Zanahary
Zanahary AfricaThe supreme deity of the Madagascan pantheon. A multiple deity with female and male aspects as well as celestial and terrestrial manifestations. According to one creation myth, Zanahary made the earth, but left it desolate. Thereupon Ratovoantany, ‘self-created one’, shot up like a plant from the ground. When surprised and curious Zanahary descended from heaven to visit Ratovoantany, this new divinity was drying clay images of human beings and animals that he had made in the sun. He was unable however, to give these figures life. Zanahary offered to vitalize them, but insisted that he take them up to heaven. Ratovoantany refused. As a compromise, they agreed that Zanahary was to give life, but also to take it back when these creatures died. Their bodies were to remain always with Ratovoantany. Hence the Madagascan custom of placing corpses on the ground.
A variant is the quarrel between the heaven-Zanahary and the earth-Zanahary....
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