tananarivo (formerly Tananarive). During his coronation,
the king placed himself on each stone in turn to signify that
his sovereignty extended over both halves of the kingdom.
At the same time, the stones were associated with his ances-
tors, so that in touching them he assumed the strength and
holiness of his forefathers. This hereditary ceremony was car-
ried out as late as 1883 by Queen Ravanalona III, despite her
conversion to Christianity.
However, not all Malagasy menhirs are connected with
the dead, ancestors, or spirits. Some of them commemorate
special events, certify a treaty, or mark a boundary. Such
monuments are called “stones-planted.” But these, too, have
been dedicated with religious rituals; for example, a stone
was raised in 1797 to the memory of a royal wedding that
united two tribes. The king called on the Holiness of his an-
cestors, the Holiness of the twelve mountains, and the Holi-
ness of heaven and earth. Then a deep pit was dug, into
which the king threw a silver coin and red coral beads. After
the stone had been raised, they killed a black ox with a white
face and also an unruly bull. The king took their blood,
smeared his forehead, neck, and tip of his tongue, and then
poured the rest over the base of the stone. Meanwhile he
spoke to the two tribes and commanded them to be one, just
as he and his queen were one, to endure as long as the stone
lasted.
Other menhirs can symbolize the royal power present
and prevailing among the people. In other cases, cults center
around natural cliffs of peculiar appearance that are connect-
ed with divination. For example, women come to pray for
children at the “stone with Many Breasts.” They smear the
“breasts” of the cliff with fat, then touch their own, and
throw a stone toward the protuberances of the cliff. Should
it strike a large protuberance, it is said that the child will be
a girl; if a small one, it will be a boy. Should the devotee come
to the cliff with a health problem, a votive vow is made that
is to be discharged after one has regained one’s health. Hunt-
ers pray for success in the hunt to the spirit dwelling in an-
other holy cliff said to protect wild game. Each hunter in
turn whistles as he walks around the cliff; if they are all able
to hold the note, it is a good omen for the presence of quarry.
On their return, they sacrifice the finest wild ox as a thanks
offering, burning its fat and its liver at the foot of the cliff.
The meat is eaten on the spot by the hunters and their fami-
lies (Renel, 1923, pp. 94–111).
THE SAMI. The holy places of the pre-Christian Sami
(Lapps) in northern Scandinavia and on the Kola Peninsula
have been thoroughly investigated. Five hundred and seven
of them are registered in Swedish Lapland (Manker, 1957),
229 in Norway, 80 to 90 in Finland, and about 10 in Russia
west of the White Sea. If restricted to the material from Swe-
den, the cultic sites are of various kinds: 149 hills and moun-
tains; 108 steep cliffs, caves, springs, waterfalls, rapids, and
lakes; 30 islands, skerries, peninsulas, meadows, and heaths.
But the largest number consists of venerated stones or cliffs,
of which there are 220. In this group, 102 examples are un-
derstood to be naturally occurring, uncut images of a deity;
in only two cases are there indisputable traces of human in-
tervention. In general, the majority are massive stones. These
cult objects are called seites, a term of disputed meaning and
origin that occurs in different dialectal forms.
Literary sources from the sixteenth century on, com-
bined with anthropological records from the nineteenth cen-
tury, provide a rich commentary on the seite cult, which, in
some cases, has been directed toward wooden trunks,
stumps, or sculptures in addition to the stone seite. A detailed
Swedish account from 1671 describes the ritual slaughter of
a reindeer behind a tent. Afterward the seite is approached
by the Sami, who takes off his cap, bows deeply, and smears
the seite with blood and fat from the animal. The prime cer-
vical vertebrae, the skull, and the hoofs are offered to the
deity, as are the horns, which are piled up behind the stone.
In one such “horn yard” thousands of horns may be seen.
The meat of the animal is eaten by the participants in the
sacrifice. Then the drum tells them what kind of game they
will capture and assures them of good luck with their rein-
deer (Manker, 1957, p. 306; cf. Holmberg, 1964, p. 109).
The god of the seite can also appear in human shape to
his worshiper. Another seventeenth-century account tells
how such a god showed himself as a tall, well-built man
dressed in black like a gentleman, with a gun in his hand.
A similar vision is transmitted from eighteenth-century Nor-
way: “Then a being in human form, like a great ruler, ex-
tremely good to look at, dressed in expensive garments and
trinkets, appears and sits down to take part in their meal,
speaks with them and teaches them new arts, and says that
he lives in the stone or mountain to which they sacrifice”
(Holmberg, 1964, p. 105).
Omens are taken in connection with the sacrifice, not
only with the help of the drum. From the 1670s in Finland,
there is a story of a movable little stone god called Seite or
Ra ̊a ̊ (“owner”). Holding this god in his hand, the Sami utters
his prayers with great veneration and lists his requirements.
If he then cannot lift his hand it is a bad omen, but he repeats
his wishes again and again until the stone in his hand be-
comes so light that his hand leaps upward. When the Sami
has received what he wishes, he asks the god what kind of
thanks offering he wants, using the same method to get an
answer (Manker, 1957, p. 314).
When compared with the stone worship of Madagascar,
the Sami cult lacks a clear connection with ancestors, con-
cerning itself instead with the “owners” of the land and the
lord of animals. On the African island, the sacred stone mon-
uments are generally erected or constructed by human hands;
but in Lapland, the veneration of natural boulders, often left
from the glacial epoch, predominates. The belief is common
here as elsewhere that the pillars or rocks are inhabited by
unseen powers, or, in Mircea Eliade’s words: “The devotion
of the primitive was in every case fastened on something be-
yond itself which the stone incorporated and expressed”
(1958, sec. 74).8746 STONES