Have you ever heard about a Malagasy tradition called « TROMBA « ?

This tradition has existed in many different parts of Madagascar for centuries.

What is a TROMBA?

According to the practice, it’s the continued existence of the king’s ancestors’ spirits in their descendants or other people. That means that when these kings were alive, they were famous, they were the chief and all people respected them .

The hierarchy was divided into:

· Kings and Queens

· Court

· Commoners and slaves

The royal family were at the top of the hierarchy and they were sacred. They had anything they desired, they were happy during their life and they wanted to continue living forever through their spirit. Only their phisical body died but their spirit survived. They borrowed human bodies, came into their mind and survived through their body.That why « TROMBA » appeared in Madagascar . The kings, their descendants or a famous spirits chose a person they wanted to enter into continue to exercise their power as a medium between death and life

Description of the TROMBA :

The spirits must borrow human bodies. The objectives of the TROMBA is to make the possessed person happy ; someone may be wealthy and happy because of the TROMBA. This person can see the future, can cure illness or undo poisoining.The spirits can make others happy or they can bring evil, they can cure differents sorts of diseases.

When a TROMBA enters in your body, you perfom his or her death-throes , when the spirit is in the body your mind changes to theirs and the spirits is alive in your body and can speak again. It can talk and exchanges ideas ; people call them « DADILAHY or DADY . »

So, we can find « TROMBA » in many parts of Madagascar but its name changes in each region and it’s always the same.