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Childhood and Schooling
in (Post)Socialist Societies
memories of everyday Life

edited by
Iveta Silova, Nelli Piattoeva, Zsuzsa Millei
 Childhood and Schooling
in (Post)Socialist Societies

“The authors of this beautiful book are professional academics and intellectuals
who grew up in different socialist countries. Exploring ‘socialist childhoods’ in a
myriad ways they draw on memoirs and memories, personal experience and col-
lectively history, emotional knowledge of an insider and a measured perspective of
an analyst. What emerges is life that was caught between real optimism and dull-
ness, ethical commitments and ideological absurdities, selfless devotion to children
and their treatment as a political resource. Such attention to detail and paradox
makes this collective effort not only timely but also remarkably genuine.”
—Alexei Yurchak, Professor of Anthropology,
University of California, Berkeley, USA

“How can the intimate stories of childhood – the memories and experiences of
everyday life – disrupt colonial/modern accounts of history and political change?
In this highly original volume, rich and evocative memory stories of (post)socialist
childhoods are weaved together to offer profound insights into the possibilities for
decolonising childhood. The thoughtfully situated auto-ethnographic and collec-
tive biographical accounts presented here brilliantly reveal the cultural-political
significance of childhood. In doing so, this volume breaks new methodological
and theoretical ground for the fields of childhood studies and comparative
education.”
—Arathi Sriprakash, Lecturer, Sociology of Education,
University of Cambridge, UK

“Childhood and Schooling in (Post) Socialist Societies offers a thoughtful and

diverse series of reflections on memories of living with socialism. The chapters
weave vivid accounts of childhood experiences with nuanced theoretical insights.
The book provides a key intervention in cross-disciplinary scholarship about child-
hood memories and their role in understanding societal transitions.”
—Peter Kraftl, Professor and Chair in Human Geography,
College of Life and Environmental Sciences,
University of Birmingham, UK
“Ranging from Hungary and Russia, to Vietnam and China, Childhood and
Schooling in (Post)Socialist Societies paints a complex and productively contradic-
tory picture of the diversity of children’s lived experiences in (post)socialist coun-
tries. Through the lens of the researchers’ own memories, children’s active
participation in their development and their unique social and political contributions
are taken seriously. This is an essential reference point for historians of childhood
and memory, of the self, and of (post)socialist ideologies and experience.”
—Stephanie Olsen, Department of History, McGill University, Canada

“Elegantly structured, this collection is unusual in its evocative and analytic power.
The editors have drawn together an accomplished set of researchers who offer
remarkable autobiographical insights into socialist childhoods. This is a pathbreak-
ing book that will inspire others to develop new approaches to comparative educa-
tion research.”
—Noah W. Sobe, Professor, Loyola University Chicago and President of
Comparative and International Education Society (CIES), USA
Iveta Silova • Nelli Piattoeva
Zsuzsa Millei
Editors

Childhood and
Schooling in
(Post)Socialist
Societies
Memories of Everyday Life
Editors
Iveta Silova Nelli Piattoeva
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College Faculty of Education
Arizona State University University of Tampere
Tempe, AZ, USA Tampere, Finland

Zsuzsa Millei
Institute for Advanced Social Research
University of Tampere
Tampere, Finland

ISBN 978-3-319-62790-8    ISBN 978-3-319-62791-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62791-5

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017958863

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
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Printed on acid-free paper

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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Acknowledgments

The idea of this book emerged as we shared our memories of growing up

in different countries on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain. We felt a very
personal connection during storytelling—almost as we were related—and
we were curious to explore these connections further. Our more intimate
exchanges have gradually developed into more in-depth and organized
conversations, drawing in a larger number of colleagues. Over the last four
years, we have organized multiple meetings, workshops, webinars, and
conference panels to explore our memories and experiences together.
Some colleagues who participated in those gatherings are the authors of
chapters in this book, while others wrote their own books (see Katerina
Bodovski, 2015), published articles in a special issue we coedited in
“European Education” (see Silova, Aydarova, Millei, & Piattoeva, 2016),
or entrusted their memories informally to us—all moving our thinking
forward in different ways. This book would not have been possible with-
out every contributor and reviewer who shared their personal and aca-
demic insights along the way.
We would like to especially acknowledge the work of Elena Aydarova
and Olena Fimiyar who started this project with us in 2012. We really
enjoyed their intellectual friendship and collaboration on conference pre-
sentations and papers. We are especially grateful to Elena for working on
the book proposal with us, helping us find a publisher, and moving us
forward in an organized manner as we searched for contributors, reviewed
chapter manuscripts, and communicated with authors. While Olena and
Elena were unable to continue this project with us, their intellectual
presence is nevertheless felt in this book.

v
vi Acknowledgments

We have received invaluable feedback on this book’s introduction and

conclusion chapters from colleagues at the Article Seminar at the Institute
for Advanced Social Research, University of Tampere, Finland. Our coau-
thored chapter was also reviewed by the same group. We thank the Faculty
of Education at the University of Tampere, Finland, for providing funding
necessary for indexing. Zsuzsa Millei thanks the Institute for Advanced
Social Research and the Space and Political Agency Research Group/
RELATE, University of Tampere, Finland, for the fellowships under which
this project was developed.
We would like to thank Kevin Winn at Arizona State University for his
meticulous attention to detail in language editing and proofreading of the
final manuscript.
Finally, we are grateful to our husbands, kids, dogs, and cats for their
love, patience, and support… and the long Finnish winters that kept
Zsuzsa and Nelli inside with no escape from writing. Iveta’s writing was
occasionally interrupted by a warm breeze through the palms while sitting
by the pool in Arizona or walking through the cactus forest of the Sonoran
Desert. She is thankful for those much-needed interruptions!
Our collaborative writing grew into a complex and beautiful friendship.
While working through multiple ups and downs, we have experienced an
ongoing deepening of our relationship and a continuous transformation
of our own selves. Through our friendship, we have learned to recognize
each other’s strengths, weave our ideas and insights together in interesting
(and sometimes unpredictable) ways, become vulnerable together, and
ultimately open ourselves to critique and further learning. We especially
enjoyed ‘tickling’ each other’s brains and emotions, wondering together,
experiencing unexpected turning points and transformations in our think-
ing, and emerging through our collaborative research and writing as who
we are.

References
Bodovski, K. (2015). Across three continents: Reflections on immigration, educa-
tion, and personal survival. New York: Peter Lang.
Silova, I., Aydarova, E., Millei, Z., & Piattoeva, N. (Eds.). (2016). Revising pasts,
reimagining futures: Memories of (post)socialist childhood and schooling.
European Education, 48(3), 159–240.
 Contents

Remembering Childhoods, Rewriting (Post)Socialist Lives     1

Nelli Piattoeva, Iveta Silova, and Zsuzsa Millei

Memories in Dialogue: Transnational Stories

About Socialist Childhoods    19
Helga Lenart-Cheng and Ioana Luca

A Dulled Mind in an Active Body: Growing Up as a Girl

in Normalization Czechoslovakia    41
Libora Oates-Indruchová

On the Edge of Two Zones: Slovak Socialist Childhoods    63

Ondrej Kaščák and Branislav Pupala

Growing Up as Vicar’s Daughter in Communist

Czechoslovakia: Politics, Religion,
and Childhood Agency Examined    87
Irena Kašparová

Uncle Ho’s Good Children Award and State Power

at a Socialist School in Vietnam   107
Violette Hoang-Phuong Ho

vii
viii Contents

Tito’s Last Pioneers and the Politicization

of Schooling in Yugoslavia   127
Anna Bogic

Hair Bows and Uniforms: Entangled Politics

in Children’s Everyday Lives   145
Zsuzsa Millei, Nelli Piattoeva, Iveta Silova, and Elena Aydarova

Interrupted Trajectory: The Experiences of Disability

and Homeschooling in Post-Soviet Russia   163
Alfiya Battalova

Teaching It Straight: Sexuality Education Across

Post-State-Socialist Contexts   183
Ela Przybylo and Polina Ivleva

Erasure and Renewal in (Post)Socialist China:

My Mother’s Long Journey   205
Jinting Wu

Towards Decolonizing Childhood

and Knowledge Production   231
Zsuzsa Millei, Iveta Silova, and Nelli Piattoeva

Afterwords 257

Preface to Afterwords   259

Iveta Silova, Zsuzsa Millei, and Nelli Piattoeva

Narratives from Bygone Times: Toward a Multiplicity

of Socialist Childhoods   261
Marek Tesar
 Contents 
   ix

The Worlds of Childhood Memory   267

Robert Imre

Decolonizing the Postsocialist Childhood Memories   271

Madina Tlostanova

Beyond the Young Pioneers: Memory Work

with (Post)socialist Childhoods   279
Susanne Gannon

A New Horizon for Comparative Education?   285

Jeremy Rappleye

Index291
 List of Figures

Fig. 1 The Pioneer’s Oath at a memorial to communist

heroes before the scarf tying. Source: Ondrej’s family
archive. Note: We use Ondrej’s photo due to lack of a
similar photo from Branislav 73
Fig. 2 Ondrej and his sister after performing in the Spartakiad
at the stadium. Source: Ondrej’s Family Archive 77
Fig. 3 Younger pupils competing at the Spartakiad at Sered’
football stadium in 1980. Source: School chronicle,
Ján Amos Komenský Primary School, Sered’ 78
Fig. 4 One family’s parallel rituals. Source: Branislav’s Family
Archive. Note: In the photo on the left, Branislav with his
sister (in the middle) performing the flag-raising ritual as
part of the Oath of Loyalty to the Ideals of Marxism-
Leninism; the photo on the right shows Marta and Eva,
Branislav’s cousins, at their Confirmation 80
Fig. 5 Welcoming the child into the world (early 1980s).
Source: Branislav’s Family Archive. Note: Welcoming
the Child into the World ritual held in the National
Committee function room in Branislav’s hometown.
Teachers—members of the Assembly for Civic Matters
(Branislav’s mother is second from the left)—can be seen
singing at the back. A nurse stands behind the crib
symbolising the exemplary children’s healthcare
of the socialist state81
Fig. 1 A girl with a white apron and bows. Source: From Nelli
Piattoeva’s family archives 150

xi
xii List of Figures

Figs. 2 and 3
A girl photographed twice on the same picture day—with
and without a bow. Source: From Iveta Silova’s
family archives151
Fig. 1 Mother with student Red Guards on Tiananmen
Square (1966). Source: Family archives 213
Fig. 2 Dancers in stylized revolutionary postures (1973).
Source: Family archives220
Fig. 3 “Fresh tea dedicated to Chairman Mao” (1973).
Source: Family archives221
Fig. 1 Internationale Kinderwoche (International Children’s
Week). Caption (trans): Fight with us against hunger,
fascism, war. Become young socialist pioneers 281
Fig. 2 Workers’ children! Become Young Pioneers! 282
 Remembering Childhoods, Rewriting
(Post)Socialist Lives

Nelli Piattoeva, Iveta Silova, and Zsuzsa Millei

In the history of modernity, children have commonly embodied societies’

hopes and desires for the future (Stephens, 1995). Perhaps more than any
other group of human beings, children were and continue to be viewed as
central to the political, economic, and social (re)making of societies. In
recent history, the socialist modernization project stands out for its particu-
lar preoccupation with childhood as a construction related to the socialist
utopian ideal, and children as an embodiment of a new social order (Mead
& Silova, 2013). Surrounded “by the care of the entire nation,” Soviet
children were expected to grow up “healthy and physically strong, cheer-
ful and full of joy in life, educated and cultured” in order to continue “the
project begun by the older generation of builders of Communism” (Great
Soviet Encyclopedia, 1952, p. 134). As Kirschenbaum (2001) notes in her
study of Soviet childhood, party leaders, thinkers, and even adults in gen-
eral tended to “conflate (or confuse) the ‘real’ children who had to be fed,
clothed, and educated [with] the metaphorical children who stood as icons

N. Piattoeva
University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland
I. Silova (*)
Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University,
Tempe, AZ, USA
Z. Millei
Institute for Advanced Social Research, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland

© The Author(s) 2018 1

I. Silova et al. (eds.), Childhood and Schooling in (Post)Socialist
Societies, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62791-5_1
2 N. PIATTOEVA ET AL.

of the revolution’s future” (p. 2). Across the socialist region, ­constructions
of childhood thus often mixed the needs, capacities, and interests of ideal-
ized children with those of real children attending preschools and schools.
Consequently, these constructions shaped knowledge about childhood
and children, as well as children’s everyday social lives through various
institutional practices, after-school activities, play, physical spaces, and
objects. Not only did Soviet and other socialist constructions of childhood
become spaces for putting revolutionary visions into practice, but children
themselves were imaged as rational, independent, and powerful agents of
building a socialist future. Collectively, they were viewed as “the ultimate
model citizens of the … state” (Kelly, 2007, p. 110) and “a powerful icon
of revolution” (Kirschenbaum, 2001, p. 159)—presumed to be actively
engaged in building a bright socialist future.
But let us pause for a second here to make an important observation.
In our opening paragraph, “they”—“the icons of socialist modernization”—
does not refer to some unknown heroic children in faraway lands. “They”
are us—the editors of the book—who grew up in the former socialist
countries of Hungary, Latvia, and Russia. “They” are also our contribu-
tors to the book growing up in the countries of Southeast/Central Europe
(former Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Hungary, and Poland),
Soviet Union (Ukraine, Russia), and Asia (China and Vietnam). As sub-
jects to socialist ideologies who were expected to embody the ideal of the
“model socialist citizen,” we personally experienced some mixed feelings
of attachment, optimism, dullness, and alienation associated with our par-
ticipation in “building” socialist futures. We also experienced “ethical and
aesthetic paradoxes” inherent in our socialist (or not-so-socialist) lives—
paradoxes, which could not be easily reduced to the dichotomies of official
and unofficial, the public and the private, the state and the people, or
childhood and adulthood (Yurchak, 2006, p. 6). In this book, we explore
some of these ambiguities and complexities by remembering and re-­
narrating—both individually and collectively—our lived experiences from
the perspective of cultural insiders.
As we shared memories of our childhoods, we felt a connection—
almost as if we were related—like adults who grew up together and could
chime into each other’s memories about kindergarten, school, and after-­
school activities. We felt the need to explore these connections further.
What emerged from our conversations, reflections, and memory stories is
that living socialism often meant something quite different compared to
the official interpretations offered by state officials and academic research-
ers on either the Western or Eastern side of the Iron Curtain.
 REMEMBERING CHILDHOODS, REWRITING (POST)SOCIALIST LIVES 3

The predominant descriptions of the region often employed the frame-

work of totalitarianism and discussed socialist countries in monolithic
terms, highlighting the dichotomies between the East and West. From a
Western perspective, socialist childhood often appeared as ideologically
rigid, politically controlled, and therefore entirely homogeneous. For
example, Bronfenbrenner’s (1970) comparative study of American and
Soviet childhoods concluded that “Soviet children, in the process of grow-
ing up, are confronted with fewer divergent views both within and outside
the family, and in consequence, conform more completely to a more
homogeneous set of standards” (p. 81). Following a Comparative
Education Society’s field study in the USSR in the 1950s, American edu-
cators arrived to similar conclusions, confirming that “[Soviet] classrooms
generally are old-fashioned and severe … correct posture and discipline
are strictly enforced … [and] the emphasis is on drill, industry, and basic
learning” (Bereday, Brickman, & Read, 1960, pp. 142–143). And while
some Western observers acknowledged the diversity of educational experi-
ences and noted paradoxes of socialist childhood and schooling, they were
unable to explain them in meaningful ways. Commenting on the visits to
Soviet classrooms, schools, and camps during a trip to the Soviet Union
sponsored by the Ford Foundation, Redl (1964) wrote:

The gamut ranged all the way from highly formalized, rigidly structure-­
conscious, and heavily efficiency-oriented—with the children becoming
props invented to show how efficiently things can be done—to unusually
casual, proudly flexible, and relationship-focused styles of child care, with
the emphasis noticeably on the production of “warm place for kids to spend
the day in”. We never were able to find out just what accounts for the existence
of this amazing discrepancy …. (p. xiv, emphasis added)

Offering a cursory view of education in socialist societies, such studies

chronically ignored the “spaces for dissent, transgression and resistance”
and the “more mundane spaces of everyday life” (Stenning &
Hörschelmann, 2008, p. 326). These narratives also brushed off the “vari-
ety of geographies [and periods] of socialism, overdetermined by
relationships with Moscow and Comecon, positions of centrality and
­
peripherality, the so-called nationalities question, local political and ideo-
logical debates, the role of non-Party organisations (such as the church)
and myriad other social, economic, political and cultural formations”
(Stenning & Hörschelmann, 2008, p. 318.) In addition, they obscured
internal differences and overlooked connections to and similarities with
4 N. PIATTOEVA ET AL.

the West across different spheres of life, thus (re)producing a familiar yet
inevitably one-­sided image of the Cold War world through dichotomies
such as capitalism/socialism, religious/atheistic, imperialist/liberationist.
In this context, difference and divergence found in socialist (and later
postsocialist) societies were unproblematically collapsed into universaliz-
ing accounts and later into discourses of educational convergence towards
Western norms.
In addition to misreading “socialism,” the mainstream literature com-
monly framed childhood as “an isolated phenomenon, intelligible only
through the lens of “experts” who have studied the child through the
dominant telescope of Western discourses like developmental psychology”
(Cannella & Viruru, 2004, p. 3). Rather than viewing children as political
actors per se, political socialization literature saw them as manipulated or
instructed by adults. Ironically, this blindness to children’s agency was
common to postwar academic research about children on both sides of the
Iron Curtain even though state socialism regarded children as political
actors in Pioneer organizations or socialist camps. This commonality ties
in with Connell’s (1987, p. 215) observation that political socialization
research and the related pedagogies left out “the politics of everyday life”
in which children led their lives.
Writing against this historical and epistemological background, we felt
compelled to decenter the “master narratives” of both (post)socialism and
modern childhood in order to open spaces for sharing more complicated
and varied accounts. On the one hand, by moving beyond the implicit or
explicit reproductions of Cold War binaries—perhaps most vividly captured
in the spatial partitioning of the world according to the three-worlds ideol-
ogy—we attempted to create space for sharing untold stories, giving new
meanings to (personal) histories, and revisiting forgotten relations between
space and time, while trying to avoid romanticization and nostalgia. On the
other hand, by decentering narratives that constituted a binary of “Western”
and “socialist” childhoods and the socialization frameworks that con-
structed children as passive receivers of societal norms, we aimed to better
understand our lived experiences re-narrated through memories.

Decentering Dominant Narratives About Childhood

Decentering dominant narratives about childhood involves rethinking epis-
temological, ontological, and methodological assumptions about how we
approach research. Epistemologically, this entails the task of overcoming a
 REMEMBERING CHILDHOODS, REWRITING (POST)SOCIALIST LIVES 5

predominantly top-down and socialization-oriented research about childhood

and children. While acknowledging that childhood is socially constructed—
and that ideas about what childhood is or should be shape and regulate
children’s lives—these constructions do not reflect the ways in which “real”
children experience their childhoods in their daily lives. As we have briefly
alluded above, socialist ideology framed childhoods in very specific ways,
yet children understood those governing mandates on their own terms—
sometimes explicitly resisting them, sometimes being oblivious to them, and
sometimes infusing these mandates with their own meanings. Thus, when
we use the term “socialist childhoods” here, we do not aim to subsume
children’s lives under the official ideological framework or universalize chil-
dren’s experiences in socialist societies. Rather we use the term to set memo-
ries of various lived experiences of childhoods against those studies that
scripted children’s lives within official state ideologies and Cold War bina-
ries. In other words, we strive to capture the multiplicity and complexity of
childhoods.
Ontologically, we need to overcome a dominant view that considers
children as human becomings expected to be molded into fully human
adult beings through the process of political socialization. Rather than
viewing childhood in terms of a vision of the future society (or nostalgic
past), we understand children as active participants in the present, acknowl-
edging that their lives and actions have meanings in and relevance to pres-
ent societies. Similarly, we understand children as beings and child
becomings, acknowledging the multiple and shifting ways of emerging as
a child (Lee, 2001). As James and Prout (1990) argue, such temporal
reorientation of childhood goes beyond the critique of age-based con-
structions of generational difference or developmental models of child
socialization. Rather, it is a formulation of the ontology of children as
“beings-in-the-present” (James & Prout, 1990, p. 232), about their exis-
tence “as continuously experienced and created” (p. 231), and therefore
about the extension of children’s capacity and agency “as active beings in
a social world” at all points of their lives (p. 233). In parallel movements,
as public spaces for children’s participation have gradually opened up—to
speak, act, and be part of democratization projects1—researchers too have
increasingly acknowledged that children should be studied as “social
actors, as beings in their own right rather than pre-adult becomings”
(Holloway & Valentine, 2000, p. 5). From this perspective, it is not
enough to simply reposition children as the subjects—instead of objects—of
research. Rather, children should be engaged as participants in the research
process and as researchers themselves (Punch, 2002).
6 N. PIATTOEVA ET AL.

Methodologically, such a shift raises important questions of representa-

tion: Who can represent children’s lives and what might those representa-
tions mean for children themselves? Would adult researchers ever have
access to children’s lived experiences and make meaningful interpretations
of those? Without making a claim to an ontological difference between
adults and children, we agree that there is a form of “otherness” of chil-
dren in representing the world. As Jones (2013) explains further, chil-
dren’s “otherness” produces differences between worldview, experience,
and representation that limits adult researchers in intimating “how chil-
dren have to live within adult orders, spaces and systems, and how they
seek to, or have to, build their own spatialities within that—how children’s
becoming suffuses through adult spaces in ways which are not easily know-
able by adults, but perhaps can be glimpsed in various ways” (p. 4). Jones
(2013) further elaborates, “[a]dult agency produces space. Children’s
agency reproduces that space in its own terms as best it can. There is
ongoing flow of interconnects and disconnects between these two
becomings-­in-space”—‘adult becoming’ and ‘child becoming’ (p. 10).
If it is children who can best represent their lived experiences, and the
resulting representations also help in removing colonizing frames
(Balagopalan, 2014), how is it possible to gain access to these representa-
tions? One possible (though not ideal) way to convey how children view,
experience, and represent the world from within is through adults’ memo-
ries of their childhoods (Jones, 2013). However, memories of childhood
are folded into the present of the adult person remembering—the adult as
s/he is becoming while remembering—and therefore the milieu of child
becoming cannot be isolated in the adult’s memories. Rather, “adult
becoming has child-becoming folded into … [in] very complex and
obscure ways” (Jones, 2013, p. 6). Seeking children’s accounts about liv-
ing in historical (post)socialist societies is not possible anymore. The best
intimation we can achieve is through memories of researchers’ lived expe-
riences as children.

Working with Childhood Memories and Writing Life

In this book, our contributors draw on their own memories to re-narrate
their past lived experiences through methodologies that encourage anti-­
essentialist approaches, as well as multiple articulations and representa-
tions. By validating testimony and memory as important sources of
knowledge, their memories speak against different forms of homogeniza-
tion to contest and remake dominant history, revealing strong connections
 REMEMBERING CHILDHOODS, REWRITING (POST)SOCIALIST LIVES 7

to postcolonial research. In postcolonial studies, autobiography has been

“increasingly recognized as a powerful counter-hegemonic practice”
(Boehmer, 2000, p. 756), which can take diverse and multiple forms—
ranging from autobiographies and autoethnographies, to duo- and collec-
tive biographies—thus giving expression to both individual and collective
subjects in remembering and narrating their lives. As Spry (2011) explains,
autoethnography enables a subaltern and indigenous contestation and
remaking of history, breaking “the colonizing and encrypted code of what
counts as knowledge” and positioning “local knowledge at the heart of
epistemology and ontology” (p. 500). Autoethnography begins, she
insists, with “a body, in a place, and in a time” (p. 500). Here, the subjects
of knowing become knowing subjects who are now authorized to speak on
their own behalf (Silova, Millei, & Piattoeva, 2017).
Through their memories, our contributors speak against both scientific
and political master narratives that dominate the space of (post)socialist
childhoods. It is not only the Western academia that has often denied or
misrepresented their personal experiences, but the political projects of
state- and nation-building across the former socialist region have equally
tended to enforce dominant discourses—whether patriotic, demonizing,
or nostalgic—at the expense of other narratives. Our contributors are cre-
atively experimenting with different types of life-writing, highlighting the
importance of lived experience for the decolonization of knowledge pro-
duction about childhoods. They document “the moment-to-moment,
concrete details of a life” (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 737), opening space
for “contradictions, gaps and ambiguities of multiple and conflicting inter-
pretations” (Bochner & Ellis, 1996, p. 25). By creating this multiplicity of
views, memory research thus highlights that “ways of understanding the
world are cultural and political productions tied to and influenced by the
discourses of class, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation” (pp. 25–26).
Following this epistemological stance, our intention is not to replace one
authoritative narrative with another, but rather to multiply the accounts of
childhoods under socialism and what came after.
Although autobiographical research has been criticized for privileging
one particular way of writing a life—the one based on a Western inscrip-
tion of “an abstract and unique individual agent moving through time and
space” (Rupprecht, 2002, p. 35)—this is not the only way of seeing life-­
writing research. New forms of life-writing distance themselves from this
type of research, using “memory stories to examine the ways in which indi-
viduals [now and in the past] are made social, [and] how we are discursively,
8 N. PIATTOEVA ET AL.

affectively, materially constituted in particular moments that are inherently

unstable” and “how things come to matter in the ways they do” (Gonick
& Gannon, 2014, p. 6). Remembering thus becomes “a lived process of
making sense of time and the experience of it” to explore “relations
between public and private life, agency and power, and the past, present
and future” (Keightley, 2010, pp. 55–56). Imagination is inseparable from
memory work, as both require each other in order to move “beyond their
own limits as we think of the patterns of change and continuity in our
sense of ourselves over time, and the diverse ways in which the past is rep-
resented and used as a resource in all aspects of cultural life” (Keightley &
Pickering, 2012). Furthermore, childhood as a sociohistorical construct
provides an analytical incision into the social issues and concerns regarding
socialism, cultural/ideological changes, and subject formation.
Given the importance of lived experience for life-writing in general and
decolonization of knowledge production in particular, we need to address
another critical issue: How can we reconcile access to lived experience
through memories? According to Emily Keightley and Michael Pickering
(2012), experience and memory are in a “vital relationship” with each
other, wherein experience is an analytical category for memory studies
(p. 3). They also differentiate between “experience as process (lived expe-
rience) and experience as product (assimilated experience—the knowledge
crystallised out of previous experience) [that] correlates with the equally
common distinction between the process of remembering and memory as
the product resulting from that activity.” Experience as lived and inter-
preted occupies the space between selfhood and social order, and it is
through experience that we understand change and continuity. Both expe-
rience and memory “are viewed as personal and social, situated and medi-
ated, proximate and distant” (Keightley & Pickering, 2012, p. 4).
Remembering is a creative and imaginative process. As we create our
memory stories, “the past is not directly transmitted to us in pristine form;
it comes back to us only in fragments out of which we puzzle together
their connections and distinctions, patterns and configurations” (Keightley
& Pickering, 2012, p. 7). In this process, our scholarly voice is tamed and
combined with a novelistic tone so memories become vivid. We move
between a scholarly voice claiming critical objectivity, and a more narrative,
almost fictive writing style, where we emerge as characters in a novel, act-
ing in richly described and emotionally charged environments. This movement
helps us to create multifaceted analyses, in which we highlight complexi-
ties, ambivalences, and emotions without falling back on the explanatory
 REMEMBERING CHILDHOODS, REWRITING (POST)SOCIALIST LIVES 9

power of binaries inherited from Cold War rhetoric. In this work, different
kinds of remembering help us, from “bodily remembering, where mem-
ory is felt as intense physical sensation, through mémoire involontaire
with its joltingly evocative madeleine moments, to intentional memory as
part of an effort to build up detailed and connected maps of meaning
across entire lives or communities” (Keightley & Pickering, 2012, p. 5).
In acting as our own biographers, we pattern our lived experiences
through narrative representation, and with the help of our imagination we
create stories, “actively concerted recollections [where] … storytelling
builds creatively on the order of sequence [plotmaking] inherent in mem-
ory, despite its lacunae and points of disjunction” (Keightley & Pickering,
2012, p. 35). Lived experiences, appearing as textual representations,
imaginatively connect together in our memories to contribute to the
longer-­term maps of meaning (patterns) to which we refer. In sharing our
memories, we produce texts for their illuminating effects, their ability to
reveal what had not been noticed, and to inform. We ponder new ques-
tions and relate our memories to phenomena outside of our research text
with an obligation to reflect and critique rather than to offer accurate
pictures (Holman Jones, 2005). Our goal is to analyze personal experi-
ence in order to examine cultural experience and its politics (Ellis, Adams,
& Bochner, 2011; Holman Jones, 2005), as well as to understand our
multiple and situated selves in social life.

A Glimpse into the Memories of Socialist

Childhoods and Schooling
This book is a living kaleidoscope of memories written by scholars who
had firsthand experience of (post)socialist childhood and schooling and
who engaged in re-narrating their experiences of being and becoming
children in (post)socialist contexts. We prompted our contributors to
recall their experiences by posing a series of intertwined questions: What
were the pedagogies, materialities, and spaces of socialist childhoods and
schooling, and how did they intersect with the daily practices, experiences,
emotions, and sensations of being children? We asked our contributors to
reflect on the spaces of childhood and schooling in the broadest possible
sense, including camps, collective farms, after-school activities, and famil-
ial, educational, and other relationships. Furthermore, we considered the
following questions: How were differences—language, sexuality, gender,
ethnicity, race, (dis)ability, and other—constructed and experienced? How
10 N. PIATTOEVA ET AL.

did they matter in children’s everyday lives? We were also interested in

exploring what these memories tell us as researchers about how we have
mastered (and been mastered by) particular theories and understandings
of (post)Soviet/socialist transition, education, and childhood, if at all.
These questions enabled the contributors to share their memories and
engage in analyzing how they constituted and experienced their own
childhoods and schooling, and how children emerged as social and politi-
cal beings.
The picture of socialist and postsocialist childhoods and schooling that
has emerged from these memories is far from uniform or univocal, high-
lighting the diversity of the region’s histories and individual lived experi-
ences. The chapters reveal many inherent paradoxes and the coexistence of
different and even opposite value systems and practices across time and
space, unravelling the diverse and often contradictory ways of being a
(post)socialist child and living a (post)socialist life. In Memories in
Dialogue: Transnational Stories about Socialist Childhoods, Helga Lénárt-­
Cheng and Ioana Luca draw on life-writing scholarship and memory stud-
ies to highlight their personal narratives that created a space for paradoxes
to coexist, casting into doubt the inherited paradigms of the “communist
child” as either an icon of socialist utopia or a traumatized victim of the
repressive regime. They write, for example, about their participation in
routine after-school activities—such as Helga’s annual trips to “construc-
tion camps” in Hungary or Ioana’s “voluntary” community work of
­collecting recycled paper in Romania—which were simultaneously riddled
with fun and boredom, optimism and meaninglessness. Having grown up
in the 1980s, the authors explain that they nevertheless inhabited quite
disparate worlds of childhoods, offering fascinating interpretations of the
stark differences in their lived experiences through a dialogic writing.
In A Dulled Mind in an Active Body, Libora Oates-Indruchová shares
her personal “mundane epiphanies” that reveal the ambiguities of socialist
education in her experience as a child growing up in Czechoslovakia. She
focuses on both the formation of her intellectual consciousness and gen-
der identity by re-narrating the experiences of classroom activities and
sporting events. While painting a fairly grim picture of socialist child-
hood—where she was taught how “not to reflect,” “not to take initiative,”
and do what was required of her without any questioning—Libora also
writes in one of her epiphanies about her spontaneous confrontation with
the teacher who attempted to restrict girls’ participation in a sporting event,
arguing that cycling was for boys only. Interestingly, Libora explains that
 REMEMBERING CHILDHOODS, REWRITING (POST)SOCIALIST LIVES 11

her courage to challenge the gendered assumption of the teacher was not
necessarily powered by a conscious will to resist the teacher’s authority,
but by her strong feeling of entitlement to ride a bicycle like any other
child and her desire to participate in an activity that promised to be fun.
Although perhaps unintentionally, a child can thus introduce “minute
internal displacements and mutations into the [dominant] discursive
regime” (Yurchak, 2006, p. 28), enabling her to produce unanticipated
meanings that may not necessarily coincide with those explicitly enforced
by the state.
Ondrej Kaščák and Branislav Pupala continue the discussion of multiple
paradoxes and persisting ambiguities in the context of Slovakia. In their
chapter On the Edge of Two Zones: Slovak Socialist Childhoods, Ondrej and
Branislav narrate their childhood memories against Slovakia’s chiefly
Christian and agrarian traditions, which encountered the newly intro-
duced atheism and industrial way of life during the era of “building com-
munism.” The symbolic contrast between the “two worlds” shaped the
personal identities of their inhabitants that emerged out of the conflicts
generated by these worlds. Accompanied by photographs from family
archives, their chapter shows that the nature and timing of the communist
transitional rituals borrowed heavily from their religious counterparts,
illustrating the tensions between the two parallel worlds of socialist
Slovakia and revealing ways in which children casually but skillfully crossed
the borders between them.
In Growing up as Vicar’s Daughter in Communist Czechoslovakia, Irena
Kašparová compares her childhood to a “theater stage,” where acts of
resistance take place; school personnel as well as pupils and parents are
envisioned simultaneously and interchangeably as protagonists, directors,
and spectators of the play; and theater is often perceived as reality and vice
versa. Reflecting on her own original diary entries and letters to a Russian
penfriend written as a 13-year-old girl during the 1980s, Irena writes
about her experience growing up as a daughter of a protestant minister in
a rural periphery of communist Czechoslovakia. Her childhood spanned
two contrasting spaces of Christian religion and communist state ideology,
which she learned to navigate carefully as a child. Unlike other memory
stories, which describe children participating in official socialist activities
for the pleasure of spending time with friends—either exhibiting disinterest
in the ideologies that supposedly drove those activities or adding their own
interpretations of the activities to make them more meaningful to their lives—
Irena narrates a story of active resistance. Her experiences of resistance
12 N. PIATTOEVA ET AL.

ranged from participation in a subversive school play that explicitly cri-

tiqued the socialist regime to more implicit acts of resistance such as day-
dreaming about permeable borders while watching Western films or being
silent when all children were loudly chanting “comrade” in unison.
The political nature of socialist childhoods is a central focus of the next
three chapters. In Uncle Ho’s Good Children: Award and State Power at a
Socialist School in Vietnam, Violette Ho explores how state power shaped
youth’s concept of nationalism. Embracing the teaching of Ho Chi Minh’s
philosophy and Marxism-Leninism, Vietnam’s school programs and activ-
ities in the 1980s were designed to evoke patriotism and to ensure
Vietnamese children would revere Uncle Ho and stay loyal to the
Communist Party. In the name of the nation, this system also motivated
youth to dedicate their lives, to commit their time and energy, and to sac-
rifice personal interests for “the success of communism.” Within this sys-
tem, symbolic rewards, such as the “Uncle Ho’s Good Children” award,
provided important meanings that could potentially turn childhood under
socialism into an experience that was fulfilling and memorable.
Anna Bogic tells the story of Tito’s Last Pioneers and the Politicization of
Schooling in Yugoslavia. Drawing on her memories of eight years of ele-
mentary schooling during the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia (between
1987 and 1995), she shares some of her personal experiences of childhood
and schooling while connecting and juxtaposing them with the wider
socioeconomic and political context of the time. Anna’s memories suggest
that schooling practices in socialist and postsocialist periods were informed
by particular political standpoints that shaped her life both inside and out-
side the school. Paradoxically, the violent ethnic realignments accompany-
ing changes from socialism to postsocialism were inextricably linked to the
disintegration of the country and the introduction of a new value system,
yet schools and schooling practices somehow “protected” children from
the harsh impacts of dizzying changes and unrelenting instability of the war
period. In both socialist and postsocialist periods, children’s active partici-
pation in celebrations, events, and political debates offered a sense of stabil-
ity through routine schooling practices and activities.
In Hair Bows and Uniforms: Entangled Politics in Children’s Everyday
Lives, Zsuzsa Millei, Nelli Piattoeva, Iveta Silova, and Elena Aydarova shift
our attention from official to everyday politics in children’s lives. Drawing
on their memories of growing up in Hungary, Russia, Latvia, and Ukraine,
they suggest that official politics in children’s lives during socialism took
various forms, ranging from school curriculum, youth organizations, and
 REMEMBERING CHILDHOODS, REWRITING (POST)SOCIALIST LIVES 13

celebrations in everyday life. Drawing on current scholarship about chil-

dren’s politics and their collective biography work, they explore the every-
day contexts of childhood—ranging from mundane to ideological—to
make visible the multiple ways in which children’s political agency emerged
in particular spaces and times. Their memory stories are about hair bows
as a part of school uniforms and the multiple roles these bows played in
being and becoming schoolgirls and political subjects. The emphasis is on
how wearing (or not) a hair bow helped children work with/in or against
the norms, as well as feeling the pain and desire to be or act otherwise.
Finally, the last three chapters offer a close-up of multiple ruptures,
continuities, and relationalities between different (post)socialist experi-
ences in terms of time, space, and identities. In her chapter Interrupted
Trajectory: The Experiences of Disability and Home Schooling in Post-Soviet
Russia, Alfiya Battalova shares a personal account of school and home-
school experiences in Russia by using various perspectives on disability.
She seeks to foreground the context of homeschooling by problematizing
transition as a linear and uninterrupted path and illuminating the complex
nature of living with disability in post-Soviet Russia. Through the discus-
sion of the education system for children with disabilities, Alfiya positions
herself in a broader sociocultural context as she analyzes the issues sur-
rounding negotiation of access to education. She also engages with theo-
retical constructs of overcoming, staring, and internalized ableism to
demonstrate the ambiguities of personal experiences and the role of insti-
tutional structures in shaping them. Above all, her chapter emphasizes the
relational aspect of disability and schooling to recognize possibilities and
narrate creative ways of being a child with a disability in the structural
constraints of post-Soviet Russia.
The continuities between socialist and postsocialist experiences—in
terms of space and time—are also examined by Ela Przybylo and Polina
Ivleva in Teaching it Straight: Sexuality Education Across Post-State-­
Socialist Contexts. This chapter explores how sex education is navigated in
postsocialist sites in relation to discourses of purity, childhood innocence,
and nation-building. In particular, Ela and Polina examine how the poli-
tics of sexuality education render students sexual subjects through official,
evaded, and hidden curricula, in a municipal secondary school in
Yekaterinburg, Russia, and a Polish diasporic immersion school in Alberta,
Canada—two geographically distant contexts which share continuing
endurance of socialist legacies. The authors argue that education and sex
education are involved in what they describe as “teaching it straight”—the
14 N. PIATTOEVA ET AL.

continued insistence on (and frequent failure of) straightening students

into heteronormative life paths and desires. Drawing on the works of
queer theorists and their own autobiographical voices, Ela and Polina
develop an oppositional method of “telling it slantwise”—looking at con-
tradictions, silent moments, and queer possibilities within the normatively
ordered school life.
Jinting Wu explores continuities between socialist and postsocialist
experiences in China in her chapter Erasure and Renewal in (Post)Socialist
China: My Mother’s Long Journey. Through autoethnographic accounts,
her chapter narrates her mother’s long journey in China’s Cultural
Revolution and present-day market reform to examine the fraught relations
between the party-state and its youth, between education and political
socialization, and between public values and authoritarian limits that con-
tinue to tug the social fabric of today’s China. Jinting argues that the state
works as a powerful pedagogical node shaping people’s sense of self, social
change, and their own place in the midst of it. Nevertheless, life is a perfor-
mative space of self-making where one receives whatever comes and gropes
to make better meanings out of it. Jinting mother’s narratives highlight
the state’s shifting modalities of power and illustrate that (post)socialist
­conditions are mediated by the continual assertion of political authority
alongside people’s creative agency.
Reading across these chapters, we cannot help but notice multiple
interconnections that weave together complicated and ambiguous histo-
ries of (post)socialist childhoods. Collectively, our contributors acknowl-
edge and write from the space of ordinary but often neglected personal
experiences. They problematize the analytical frameworks of West’s nor-
mality and superiority, the centrality of political indoctrination and
oppression in everyday lives, and the images of passive or victimized
(post)socialist citizens who lived under the shortage of goods and ideo-
logical decay. Echoing emerging writings on lived socialism, these
accounts shed light on the complex ways in which childhood and school-
ing extended the state’s ideals while producing genuine beliefs in socialist
values as well as voluntary and joyous involvement in the building of
socialism (see Klumbyte & Sharafutdinova, 2013). At the same time, the
everyday spaces enabled multiple interpretations, regular circumventions,
or simple ignorance of official policies and practices. They induced alter-
native perspectives and understandings of official activities and produced
unexpected spaces of resistance and subtle shifts in official discourses.
Despite the perceived uniformity of the region and the idea that children
 REMEMBERING CHILDHOODS, REWRITING (POST)SOCIALIST LIVES 15

encountered consistent ideological and political messages in school and

at home (e.g. Redl, 1964), the lived encounters, sentiments, and loyalties
of children were not devoid of multiple possibilities, and children engaged
with them more or less deliberately, often capitalizing on ambiguities and
turning them to their own momentary advantage.
Equally importantly, the chapters in this book reveal how socialist ide-
ologies and institutions played diverse roles—and often did not play a role
at all—in children’s lives. Memories of these experiences were entangled
with memories of what came before, during, and after state socialism.
Traversing multiple spatial and temporal borders, children seem to have
been able to inhabit—and sometimes remake—these different spaces and
times in unexpected and meaningful ways, enabling common historical
experiences, temporarily suspending the official socialist order and rein-
stating a familiar sociality of everyday lives. Here, participants of the bor-
dering encounters—including contributors to the book and perhaps some
of our readers—recognize each other “as ‘normal people’ striving to
obtain a ‘normal life’” (Dzenovska, 2014, p. 271). Perhaps this is why we,
as book editors, felt so intimately connected to our book contributors
through the process of sharing our memories. As Dzenovska (2014)
points out, this connection does not necessarily stem from feelings of
empathy, compassion, and common humanity—or the shared v­ ulnerability
that emerges through memory writing and sharing—but rather from our
historically shared understanding of the conditions that have shaped our
lives and formed public sociality that connects us to one another as equals.
Aiming to move away from singular history writing, we are fully aware
that this introductory chapter offers one possible interpretation of the rich
collection of memory stories in the book. In what follows, memory stories
speak for themselves, each one extending and deepening our understand-
ing of the histories of (post)socialist childhoods. To keep the space open
for multiple interpretations, we close the book with a series of after-
words, which build on the memories shared by the authors and place the
discussions we started in a broader context by connecting them to the
fields of childhood studies (Marek Tesar), political science and interna-
tional relations (Robert Imre), postcolonial and gender studies (Madina
Tlostanova), life-writing methodologies (Susanne Gannon), and com-
parative education and philosophy (Jeremy Rappleye). These afterwords
are striking in their interconnectedness and emphasis on shared human
experiences across different historical conditions. While some afterword
authors speak from the perspectives of cultural insiders, others write from
16 N. PIATTOEVA ET AL.

an outsider position. Some afterword authors combine their scholarly

voices with a novelistic tone, continuing the autoethnographic genre of
the volume through their own childhood memories and encounters with
(post)socialism. Collectively, these multiple afterwords help us evade intel-
lectual closure by opening the space of childhood to a wide range of
insightful interpretations. We hope that these reflections will strike a famil-
iar (or perhaps an unexpected) chord among our readers, engendering
emotional responses, triggering forgotten memories, and bringing into
the conversation new layers of complexity that will further advance our
understanding of childhood and the (post)socialist condition.

Note
1. Efforts worldwide to operationalize the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of the Child (1989) created spaces for children to become part of
societies and act on their own rights rather than being considered only as
members of families. Seeing children as competent actors who have views on
their lives and can make decisions, in turn, helped to change children’s role
in societies, allowing them to get involved in more and more realms, such as
different parliaments or participatory projects designed to seek children’s
views about issues that concern them.

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approach as the royal party turns the angle opposite Oldtown. The
king is always seated in a six-oared gig belonging to the ship to
which he is proceeding, whilst the canoes contain his eldest son,
young Eyo, and his three brothers, with an innumerable host of slave
attendants. He has a gigantic parti-coloured parasol held over his
head on these occasions, as he has whenever walking about his
town, or seated in one of his court-yards, overlooking his trade
books. The musical band accompanying the king consists of an
Egbo drum, placed transversely in the canoe, which is not beaten on
the ends as our drums are, but on the top of its longitudinal surface
with a pair of sticks; an instrument formed of iron, as of the saucers
of two shovels welded face to face, and struck with a piece of the
same metal; a cow’s-horn, blown rather discordantly; and clattering-
boxes made of bamboo matting, with a string to them held in the
hands like Spanish castanets, and shaken vigorously to produce a
noise by the agitation of the pebbles or pieces of broken crockery-
ware they contain. Yet, with this primitive attempt at music, the
banners flying from the canoes, the simultaneous hoisting of flags on
all the ships in the river, and the return of a salute from the vessel to
which he is proceeding, when the king’s party becomes visible, gives
the whole scene a very animated appearance.”
By-the-by, mention has several times been made of the curious
institution existing in this part of the world known as the order of
“Egbo.” It is a sort of negro brotherhood of kings, chiefs, and free
men, and the title is derived from “Ekpe,” the Efik name for tiger.
There are eleven grades, the three superior of which are not
purchaseable by slaves. In former times the Egbo title was confined
entirely to freemen, the second or third generation of a slave born
within the pale of an Egboman’s dwelling being liberated by this fact,
and allowed to purchase it after their parents were dead. It cannot be
compared to any institution familiar to European minds but to that of
Freemasonry. Previous to initiation, the Egbo candidate is obliged to
go through a number of ceremonial observances; as, for instance, on
a “Brass Egbo”—one of the superior grades—applicant’s admission
into that order, his body is daubed over with yellow dye to simulate
brass, and there is a sacrifice of animals on the occasion. The
secrets and meetings of Egbo men are strictly private. If a man,
woman, or child have a complaint of grievance against a master or
neighbour, he or she has only to give notification of it by slapping an
Egbo gentleman on the front of his body, or by going into the market
square and tolling the large Egbo bell. The gentleman apprised by
the first-mentioned form of notice, is bound to have at once an Egbo
meeting to redress the grievance complained of, and if this be found
to be trivial the punishment is inflicted on the complainant. When an
Egbo man wants to make a proclamation relative to a theft
committed, or the recovery of a debt, he sends out into the town
what is supposed to be Idem, or spiritual representation of Egbo, a
man with a black vizard on his black face, and the whole of his body
covered cap-a-pie with a fantastical dress of bamboo matting. This
personage is sometimes preceded by a few drummers, and he
always has a bell fastened to his side, which rings as he goes along.
In his left hand he carries a bunch of green leaves (for he is believed
to have been exorcised from the woods, and of course must keep up
his sylvan character); in his right is an enormous cow-hide whip with
which he flogs every slave, man or woman, whom he meets, as taste
or inclination may suggest. A brutal peculiarity of the Egboship is
this, that the want of a single variety of the title will expose him who
is so unfortunate as to lack it, to the lashings of the Idem of that
particular grade which he has not purchased. If an individual who is
in possession of all the inferior grades, and of three of the superior
ones, happens to be out on the day when the Idem of that particular
Egbo that he was in want of is walking, he is marked out from the
common multitude and treated with extra severity. Should the Idem
not meet any slave in the streets to whip on his rounds, he is at
liberty to go into their houses and whip them to his heart’s content.
The sound of Egbo bells, and the name of Egbo day, are enough to
terrify all the slave population of Duketown, and when they hear it
they hide in every available place. Latterly females have been
permitted to buy Egbo privileges, but are not allowed to be present at
the councils of the Egbo gentlemen, nor to enter at any time within
the wall of the Egbo Palaver-house. When a yellow flag floats from
the king’s house it is understood to be Brass Egbo day, and none but
a few of the privileged are allowed to walk abroad. A strip of cloth of
the same colour nailed to any man’s door implies that his house is
under the powerful protection of Brass Egbo, the indication being
significant of the master’s absence from home. If an Idem meets a
European in his progress, where there are two roads or pathways
available, the Idem walks off on the one different from that which the
white man is approaching; if there be but one road, the latter is
expected to turn his back and let the supposed spirit pass unnoticed
and undisturbed. “Aqua Osong,” the last day of the Kalabar week, is
grand Egbo day, on which there is a carnival and Egbo procession,
with the usual amount of brutality. All legal and judicial proceedings
in the country are ushered in and carried out under Egbo
demonstrations, for the purpose evidently of keeping the law in
terrorem over the slave population. And no stronger evidence of this
can be adduced than that a man tried and condemned by Egbo law
has to forfeit all his slaves and other property in his possession, no
matter to whom this latter may belong. These are all divided as prey
amongst the highest Egbo authorities. Persons sentenced to death
by Egbo trial are allowed what is considered a privilege of leaving
this world in a state of intoxication. There is a class of people called
Bloodmen, who live in the interior at the plantations, and whose
presence in Duketown does not give much comfort to the Egbo
authorities. Sometime after the death of King Eyamba in 1846, a
number of slaves belonging to the duke’s family ran away from their
owners, and entered into a blood covenant for mutual protection. In a
short time others joined them, and they now amount to several
thousands. The present King of Duketown, Duke Ephraim, is the
lineal descendant of the master of the original refugees, and
consequently has considerable influence over them. Some time back
they tried to be allowed the establishment of a separate Egboship for
themselves, but were refused. They come into town whenever any
ceremonial is to be performed having reference to a deed of blood;
but what their relation is to the Egbo order still remains a profound
secret. The gentlemen at Old Kalabar have all private fetishes at
their houses—the skulls of human beings, the bones of leopards,
hippopotami, crocodiles, and manattis, arranged according to the
owner’s taste and fancy. Peculiar species of food are not eaten by
many families, from the fact that some members of them die after
eating of such condiments, and their ju-ju consequently places an
interdict on their use.
At Lunda, another settlement in Western Africa, the individual at
the head of the State is called the “Mambo.” This gorgeous
personage, together with his chief ministers, is thus described by the
traveller Valdez, to whom audience was given:
“The Mambo sat on a number of tiger-skins, so arranged that all
the tails radiated, thus forming the figure of a large star, and in the
centre was spread an enormous lion-skin, which covered a portion of
all the others. A stool, covered with green cloth and placed on the
lion-skin, formed the throne of the Mambo. This dignitary was
dressed in a most magnificent style, far surpassing in grandeur of
display all the other potentates of the interior of Africa. His head was
adorned with a mitre, about two spans high, in shape resembling a
pyramid, and formed of feathers of a bright scarlet colour. His
forehead was encircled by a diadem ornamented with a great variety
of valuable jewels of great brilliancy; a sort of frill or fan of green
cloth, supported by two small ivory arrows, was standing up from the
back of his head; the neck and shoulders being covered with a kind
of spencer or capuchin without sleeves. The upper part of this cape
was ornamented with the bottom of cowrie shells, under which was a
row of imitation jewels. The lower part had a most brilliant and
dazzling effect, in consequence of a great number of small mirrors,
or square and round pieces of looking-glass, being tastefully
arranged alternately with the precious stones all round it. His
shoulders, breast, and back, were thus covered with a garment at
which no one in that resplendent sunshine could for one moment
look fixedly.
“The arms above the elbows were ornamented with a band of
cloth of about four inches broad, the borders and edges of which had
attached to them strips of skin, with hair of about four or five inches
long hanging down like a fringe. None but the Muata Cazembe, or
prime minister, and his nearest relatives are allowed to wear this
badge of royalty. From his elbows to the wrist the arms were
ornamented with sky-blue stones, while the yellow cloth, something
similar to the Highlandman’s kilt, extended from the waist to the
knees. This garment had two borders of about four inches wide, the
upper one blue, and the lower red.
“He also had a kind of girdle or swathe of several yards long,
which was worn in a rather peculiar manner; one end of it being
fastened to the other cloth by a small ivory arrow a little below the
waist, and the whole then wound round the body in small regular
folds. A leather belt which is girt round the body preserves this
garment in its place. Both are considered as the insignia of imperial
authority.
“The insipo or girdle of hide is cut from the entire length of an ox’s
skin, and is about five or six inches in breadth. When the insipo is
girded on, the tassel of the tail is left trailing under a sort of fan,
formed by the folds or plaits as before mentioned. The Muata
Cazembe had hung from his insipo under his right hand a string of
pearls, to the end of which a small bell was attached, which,
knocking against his legs as he moved, rang at intervals. He had
also pearls strung round his legs from his knees downwards, similar
to those he wore on his arms. While the whole of his body was thus
richly ornamented, his face, hands, and feet were left entirely
uncovered.
“The Muata Cazembe had seven umbrellas, forming a canopy to
shelter him from the sun. These varied in colour, and were fastened
to the ground with long bamboos, covered with stuff of different hues
manufactured by the natives. Twelve negroes simply clad, and each
of them holding in his hand a nhumbo’s tail, were stationed round the
umbrellas.
“The nhumbo is an antelope about the size of a three-year old ox,
and of a chestnut colour, having a black cross along the back, and a
great deal of hair about the shoulder-blades—about the same
quantity as a horse has upon his mane and tail. It has cloven feet,
head and horns like a buffalo, and the flesh is excellent food. The
nhumbo tails held by the negroes were in the form of a broom, and
the part which served as a handle was adorned with beads of
various colours. All the tails were put in motion at the same time
whenever the Muata Cazembe thought proper to make a sign with a
small one of the same kind, which he used himself.
“At a short distance from him were negroes gravely employed in
looking for and sweeping away whatever was unpleasant or
offensive to the sight. After them came two other negroes, with
baskets on their shoulders, to pick up anything which might be
overlooked; but the place was so clear that not one of them could
find anything to do, although, according to custom, the appearance
of being busy was kept up. Two curved lines issued from the
extremities of the Muata’s chair, and met at the distance of twenty
paces in front, opposite the Mambo. The line on the left was marked
by the point of a stick which was trailed along the ground; that on his
right by chalk. In front of these curved lines, forming an avenue of
about three spans in width, were two files of figures resembling idols,
beginning from the sides of the curved lines. The size of these
figures, which were only half-lengths, was about twenty inches; they
were nailed to sticks thrust in the ground, were very rudely made,
had Kaffir features, and were ornamented with the horns of beasts.
In the centre of the avenue was a cage in the form of a barrel,
containing another smaller figure.
“Two negroes sat on the ground near the two outermost figures
fronting the king, each having an earthen vessel full of live ashes
before him, and were employed in throwing on the fire a quantity of
leaves, which produced a dense aromatic smoke. The backs of the
images being placed towards the Muata Cazembe, from under the
last—the one nearest the earthen vessels—a rope was extended to
the Mambo’s feet; for what purpose I could not by any means
ascertain.
“The two wives of the Mambo were the only ones present in the
Chipango, the gate of which was open. One of these ladies was
sitting on a stool, covered with a green cloth; her arms, neck, and
bosom ornamented with stones of different colours, and her head
adorned with scarlet feathers, like the head-dress of the Mambo, but
shorter and smaller.
 “The second wife sat on a lion’s skin at the left-hand side of the
gate, with no other dress than a cloth, which was entirely without
ornaments. Behind the two wives stood more than four hundred
women of different ages, all dressed in nhandas, a kind of
interwoven cloth made of the bark of trees.”
In another part of this strange country the ruler is known by the
euphonious title of “Jaga;” and whenever a vacancy occurs in the
government by the death of the Jaga, the Tendalla or prime-minister
convokes the heads of the electoral college, which comprises the
Macotas or counsellors, the Cazas or noblemen, and the Catondo or
commander-in-chief, who together with himself (the Tendella),
compose the cabinet council. When this body is assembled they
proceed to investigate the claims of the various individuals
connected with the families who are considered as legitimate
aspirants to the regal dignity.
Having first decided as to the family, their next inquiry has
reference to the individual best qualified to bear the royal dignity; but
it is seldom that matters proceed so far, for it is generally understood
beforehand by the members of the electoral college who is the
legitimate and popular claimant.
These important questions once settled, they next proceed to
build a suitable house for a new Jaga, and to lay out the garden,
etc., and also to erect houses for themselves around it. After these
preliminary proceedings, they next direct their steps to the residence
of the man of their choice, and unceremoniously entering, bring him
out as if he were a malefactor and present him to the multitude, who,
amidst the clang of marimbas and beating of drums, raise a
simultaneous shout on his appearance. He is then conveyed on the
shoulders of his sons, or of the people, to the Quilombo or fortified
residence provided for him, where he remains for several days, none
being allowed to visit him, with the exception of two relations and the
Tendella. At the end of two months he removes to a house
previously prepared on the borders of the River Undua, where he
remains for twenty or thirty days. Here he may be said to form his
new ministry—deposing some officers and appointing others. On this
occasion he also selects his principal wife. When all these
arrangements are finished, the Jaga returns to the locality where he
intends to reside, and fixes the exact spot as follows:—Having
formed his Quilombo, he takes his bow and discharges an arrow,
and wherever it falls there he must erect his permanent residence,
called Semba. Around it are built the houses of his wives, who in
general amount to fifty in number. Next to these are located the
senzales of the Macotas and their wives of the followers of the
former Jaga, and lastly of those who were with the elected Jaga at
the Senzald, where formerly he acted as Maquita.
The last of these ceremonies is that called the Sambamento, after
which the Jaga is considered qualified to exercise all the functions of
his office.
The particular period at which this most cruel and barbarous
custom originated is not known. Some of the Jagas have been
known to dispense with it altogether.
When it is decided to celebrate the Sambamento, some of the
Sovas or Maquitas are dispatched to find the Nicango or victim. The
person selected is uniformly a black, who must have no relationship
or connection with the Jaga or any of the Maquitas or Macotas.
When the Nicango arrives, he is received at the Quilombo and
treated in the same manner as the Jaga; he is provided with
everything he requires, and all his orders are obeyed with the same
promptitude.
The day on which the Sambamento is to be celebrated being
appointed, the Maquitas are informed of the fact, and as large a
number of the people as can be accommodated at the Quilombo
being invited, they all assemble in front of the residence of the Jaga.
The Maquitas and the Macotas form themselves into a circle, the
rest of the people assembling around. The Jaga then takes his seat
in the centre of the circle, on an iron stool, in a circular concave form
with a hole through the centre of the top. The Bansacuco is seated
beside the Jaga, together with all the concubines. The Cassange-
Cagongue then strikes the gong, which is of iron in the form of an
arch, with two small bells attached, and with a bar across it. The
Cassange-Cagongue continues to ring the bells during the
ceremony.
The Nicango is then introduced and placed in front of the Jaga,
but with his back towards him. The Jaga being provided with a
cutlass of a semi-circular form, commences operations by cutting
open the back of the Nicango until he reaches the heart, which he
extracts, and having taken a bit of it he spits it out and gives it to be
burned.
The Macotas in the meantime hold the corpse of the Nicango in
such a manner that the blood from the wound in the back is
discharged against the breast and belly of the Jaga, and falling
through the hole in the iron stool is collected by the Maquitas in their
hands; they then rub their breast and beard with it, at the same time
making a great clamour vociferating “Great is the Jaga and the rites
of the State.”
The corpse of the Nicango is next carried to some distance,
where it is first skinned and then divided into small pieces and
cooked with the flesh of an ox, a dog, a hen, and some other
animals. The meal being prepared it is first served to the Jaga, next
to the Maquitas and Macotas, and then to all the people assembled,
and woe to the unhappy wight who has the temerity to refuse
partaking of the repast from any repugnance to the ingredient, as in
such case the law made and provided is that he and his family forfeit
their liberty and are therefore at once sold into captivity.
Singing and dancing conclude the Sambamento.
 CHAPTER XVIII.

Dr. Livingstone’s reception by Shinte—A South-African Chieftess—

She gives her guests “a bit of her mind”—Breaches of Court
etiquette—Abyssinian cure for melancholy—Mr. Bruce and the
Lady Sittina—Greasing the King of Seenaar—Majesty in
Madagascar—A Malagasey palace—The Feast of the Queen’s
Bath—A Court ball in Madagascar.
urning from Western to Southern Africa, let us see how
royalty comports itself. As in the former case there is a
wide choice of potentates, but we will take but two—
Shinte, King of Makalolo, and Manenko, Chieftess of
Balonda.
“We (Dr. Livingstone and party) were honoured with a grand
reception by Shinte about eleven o’clock. The native Portuguese and
Mambari went fully armed with guns, in order to give Shinte a salute,
their drummer and trumpeter making all the noise their very old
instruments would produce. The kotla, or place of audience, was
about a hundred yards square, and two graceful specimens of a
species of banian stood near the end. Under one of these sat Shinte
on a sort of throne covered with a leopard’s skin. He had on a
checked jacket and a kilt of scarlet baize edged with green; many
strings of large heads hung from his neck, and his limbs were
covered with iron and copper armlets and bracelets; on his head he
wore a helmet made of beads woven neatly together, and crowned
with a great bunch of goose-feathers. Close to him sat three lads
with large sheaves of arrows over their shoulders.
“When we entered the kotla, the whole of Manenko’s party saluted
Shinte by clapping their hands, and Sambanza did obeisance by
rubbing his chest and arms with ashes. One of the trees being
unoccupied I retreated to it for the sake of the shade, and my whole
party did the same. We were now about forty yards from the chief
and could see the whole ceremony. The different sections of the tribe
came forward in the same way that we did, the head man of each
making obeisance with ashes which he carried with him for the
purpose; then came the soldiers, all armed to the teeth, running and
shouting towards us, with their swords drawn and their faces
screwed up so as to appear as savage as possible for the purpose, I
thought, of trying whether they could not make us take to our heels.
As we did not, they turned round towards Shinte and saluted him,
then retired. When all had come and were seated, then began the
curious capering usually seen in pictures. A man starts up, and
imitates the most approved attitudes observed in actual fight, as of
throwing one javelin, receiving another on the shield, springing on
one side to avoid a third, running backwards or forwards, leaping,
etc. This over, Sambanza and the spokesman of Nyamoana stalked
backwards and forwards in front of Shinte, and gave forth in a loud
voice all they had been able to learn either from myself or people of
my past history and connection with the Makololo; the return of the
captives, the wish to open the country to trade, etc. Perhaps he is
fibbing, perhaps not—they rather thought he was; but as the Balonda
had good hearts, and Shinte had never done harm to any one, he
had better receive the white man well and send him on his way.
Sambanza was gaily attired, and, besides a profusion of beads, had
a cloth so long that a boy carried it after him as a train.
“Behind Shinte sat about a hundred women clothed in their best,
which happened to be a profusion of red baize. The chief wife of
Shinte, one of the Matebele or Zulus, sat in front with a curious red
cap on her head. During the intervals between the speeches these
ladies burst forth into a sort of plaintive ditty; but it was impossible for
any of us to catch whether it was in praise of the speaker, of Shinte,
or of themselves. This was the first time I had ever seen females
present in a public assembly. Generally the women are not permitted
to enter the kotla, and even when invited to come to a religious
service they would not enter until ordered to do so by the chief; but
here they expressed approbation by clapping their hands and
laughing to different speakers, and Shinte frequently turned round
and spoke to them.
“A party of musicians, consisting of three drummers and four
performers on the piano, went round the kotla several times, regaling
us with their music. The drums are neatly carved from the trunk of a
tree, and have a small hole in the side covered with a bit of spider’s
web; the ends are covered with the skin of an antelope pegged on,
and when they wish to tighten it they hold it to the fire to make it
contract—the instruments are beaten with the hands.
“The piano, named marimba, consists of two bars of wood placed
side by side here quite straight, but farther north bent round so as to
resemble half the tire of a carriage wheel; across these are placed
about fifteen wooden keys, each of which is two or three inches
broad, and fifteen or eighteen inches long—their thickness is
regulated according to the deepness of the note required; each of
the keys has a calabash beneath it from the upper part of each a
portion is cut off to enable them to embrace the bars, and form
hollow sounding-boards to the keys, which also are of different sizes
according to the note required, and little drumsticks elicit the music.
Rapidity of execution seems much admired among them, and the
music is pleasant to the ear.
“When nine speakers had concluded their orations Shinte stood
up, and so did all the people. He had maintained true African dignity
of manner all the while; but my people remarked that he scarcely
took his eyes off me for a moment. About a thousand people were
present according to my calculation, and three hundred soldiers. The
sun had now become hot, and the scene ended by the Mambari
discharging their guns.
“As the river seemed to come from the direction in which we
wished to go, I was desirous of proceeding farther up with the
canoes, but Nyamoana interposed numerous objections, and the
arrival of Manenko herself settled the point in the negative. She was
a tall strapping woman, about twenty years of age, and distinguished
by a profusion of ornaments and medicines, which latter are
supposed to act as charms. Her body was smeared all over with a
mixture of fat and red ochre as a protection against the weather, a
necessary precaution, for, like most of the Balonda ladies, she was
in a state of frightful nudity, not so much from want of clothing as
from her peculiar ideas of elegance in dress. When she arrived with
her husband Sambanza, she listened for some time to the
statements I was making to the people of Nyamoana, after which her
husband commenced an oration, during the delivery of which he
picked up a little sand, at intervals of two or three seconds, and
rubbed it on the upper part of his arms and chest. This is a common
mode of salutation in Londa; and when they wish to be excessively
polite they bring a quantity of ashes or pipe-clay in a piece of skin
and rub it on the chest and upper front part of each arm; others drum
their ribs with their elbows, while others touch the ground with one
cheek after the other and clap their hands. When Sambanza had
finished his oration he rose up and showed his ankles ornamented
with a bundle of copper rings. Had they been very heavy they would
have impeded his walk; and some chiefs wore so many as to be
forced to keep one foot apart from the other, the weight being a
serious inconvenience in walking. Gentlemen like Sambanza who
wish to ape their betters adopt their gait, strutting along with only a
few ounces of ornament on their legs just as if they had double the
number of pounds. When I smiled at Sambanza’s walk the people
remarked, ‘That is the way in which they show off high blood in these
parts.’
“When erecting our sheds at the village, Manenko, the chieftess,
fell upon our friends and gave us a specimen of her powers of
scolding. Masiko had once sent to Samoana for a cloth, which is a
common way of keeping up intercourse. After receiving it he returned
it, because it had the appearance of having had witchcraft medicine
on it. This was a grave offence; and Manenko had now a good
excuse for retaliation, as Masiko’s ambassadors had slept in one of
the huts of her village without asking leave. She set upon them
furiously, advancing and receding in true oratorical style, belabouring
her own servants for allowing the offence, and raking up the faults
and failings of the objects of her ire ever since they were born; in
conclusion, expressing her despair of ever seeing them become
better until they were all killed by alligators. Masiko’s people received
this torrent of abuse in silence, and as neither we nor they had
anything to eat, we parted next morning. In reference to the sale of
slaves they promised to explain to Masiko the relationship which
exists between even the most abject of his people and our common
Father, and that no more kidnapping ought to be allowed. We
promised to return through his town when we came back from the
sea-coast.
 “Manenko gave us some manioc roots in the morning, and had
determined to carry our baggage to her uncle Shinte. We had heard
a sample of what she could do with her tongue, and as neither my
men nor myself had much inclination to encounter this black virago
we proceeded to make ready the packages; but she said the men
whom she had ordered for the service would not arrive until to-
morrow. I felt annoyed at this further delay and ordered the packages
to be put into the canoes at once: but Manenko was not to be
circumvented in this way; she came forward with her people, seized
the baggage, and declared that she would carry it in spite of me. My
men succumbed and left me powerless. I was moving off in high
dudgeon to the canoes when she kindly placed her hand on my
shoulder and, with a motherly look, said, “Now, my little man, just do
as the rest have done.” My feeling of annoyance of course vanished,
and I went out to try for some meat.
Ignorance of court etiquette in savage no less than in civilized
countries is a fruitful source of danger, or at least unpleasantness, to
the traveller ambitious to move in what the newspapers vaguely
describe as “select circles.” Mr. Stern, in his recent travels among
the Falashas of Abyssinia, was on one occasion advised of this fact
in a rather astonishing manner. Breakfast was served in the royal
tent, and it was during the progress of the meal that our traveller
nearly lost the esteem and regard he had hitherto enjoyed.
“According to the Abyssinian notion every man who claims to be of
patrician descent, should emulate the noises made by a certain
unclean animal whilst eating his meals. My ignorance of this elegant
acquirement (for I had unfortunately not yet attained it) drew upon
me the frowns as well as the whispered censures of the guests.
Unconscious of the cause of this unexpected notoriety, I asked
whether there was anything peculiar in my appearance or
deportment that provoked criticism. ‘Certainly,’ was the rejoinder,
‘your conduct is so ungentlemanly that all the guests think you must
be a very low fellow and quite unaccustomed to move in genteel
society.’ ‘And to what am I indebted for this good opinion?’ returned
I. ‘To the mode in which you eat; for if you were a gentleman you
would show by the smacking of your lips the exalted station to which
you belong; but since you masticate your food in this inaudible
manner every one believes that you are a beggar and accustomed to
eat in that unostentatious manner which pretended poverty prompts
individuals to adopt.’ I assured them that any breach of etiquette
must be attributed to the difference of the customs in my own
country and not to the low motive they assigned, an apology which
amply satisfied the most accomplished courtier in the royal tent.”
It is the constant practice in Abyssinia to beset the king’s doors
and windows within his hearing, and there, from early morning to
night, to cry for justice as loud as possible in a distressed and
complaining tone, and in all the different languages they are master
of, in order to their being admitted to have their supposed grievances
heard. In a country so ill governed as Abyssinia is, and so
perpetually involved in war, it may be easily supposed there is no
want of people who have real injuries and violence to complain of:
but if it were not so, this is so much the constant usage, that when it
happens (as in the midst of the rainy season) that few people can
approach the capital or stand without in such bad weather, a set of
vagrants are provided, maintained, and paid, whose sole business it
is to cry and lament, as if they had been really very much injured and
oppressed; and this, they tell you, is for the king’s honour, that he
may not be lonely, by the palace being too quiet. This, of all their
absurd customs, was the most grievous and troublesome to Mr.
Bruce. Sometimes, while Mr. Bruce was busy in his room in the rainy
season, there would be four or five hundred people, who all at once
would begin, some roaring and crying, as if they were in pain, others
demanding justice, as if they were that moment suffering, or if in the
instant to be put to death; and some groaning and sobbing as if just
expiring; and this horrid symphony was so artfully performed, that no
ear could distinguish but that it proceeded from real distress. Mr.
Bruce was often so surprised as to send the soldiers at the door to
bring in one of them, thinking him come from the country, to examine
who had injured him: many a time he was a servant of his own, or
some other equally known; or, if he was a stranger, upon asking him
what misfortune had befallen him he would answer very composedly,
nothing was the matter with him; that he had been sleeping all day
with the horses; that hearing from the soldiers at the door that Mr.
Bruce was retired to his apartment he and his companions had come
to cry and make a noise under his window, to do him honour before
the people, for fear he should be melancholy by being too quiet
when alone, and therefore hoped that he would order them drink that
they might continue with a little more spirit.
In the course of his Abyssinian journeyings, the traveller just
mentioned had occasion to pass through a place called Arendi,
which was governed by a female named Sittina, or the Lady. Our
traveller waited on this high and mighty personage. Upon entering
the house, a black slave laid hold of him by the hand, and placed
him in a passage, at the end of which were two opposite doors. Mr.
Bruce did not well know the reason of this; but staid only a few
minutes, when he heard one of the doors at the end of the passage
open, and Sittina appeared magnificently dressed, with a kind of
round cap of solid gold upon the crown of her head, all beaten very
thin, and hung round with sequins; with a variety of gold chains,
solitaires, and necklaces of the same metal, about her neck. Her hair
was plaited in ten or twelve small divisions like tails, which hung
down below her waist; and over her was thrown a common cotton
white garment. She had a purple silk stole, or scarf, hung very
gracefully upon her back, brought again round her waist, without
covering her shoulders or arms. Upon her wrists she had two
bracelets like handcuffs, about half an inch thick, and two gold
manacles of the same at her feet, full an inch in diameter, the most
disagreeable and awkward part of her dress. Mr. Bruce expected she
would have hurried through with some affectation of surprise. On the
contrary, she stopped in the middle of the passage, saying, in a very
grave manner, “Kifhalec,—how are you?” Mr. Bruce thought this was
an opportunity of kissing her hand, which he did, without her shewing
any sort of reluctance. “Allow me as a physician, Madam,” said Mr.
Bruce, “to say one word.” She bowed with her head, and said, “Go in
at that door, and I will hear you.” The slave appeared, and carried
him through a door at the bottom of a passage into a room, while her
mistress vanished in at another door at the top, and there was the
screen he had seen the day before, and the lady behind it. She was
a woman scarcely forty, taller than the middle size, had a very round
plump face, her mouth rather large, very red lips, the finest teeth and
eyes he had seen; but at the top of her nose, and between her
eyebrows, she had a small speck made of antimony, four-cornered,
and of the size of the smallest patches formerly worn by ladies of
fashion; another rather longer upon the top of her nose, and one in
the middle of her chin.
“Tell me what you would say to me as a physician.” “It was,
madam, but in consequence of your discourse yesterday. That heavy
gold cap with which you press your hair will certainly be the cause of
a great part of it falling off.” “I believe so; but I should catch cold, I
am so accustomed to it, if I was to leave it off. Are you a man of
name and family in your own country?” “Of both, madam.” “Are the
women handsome there?” “The handsomest in the world, madam;
but they are so good, and so excellent in all other respects, that
nobody thinks at all of their beauty, nor do they value themselves
upon it.” “And do they allow you to kiss their hands?” “I understand
you, madam, though you have mistaken me. There is no familiarity in
kissing hands; it is a mark of homage and distant respect paid in my
country to our sovereigns, and to none earthly besides.” “O yes! but
the kings.” “Yes, and the queens too, always on the knee, madam.
On her part, it is a mark of gracious condescension, in favour of
rank, merit, and honourable behaviour; it is a reward for dangerous
and difficult services, above all other compensation.” “But do you
know that no man ever kissed my hand but you?” “It is impossible I
should know that, nor is it material. Of this I am confident, it was
meant respectfully, cannot hurt you, and should not offend you.” “It
certainly has done neither,” replied Her Majesty—and so ended her
first lesson on the etiquette of civilized life.
On another occasion, while in the neighbourhood of Seenaar, our
traveller waited on the king; and about eight o’clock came a servant
from the palace, telling Mr. Bruce that then was the time to “bring his
present.” He sorted the separate articles with all the speed he could,
and went directly to the palace. The king was sitting in a large
apartment, as far as he could guess, at some distance from the
former. He was naked, but had several clothes lying upon his knee,
and about him, and a servant was rubbing him over with very
stinking butter or grease, with which his hair was dropping as if wet
with water. Large as the room was, it could be smelled through the
whole of it. The king asked Mr. Bruce if he ever greased himself as
he did? Mr. Bruce said, very seldom, but fancied it would be very
expensive. He then told him that it was elephant’s grease, which
made people strong, and preserved the skin very smooth. Our
traveller said he thought it very proper, but could not bear the smell
of it, though his skin should turn as rough as an elephant’s for the
want of it. The king replied, that if Mr. Bruce had used it, his hair
would not have turned so red as it was, and that it would all become
white presently, when that redness came off. “You may see,”
continued he, “the Arabs driven in here by the Daveina, and all their
cattle taken from them, because they have no longer any grease for
their hair. The sun first turns it red, and then perfectly white; and you
will know them in the street by their hair being the colour of yours. As
for the smell, you will see that cured presently.”
After having rubbed him abundantly with grease, the servants
brought him a pretty large horn, and in it something scented, about
the consistence of honey. It was plain that civet was a great part of
the composition. The king went out at the door, Mr. Bruce supposes
into another room, and there two men deluged him with pitchers of
cold water. He then returned, and a slave anointed him with this
sweet ointment; after which he sat down as completely dressed,
being just going to his woman’s apartment where he was to sup. Mr.
Bruce told him, he wondered why he did not use rose-water as in
Abyssinia, Arabia, and Cairo. He said he had it often from Cairo,
when the merchants arrived; but as it was now long since they came,
his people could not make more, for the rose would not grow in his
country, though the women made something like it of lemon-flower.
Making a skip from Abyssinia to Madagascar we there find the
“Royal state” a ludicrous blending of gingerbread splendour and
magnificent muddle. By-the-by, things may have reformed here by
this time, as the queen of whom this description treats is lately dead:
let us hope that this is the case. Our business, however, is to recite
the evidence of our witnesses—the witness in this case being the
courageous and truthful Ida Pfieffer.
“Towards four o’clock our bearers carried us to the palace. Over
the door is fixed a great gilt eagle with extended wings. According to
the rule here laid down by etiquette we stepped over the threshold
first with the right foot, and observed the same ceremony on coming
to a second gate leading to a great court-yard in front of the palace.
Here we saw the queen sitting on a balcony on the first storey, and
were directed to stand in a row in the court-yard opposite to her.
Under the balcony stood some soldiers, who went through sundry
evolutions, concluding with a very comic point of drill which consisted
in suddenly poking up the right foot as though suddenly stung by a
tarantula.
“The queen was wrapped, according to the custom of the country,
in a wide silk simbu and wore on her head a big golden crown.
Though she sat in the shade a very large crimson umbrella was held
up over head; this being, it appears, a point of regal state.
“The queen is of rather dark complexion, and sturdily built, and
although already seventy-five years of age she is, to the misfortune
of her poor country, still hale and of active mind. At one time she is
said to have been a great drunkard, but she has given up that fatal
propensity some years ago.
“To the right of the queen stood her son Prince Rakoto, and on the
left her adopted son Prince Ramboasalama; behind her sat and
stood sundry nephews and nieces and other relatives, male and
female, and several grandees of the empire.
“The minister who had conducted us to the palace made a short
speech to the queen; after which we had to bow three times and to
repeat the words ‘Esaratsara tombokoe,’ equivalent to ‘We salute
you cordially,’ to which she replied ‘Esaratsara,’ which means ‘well-
good.’ Then we turned to the left to salute the tomb of Prince
Radama lying a few paces on one side, with three similar bows;
whereupon we returned to our former place in front of the balcony
and made three more. Mr. Lambert (who accompanied Madam
Pfieffer) on this occasion, held up a gold piece of fifty franks value
and put it in the hands of the minister who accompanied us. This gift,
which every stranger has to offer the first time he is presented at
court, is called ‘Monosina.’ It is not customary that it should consist
of a fifty-franc piece; the queen contents herself with a Spanish
dollar, or a five-frank piece. After the delivery of the gold piece, the
queen asked Mr. Lambert if he wished to put any question to her, or
if he stood in need of anything; to which he answered, ‘No.’ She also
was condescending enough to turn to me and ask if I was well and if
I had escaped the fever. After I had answered this question, we
stayed a few minutes longer looking at each other, and then the
bowings and greetings began anew. We had to take leave of
Radama’s monument, and on returning were reminded not on any
account to put the left foot first over the threshold.”
The royal palace of Madagascar is described by Mrs. Pfieffer as a
very large wooden building, consisting of a ground floor and two
storeys surmounted by a peculiarly high roof. The storeys are
surrounded by broad galleries. Around the building are pillars, also of
wood, eighty feet high, supporting the roof which rises to a height of
forty feet above them, resting in the centre on a pillar no less than a
hundred and twenty feet high. All these columns, the one in the
centre not excepted, consist of a single trunk; and when it is
considered that the woods which contain trees of sufficient size to
furnish these columns are fifty or sixty English miles from the capital,
that the roads are nowhere paved and in some places are quite
impassable, and that all the pillars are dragged hither without the
help of a single beast of burden or any kind of machine, and are
afterwards prepared and set up by means of the simplest tools, the
building of this place may with truth be called a gigantic undertaking,
and the place itself be ranked among the wonders of the world. In
bringing home the chief pillar alone five thousand persons were
employed and twelve days were occupied in its erection.
“All these labours were performed by the people as compulsory
service for which they received neither wages nor food. I was told
that during the progress of the work fifteen thousand persons fell
victims to the hard toil and the want of proper nourishment. But the
queen is little disturbed by such a circumstance—half the population
might perish if only her high behests were fulfilled.
“In front of the principal building a handsome and spacious court-
yard has been left. Around this space stands several pretty houses,
all of wood. The chief building is in fact uninhabited and contains