Contents
1. Introduction: What Ibonia is and How to Read it
2. How to Read Ibonia: Folkloric Restatement
4. Texture and Structure: How it is Made
5. Context, History, Interpretation
6. Ibonia, He of the Clear and Captivating Glance
The Baby Chooses a Wife and Refuses Names
An Old Man Becomes Stone Man’s Rival
Victory: “Dead, I Do Not Leave You on Earth; Living, I Give You
to No Man”
Ibonia Prescribes Laws and Bids Farewell
Appendix: Versions and Variants
Text 0, “Rasoanor”. Antandroy, 1650s. Translated from Étienne de Flacourt (1661)
Text 2, “Ibonia”. Merina tale collected in 1875–1877. James Sibree Jr. (1884)
Text 3, Merina tale collected in 1875–1877. Summary by John
Richardson (1877)
Text 6, “The king of the north and the king of the south”. Merina
tale collected in 1907–1910 at Alasora, region of Antananarivo. Translated from Charles Renel, Charles (1910)
Text 7, “Iafolavitra the adulterer”. Tanala tale collected in 1907–
1910 in Ikongo region, Farafangana province. Translated from
Charles Renel (1910)
Text 8, “Soavololonapanga”. Bara tale, ca. 1934. Translated from Raymond Decary (1964)
Text 9, “The childless couple”. Antankarana tale, collected in 1907–
1910 at Manakana, Vohemar province. Translated from Charles Renel (1910)
Text 14, “The story of Ravato-Rabonia”. Sakalava, 1970s.
Translated from Suzanne Chazan-Gillig (1991)
Supplementary material
The original versions of many of the texts translated in this volume are provided on the website associated with this volume: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/isbn/9781909254053