Austronesians in Madagascar: A Critical Assessment of the Works of Paul Ottino and Philippe Beaujard

Abstract

The history of contacts between East Africa and island South East Asia (henceforth ISEA) is a long one. Based on current research, this history is punctuated by at least three important events. The first of these is the beginning of any contacts between East Africa and ISEA, which dates from 300 BC or possibly earlier and involves the transfer of cultigens (including banana, yam, taro, and rice) as well as boat technology and several other elements. This transfer has usually been assumed to go from ISEA to East Africa, but it also went in opposite direction. A second event is the settlement of Madagascar by speakers of Austronesian languages. It covers a period probably beginning around the seventh-century CE, when people from the shores of the Barito River in South Borneo moved to East Africa, and ending with the settlement of Madagascar in the eighth century. A third event consists of contact that was maintained between ISEA and Madagascar after the latter’s settlement. It continued until after the arrival of Europeans in the Indian Ocean and brought about some important cultural influences on (at least) Madagascar’s southeast coast. In this chapter, I concentrate on the nature and extent of these influences in as far as they are reflected in the Malagasy language. More particularly, I critically evaluate the ideas of Paul Ottino and Philippe Beaujard, who both argue for a distinct Malay and Javanese influence leaving a heavy imprint on east and central Madagascar. Ottino uses evidence from origin myths and early literature to argue that the Malagasy descend from Sumatra Malays. Beaujard adduces linguistic and other evidence to claim that the Austronesian element in Malagasy culture is more multi-ethnic than previously assumed, involving a particularly strong Malay and Javanese influence, but also involving various elements from Sulawesi, Timor and the Philippines. It would also involve direct influence from South India. Here I use linguistic arguments to show that the sources of these influences were much less pluriform. Genetically, Malagasy clearly belongs to the South East Barito (henceforth SEB) subgroup of Austronesian languages in Borneo, and it also underwent significant influence from other Austronesian languages. However, these languages are few in number. These are Malay and Javanese (the hegemonic languages in ISEA at the time of the Malagasy migrations) as well as a few languages directly neighbouring the Malagasy homeland such as South Sulawesi languages and Ngaju (in Indonesian Borneo). It is obvious that contacts between Madagascar and the Malayo-Javanese world in Indonesia continued until the arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean. However, much of what Ottino attributes to Sumatran influence and Beaujard sees as general South East Asian and South Indian influence in Madagascar from between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries CE was in fact already part of the cultural make-up of the early Malagasy before they migrated to East Africa. They had already undergone Malay and Javanese influence while still in South Borneo, where a Hindu-Malay polity was established in or before the seventh century CE.