Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Songs From Imerina: A Creative Study Of The Evolving Craft Of Merina Hainteny In Madagascar, Elly Bookman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

I don’t know much about hainteny. It’s an elusive form to me still, for by nature it’s only a foggy representation of a culture that I can never truly be a part of. And anyway, even many members of the Malagasy population are uncertain of the plethora of possible meanings behind this literature, as I was told on more than one occasion when I discussed my plans to study these mysterious verses.

Luckily, though, I do know poetry, and while hainteny may fall outside any Western parameters set up to define this medium, it nonetheless exists in the same way: …