Who
might the earliest migrants be? I
•The evidence points to sparse hunter-gatherers reaching Madagascar from the
African mainland
Scattered among the Malagasy live groups
of hunter-gatherers variously
known as the Mikea or Vazimba. These peoples are small in stature, and darker than the
neighbouring farmers and herders (although this may be simply the consequence of their way of life).
The literature is confusing on the name of
these people. In some
sources they are treated as the same, in other they are distinguished, the Vazimba being the
semi-mythical inhabitants of the island and the Mikea their present-day descendants
In general they have a tendency to
assimilate to agricultural communities, and all speak varieties of Malagasy. However, there is some evidence for a lexical
substrate distinct from both Bantu and Austronesian.
Birkeli (1936) describe some groups and
give samples of the unusual
words, names, toponyms and song texts in the languages of the Vazimba and Baūsi
[=Beosy] languages. Stiles (1991, 1998) was later able to confirm at least some of the Birkeli material.