Dimbontaratara and Renel’s Water-Ox Tales

Overview

In the Anivorano account, Faravavy finds an egg and asks her sisters and mother what bird laid it. Her mother sends her to the ancestors, who identify it as an egg of Siketribe and tell her to place it in a basket. By the first cockcrow it has hatched and become an ox. It grows beyond the basket and then a barrel, so she moves it into a large deep hole. She brings leafy food and calls it; Dimbontaratara appears in her address to the animal. Its egg origin and rapid enlargement are explicit, while no separate adult Siketribe bird is described.

Her mother sends her away with a false report that her grandfather is ill and tries to summon the ox for slaughter. Her deep voice fails. Threatened with a beating, another daughter imitates Faravavy’s call successfully; the animal is tied and killed. Returning, Faravavy smells it and refuses the meat. When it no longer answers, she mourns while pounding rice, descends into the earth and lands on Tsivalanorano’s roof. In that household her words while guarding rice attract attention and sympathy. She is sent home in a filanzane, and her family celebrates with slaughtered cattle. Her ox is not restored.

The separately collected Vohemar account begins with three eggs of tsiketrika. Faravavy puts hers into a pond, where its first emergence gives a large hen and its next emergence a large ox. Her parents imitate her call unsuccessfully, then use the similar voice of Faniviovo to draw it out, bind and kill it. After finding the remains, Faravavy asks the sand to swallow her; it opens and does so. The closing explanation links the episode to beings dwelling in water. This second ending has no return from an underground household. The two printed bird-egg names and sequences remain distinct rather than being silently corrected into one natural species or one individual animal.

The second volume’s separately collected Betsimisaraka Water Ox, tale 139, begins with a boy who already owns a bull, rather than an egg hatching into an animal. Refusing his mother’s request for it, he takes the bull into a lake and returns with grass, calling it Siketribe. It emerges to eat and goes back underwater afterwards. A brother spies on him and tells their mother. She brings that brother to the shore, where he imitates the owner’s call; the bull comes out believing its usual keeper is there. They tie it while it begins eating, take it away and slaughter it. When the owner returns, nothing answers. He learns of the killing and asks where its blood lies. Standing on the bloody place, he announces his grief and intention to die. Three successive declarations accompany his sinking first to the knees, then the waist and finally entirely into the earth. The narrative says he stays with Ratsivalanorona; later he visits his razana, or ancestor, and remains there. This third ending contains an ancestral meeting, unlike the first tale’s return of the keeper to her family, and it supplies no restoration of the bull or an egg origin for this particular animal.

Origins & earliest records

Renel 1910, tale 38, pp. 203–205, with regional/local heading. Introduction V–VIII explains Malagasy intermediaries and French translation; no individual narrator is named for the selected account. Separate Antankarana tale 39, pp. 206–208, collected at Vohemar, supplies a different ending and intermediate hen form.

Records & interpretation

Complete tale 38, pp. 203–205, heading and relevant notes read in retained primary text. Transformations, actors and full ending are separately located. Complete separate second-volume tale 139, pp. 268–269, subsequently read; distinct starting ownership and ancestral ending retained.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   Contes de Madagascar, première partie: Contes merveilleux

   Charles Renel, editor and translator; Malagasy collection intermediaries · 1910

   Tale 38, pp. 203–205, complete, with local heading; introduction V–VIII source chain.

2. 02

   Contes de Madagascar, première partie: Contes merveilleux

   Charles Renel, editor and translator; Malagasy collection intermediaries · 1910

   Separate Antankarana tale 39, pp. 206–208, complete; hen/ox stages and sand-swallowing ending.

3. 03

   Contes de Madagascar, deuxième partie: Fables et fabliaux

   Charles Renel, editor and translator; Malagasy collection intermediaries · 1910

   Tale 139, Le Bœuf d’Eau, pp. 268–269, complete; separately headed Betsimisaraka variant compared by editor with tale 39.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Historical collected French narrativeRenel 1910, tale 38Research access: 2026-10-05
2. Historical collected French narrativeRenel 1910, separate Vohemar water-ox tale 39Research access: 2026-10-05
3. Historical collected French narrativeRenel 1910, second-volume Water OxResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.