. I dived away from you only to bring you back, to help your love for me to grow, and help you to prove it. Because if love is not shared, it is like a dried up river.

‘Take me to your home. I will be your wife.

‘But,’ she said. ‘There is one condition. You must never, ever, say the word ‘salt.’

Andriambodilova was delighted and agreed at once. Of course he could not say ‘salt’ in exchange for being with the girl he loved.

The two walked to his home, Ranoro holding her beautiful long hair up, so it didn’t drag on the ground.

Ranoro and Andriambodilova had a happy life together, and had many children.

But one morning, Andriambodilova had to go to his field.

He said: ‘Ranoro, I need you to tie up the calf while I am gone, so it does not drink the cow’s milk. Then, I will milk the cow and we will have milk for many days.’

Ranoro agreed.

But she was distracted by a tetraka bird, singing in the three, and by mistake she tied the calf by its tail instead of its neck. In this position, it was able to drink its mother’s milk, and when Andriambodilova returned, he saw the calf and the cow, and became angry.

In his rage, he shouted at her: ‘Ranoro, you are not fit to live on the land! You will always be the daughter of the water! You will always be the child of salt!’

As soon as the words left his lips, Ranoro turned, and ran to a cave by the Mamba river. Even as Andriambodilova ran behind her to stop her, she dived into the water, and never again returned to the land.

She still loved her children, and appeared to them and Andriambodilova in a dream, where she promised to help them and the other members of the community, from the river, if they came to the cave she had left them from.

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Like most folk stories and myths, the tale of Ranoro, the Daughter of the Water, likely has many roots and threads. Even today, people do visit the cave, and some believe Ranoro helps them, including on matters related to fertility.

The Vazimba, for example, the spirits, gifted people or supernatural beings of whom Ranoro was one, may well have been people conquered by other Malagasy people, just as in the stories of the Saxon invaders of Britain, and indeed the stories of the Celts they displaced, the ‘fairies’ and magical inhabitants of the islands were likely the people who had lived there before them.

In this ‘strand’, Ranoro’s loss would have been of her country and perhaps even her father in a real sense – the lands and family she lost to a conquering force.

The story was told in Imerina, and the Merina people who created the Imerina ‘state’ did so from the central highlands from around the 16^th century CE: the Betsileo were among those who they ruled over, until 1897 when the French deposed them and took Madagascar as a colonial possession.

The Imerina spiritual capital was at Ambohimanga and a political capital 24km West at Antananarivo, the modern capital of the Malagasy Republic.

The Merina did displace the Betsileo region’s inhabitants, the Antehiroka, from their homeland, and it is possible that Andriambodilova’s name, which was shared by the son of a removed Betsileo ruler, was added at the point the Merina were exiling as ‘disagraced’ the former ruling families.

But the story is likely far older than this, and almost certainly plays on an old Malagasy saying about change and indeed its irrevocable nature, itself: ‘sira latsaka an-drano, tsy himpody intsony’, ‘like salt fallen into the water, it will never again return to its previous form.’

The Antehiroka do have a taboo about salt, and do not add salt to their food or use it in any other capacity.

But that expression talks not only about change, or even loss, in relation to salt, but also water. Because fresh water is changed, and for those who rely on it made less useful and less inhabitable, by the dissoloution of salt within it.

And the story itself tells, like many others around the world, about a deal done with a representative of nature, and the loss and damage done when that deal is broken.

This element of the story is perhaps the main one underlined by people’s continued belief that Ranoro will hep them with fertility, the major association made with every nature deity and spirit in human folklore.

If we fail to respect nature, the relationship we have with and within it, and the potential harm and loss which will result from failing to keep our side of our ‘bargain’ within it, this story warns, we will reap that loss, and that harm. We lose the salt, but also the water and all the things within it which help and benefit us.

This is not a direct message about Money for Madagascar and its work, it is an attempt to share a sliver, a small yet shining piece, of its traditions, its stories.

But the indirect connection to what we do, working to help Malagasy people get more from the land on which they live, while protecting the amazing environment in which they live, may well be real, and is certainly relevant to us all.