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

Overview

Tsis’ila is born with only half his body from head to feet; the other half is missing. His rich father considers abandoning him, but his grandmother asks to rear him in an isolated country house. The child grows resourceful enough to fish and sell his catch to his older siblings. When he catches a tiny unfamiliar creature, he keeps and feeds it in the source beside their house. The animal, named Fananona, grows immensely, and the source enlarges into a lake. In a dream it invites him to visit its parents and instructs him to ask for Rafanovaovao as his reward.

He rides the enormous creature to its parents’ dwelling. Offered money and cattle, he refuses because he cannot carry or bring them home, and requests the transforming amulet instead. After seeing it produce money, he asks it to make him a complete man, and the missing half is supplied. This transformation comes from Rafanovaovao, not his own innate power. On returning he meets an owner of a gun that can destroy mountains. They exchange the gun and amulet; Tsis’ila then kills the man with the weapon and takes the amulet back, obtaining both objects.

He prepares many houses near his father’s settlement and has the amulet finish them. His father and menakely plan to steal his wealth by getting him drunk. At their gathering, repeated toaka eventually makes him reveal Rafanovaovao’s name, and they remove it from his pocket while he sleeps. He returns home weeping. A papango offers to help and recruits a rat: the rat gnaws the double wooden container holding the amulet, hides in fuel straw and escapes when the door opens. The papango carries rat and amulet back to Tsis’ila.

For the recovery he grants the rat freedom to gnaw household furnishings and the papango permission to take chicks. The tale uses those rewards to explain the animals’ later behaviour. Its success story includes his killing of the weapon’s former owner as well as his father’s theft; neither is replaced with a harmless exchange. The opening half-body form and its amulet-driven repair also remain distinct from the child born as a head alone elsewhere in the collection.

Half a body from head to feetGrandmother’s protectionNurturing water creatureAmulet-driven bodily completionRat and papango recovery
01

Origins & earliest records

Renel 1910, tale 40, pp. 209–214, with regional/local heading. Introduction V–VIII explains Malagasy intermediaries and French translation; no individual narrator is named for the selected account.

02

Records & interpretation

Complete tale 40, pp. 209–214, heading and relevant notes read in retained primary text. Transformations, actors and full ending are separately located.

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 40, pp. 209–214, complete, with local heading; introduction V–VIII source chain.

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 40Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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

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