Isongompodisiailahy, the Bamboo Being

Overview

Workers cutting bamboo for a king’s house hear a voice from a stem warning that their knife will hurt it, then asking them to break its prison. A humanlike being emerges and calls himself Rasongompodisiailahy; the chapter also uses Isongompodisiailahy. He denies being made by Zanahary or born of a human, and the frightened king yields the kingdom to him. Renel’s note glosses the name as the nest of a male fodisiay bird. He possesses Tamango, a speaking ody that warns him of coming events and gives advice.

Zanahary sends Vorombetsivaza with successive tests. Tamango alerts the challenger before each arrival. For the supposed same-day banana growth, he plants an already-fruiting banana of the required kind and conceals it with fanjambana until the display. For the supposed revival of a chicken bone, he hides a living red cock and later brings it out. For recovering seeds after cattle trample them into mud, he supplies a quantity set aside beforehand. These are substitutions within the story, not demonstrations that he has created a plant, revived a bird or recovered the trampled seeds.

Seeking Zanahary’s daughter, he follows Tamango’s warnings through dangerous storm shelter and tree shade, then summons wood-eating fositra to hollow a great tree before cutting it down. A further marriage task sends him against Imbahatrila. Seven companions join his journey, but he leaves them and Tamango outside the village. After defeating his opponent, he lies with the opponent’s wife. With Tamango absent, he fails to notice her concealed knife, and she cuts his throat. The companions later find his decayed remains and restore him by assembling bones, nerves, flesh, skin, blood and life.

He takes Imbahatrila’s property, rewards his rescuers with cattle and enslaved people and returns to Zanahary. Questioned about the companions’ ability, he acknowledges Zanahary as their maker. Zanahary uses that admission to reject his boast of independent creation and changes him into a songom-podisiailahy, the male fodisiay’s nest. Renel’s closing note argues that Christian influence remade this ending and imagines an earlier victory by trickery. The actual printed ending is the nest transformation; the editor’s proposed lost version is not presented as a second recovered tale.

Origins & earliest records

Renel 1910, tale 41, pp. 215–223, collected at Ambatofisaka under a Tanala heading; individual teller unnamed. Source-method introduction V–VIII distinguishes collection intermediaries and translation. The final note asserts Christian influence and proposes a different earlier ending, but that proposed reconstruction is not the printed narrative.

Records & interpretation

Complete tale 41, pp. 215–223, and both explanatory notes read. Apparent creation feats are exposed as substitutions, actual seven-person restoration is retained, and the printed nest transformation is distinguished from the collector’s conjectured earlier ending.

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 41, pp. 215–223, complete; name gloss p. 216, seven companions’ gloss pp. 220–221 and final reconstruction note p. 223.

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 narrative with editorial comparisonRenel 1910, complete tale 41 and notesResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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