Case file · Folklore / legend
Tromba: royal ancestors who speak again
In the sugar town of Ambanja, north-west Madagascar, anthropologist Lesley Sharp studied from 1987 how Sakalava royal ancestors (tromba) possess mediums, mostly women, to give advice, heal and judge disputes.
1987 CE · -13.68, 48.45 · status: account
The account
Her book 'The Possessed and the Dispossessed' (1993) showed that migrants to the town joined tromba circles to find a place, and that possession by long-dead kings and queens kept Sakalava history alive. Tromba mediums also serve at royal shrines in the north-west.
The sceptical view
An ethnographic account; the spirits' reality is a matter of belief for the participants.