Zanahary

Supreme creator and personified sky of pan-Malagasy religion, also titled Andriamanitra ('the Fragrant Lord') and Andriananahary ('Lord Creator'). With the self-created earth-being Ratovantany he forms the sky/earth creation pair: Zanahary gives the soul from the sky, Ratovantany the body from clay, and at death each reclaims his part (soul to sky/sun, body to earth) — the foundation of razana (ancestor) belief. Andriamanitra/Andriananahary are folded in as epithets rather than authored separately, since the sources treat them as titles of this same supreme being. The razana (ancestors) are venerated as a class but are not authored as named figures.

Domains

• sky
• creation
• the soul
• the sun

Powers

• Gives life and soul to created beings
• Reclaims the soul into the sky at death

Epithets

• Andriamanitra'The Fragrant Lord / Fragrant One' (andriana 'noble' + manitra 'fragrant', the quality ascribed to a dead noble's body); a title of the supreme being used interchangeably with Zanahary across Madagascar, and the term later adopted by Christian missionaries for God.James Sibree, The Great African Island: Chapters on Madagascar (1880) (secondary)
• Andriananahary'The Creating One / Lord Creator' (andriana + nahary). Rarely a standalone name; chiefly used as an epithet in the formula 'Andriamanitra Andriananahary', 'God in his quality of Lord Creator'.1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, s.v. 'Madagascar' (drawing on Sibree and the LMS missionaries) (secondary)
• Andriantompo'Lord Master / Sovereign Lord', a reverential title of the supreme being (also applied in the creation cycle to the earth-creator; see Ratovantany).Jørgen Ruud, Taboo: A Study of Malagasy Customs and Beliefs (1960) (secondary)

Relations

• ally: RatovantanyCo-creator: the sky-god strikes the cosmogonic compact with the self-created earth-being Ratovantany — Zanahary gives the soul, Ratovantany gives the body; each reclaims his part at death. Allies/partners in creation, not kin.Charles Renel, Ancêtres et dieux (Bull. de l'Académie malgache, 1920–21) (secondary); Jørgen Ruud, Taboo: A Study of Malagasy Customs and Beliefs (1960) (secondary)

Sources

• existence: James Sibree, The Great African Island: Chapters on Madagascar (London, 1880) (secondary); Jørgen Ruud, Taboo: A Study of Malagasy Customs and Beliefs (Oslo Univ. Press / George Allen & Unwin, 1960) (secondary); Charles Renel, Ancêtres et dieux (Bulletin de l'Académie malgache, 1920–21) (secondary)
• soul-body dualism (Zanahary gives/reclaims the soul to the sky; the body returns to the earth): Jørgen Ruud, Taboo: A Study of Malagasy Customs and Beliefs (1960) (secondary); Charles Renel, Contes de Madagascar (1910) (secondary)