Twice ToldAnnales de la propagation de la foi, 1864: the Jesuit account of the Ramanenjana
- Language
- French
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 5 October 2026
The Annales de la propagation de la foi was the Catholic missionary society’s journal of letters from the field, printed in Lyon. The September 1864 issue (no. 216) prints a long report on the events of 1863 in Antananarivo, sent by the Jesuit mission; section III is on the Ramanenjana. The report does not name its writer on the pages read here, and it speaks of “nos Pères”, our Fathers. The passage below is the opening of the section and a letter it quotes. The Gallica scan is a BnF image; we read it there and do not reproduce it.
ÉVÉNEMENTS SURVENUS À TANANARIVE DANS LE COURANT DE L’ANNÉE 1863.
« Le plus grave de ces événements, sans contredit, est la mort de Radama II.
« Mais, avant de raconter la fin tragique de ce malheureux prince, il est nécessaire de rappeler un autre fait qui n’a guère eu moins de retentissement que le premier, qui a eu pour témoins plus de deux cent mille hommes, et qui peut être regardé comme le prélude et l’avant-coureur de l’attentat commis sur la personne royale de l’infortuné Radama. Je veux parler du Ramanenjana.
§ III. Ramanenjana.
« Qu’est-ce que le Ramanenjana ?
« Ce mot, qui signifie tension, exprime une maladie étrange, qui s’est déclarée d’abord dans le sud d’Émirne. On en a eu connaissance à Tananarive près d’un mois à l’avance. Ce n’était, dans le principe, qu’une rumeur vague qui circulait parmi le peuple. On assurait que des troupes nombreuses d’hommes et de femmes, atteints d’une affection mystérieuse, montaient du sud vers la capitale pour parler au roi de la part de sa mère… Ces bandes, disait-on, s’acheminaient à petites journées, campant chaque soir dans les villages, et se grossissant, le long de la route, de toutes les recrues qu’elles faisaient sur leur passage.
« Mais personne ne se serait imaginé que le Ramanenjana fût si près de la ville royale, lorsque tout-à-coup il y a fait sa première apparition quelques jours avant le dimanche des Rameaux. Voici ce qu’on nous écrit à ce sujet :
« Au moment où nous le croyions encore bien éloigné, le Ramanenjana ou Raména-bé, comme d’autres l’appellent aussi, est venu éclater ici comme une bombe. Il n’est bruit en ville que de convulsions et de convulsionnaires : il y en a de tous les côtés ; on évalue leur nombre à plus de deux mille. Ils campent en ce moment à Machamasina, Champ-de-Mars situé au pied de la capitale. Le tapage qu’ils font est tel, qu’il nous empêche de dormir. Jugez s’il doit être fort, pour qu’à la distance d’une lieue il puisse arriver jusqu’ici et troubler le sommeil !
« Le mardi-saint, il y avait grande revue à Soanérana. Lorsque les tambours ont battu le rappel, voilà que plus de mille soldats quittent brusquement les rangs et se mettent à danser le Ramanenjana. Les chefs ont eu beau crier, tempêter, menacer, il a fallu renoncer à passer la revue. »
Translation
Events in Antananarivo during the year 1863.
“The most serious of these events, beyond question, is the death of Radama II.
“But before telling the tragic end of this unfortunate prince, we must recall another event that made almost as much noise as the first, that had more than two hundred thousand men as witnesses, and that can be seen as the prelude and forerunner of the attack on the person of the unfortunate Radama. I mean the Ramanenjana.
Section III. Ramanenjana.
“What is the Ramanenjana?
“This word, which means tension, names a strange illness that first broke out in the south of Imerina. The news reached Antananarivo almost a month ahead. At first it was only a vague rumour going round among the people. It was said that large bands of men and women, struck by a mysterious affliction, were climbing from the south towards the capital to speak to the king on behalf of his mother… These bands, it was said, travelled by short stages, camping each evening in the villages and growing along the road with every recruit they made on the way.
“But nobody would have imagined that the Ramanenjana was so close to the royal town, when suddenly it appeared there for the first time a few days before Palm Sunday. This is what we are told about it:
“When we still thought it far away, the Ramanenjana, or Raména-bé as others also call it, burst on us here like a bomb. All the talk in town is of convulsions and convulsionaries; there are some on every side; their number is put at more than two thousand. They are camped at the moment at Mahamasina, the parade ground at the foot of the capital. The racket they make is such that it keeps us from sleeping. Judge how loud it must be, to reach us from a league away and disturb our sleep!
“On Tuesday of Holy Week there was a great review at Soanerana. When the drums beat the call, more than a thousand soldiers suddenly left the ranks and began to dance the Ramanenjana. The officers shouted, stormed and threatened in vain; the review had to be given up.”
Notes
- The printed text opens each line of the quoted letters with a quotation mark; we keep one mark at the start of each paragraph. “Machamasina” is the Mahamasina plain; “Émirne” is Imerina. The sentence breaks at “sa mère…” with an ellipsis in the print.
- “plus de deux cent mille hommes” is printed on p. 402 and is read here from the page image as written. It counts witnesses of the Ramanenjana, not dancers. A Jesuit letter in de la Vaissière (1884, vol. 1, pp. 390 to 391) puts Antananarivo itself at sixty or seventy thousand people, so the 200,000 cannot be the town’s inhabitants.
- The figures for the dancers are two: “plus de deux mille” convulsionaries camped at Mahamasina, and “plus de mille” soldiers at one review. Both are estimates (“on évalue”), reported in a letter the journal quotes.
- Revue spirite (February 1865) copies this passage with small differences in wording. Where the two differ, this page follows the Annales.